God eats

The first impression is, well, impressive. Certainly not your bog-standard recipe book, this Bhog. More like bhog-standard &mdash which is to say, meticulous, intricate, varied, delightful, delicious, enlightening and a labour of (sacred) love.

Did I mention beautiful The luscious, hefty vermillion tome, dense as a Puri goja, is embossed with rice-milk-white alpona spelling out the title. Sacred colours, of course, both popular and odd in egalitarian in India.

Egalitarian too is the choice of eats. Which, as authors Geeta and Arun Budhiraja are quick to point out, is exactly as it should be. Prasad requires no certification of belief and adherence in most Indian temples, and in the Hindu temples they concentrate on, pilgrims devoted to other household deities than the one in the sanctum sanctorum are rife. Which means that this Krishna Prerna Charitable Trust publication does not stop at the food of the Jagannath, but takes a good lick of Pathar Sahib&rsquos preferred flavours, Shiva&rsquos many savours (some poisonous), Annapurna&rsquos affinities and Mansa&rsquos cold comforts.

But like I was saying, Bhog is not about the recipes, about two-thirds of the book. It is the first third that is more precious still, and more evocative. The recipes are divided by prahar &mdash the morning offerings, the midday rajbhog, and so on to the supper of sahyan. The introductory section explains the significance of variation and selection and preparation that is specific not just to the nature of the deity being served, but the season, the hour (which changes nutritional needs), the local culture of farming and cooking. It is the kind of thoughtful grounding that revives nostalgic, half-forgotten memories for those of us used to temple cooking in our homes, and reveals hitherto unsuspected intricacies behind the simple sweets and savouries and indeterminates for the rest of us gluttons.

Best of all, this first introductory third is a beautifully designed and detailed travelogue, cataloguing experiences at a list of Indian temples &mdash pictures of the foods of gods in the cooking and the consecrating and the consuming, tales of surprising fervour and service orientation among cooks and temple servants, with nothing jingoistic in it, and notes for the pilgrim following in the authors&rsquo footsteps to delight in from the armchair at least.

As for the recipes, they contain laddoos and halwas, puris and pakoris, yes &mdash but also such unexpected treasures as daulat ki chaat, palak-dhania ki chutney, stuffed matti-gulla (brinjals), and the jackfruit puzukkhu&nbspof Guruvayoor Temple.

Like much of the Hindu belief system, this book is nothing if not practical. Pragmatism has never been anathema to the Hindu pantheon as it has to the lords of some younger organised religions. Thus the foremost of forewords advertises eagerly that there is more prasad to follow, two tomes of it, one of them sweet and the other fluid. We pray they publish soon. This could be the start of a divine little habit.