The Great Indian Food Trip is an entertaining, erudite adventure of eating, drinking and travelling. This is how Zac O’Yeah has come to understand the Indian subcontinent, his home of thirty years.

O’Yeah’s fast-paced yet profound account charts a writer’s untiring quest for new cultural and culinary experiences. We accompany him on a ‘spare parts’ tour of Shivajinagar, Bengaluru’s slaughterhouse area. He shares the pleasures of drinking beer in Karnataka, toddy in Kerala; eating boiled vegetables and masala-less curries in the Mahatma’s ashram; and finding the true secret of tandoori chicken in Chandigarh. He discovers Goa’s literati sipping cashew feni with Orhan Pamuk and Amitav Ghosh, and finds two of his favourite foods—mushrooms and cheese—in shamudatsi, a Bhutanese stew.

Whether you’re a lover of Indian cuisine or a wanderer seeking inspiration, this multi-course meal promises wonderful discoveries of India’s delicacies, their origins and their locales. O’Yeah captures India in a nutshell—a big, coconut-sized one.

"‘A paean to India, from a man who has learned to love the country in many ways, not least through his stomach.’" - Samanth Subramanian