The Hundred-Foot Journey: A Novel (edition 2010)

My book club loves both food and books so I picked this book thinking it would be a nice change. The story is about Hassan, a young boy whose world revolved around food. I loved his loud, boisterous family. The characters are all wonderfully portrayed with some laugh out loud funny antics. I loved reading about their travels from Mumbai to London to Lumiere to Paris. We all felt this was a nice easy read. Food is the language of this book. You can hear, smell and taste the ambiance of the Indian and French kitchens . I always enjoy an inspiring story about reaching for one's dreams. I thought it was interesting to see inside the world of gourmet restaurants and seeing behind the scenes. ( )

This could have a much better story had the pacing been a little quicker and not so overwritten. While it may be interesting to occasionally hear some of the dishes that were created/consumed etc, it really got to be a bit boring. I found my self skipping whole paragraphs just to get through the book. ( )

http://cozylittlebookjournal.blogspot.ca/2012/03/hundred-foot-journey-by-richard...

Richard C. Morais' debut novel, The Hundred Foot Journey, is a travel book for anyone who has ever watched The Food Network and thought, "Wherever that kitchen is, that's where I want to go."

Food is the language of this book. The character of Hassan Haji sometimes struggles with issues of identity and belonging as he travels from Mumbai to London to Lumiere to Paris, but always this struggle is phrased in terms of food: to make curry or frogs legs, to seek out tiffin boxes or fish and chips. Even his Muslim identity is mentioned rarely except when relating to diet: to eat pork or not. Ultimately Hassan's true identity is food. His religion is food. His ethnicity is food. His blood runs with curry and wine and butter and garlic and the jus of fresh oysters.

It's as though Pi Patel from Life of Pi was experiencing some sort of cosmic opposites day: an Indian boy, instead of trying to find his way home while adrift and alone, is continually travelling further afield while being wrapped in the memories and support of his family; where Pi invented stories to quell his loneliness, Hassan sometimes longs for solitude so he may study the stories of the ancient cookbooks which surround him; where Pi's starvation was his constant companion, Hassan's one constant is food.

This is a gorgeous book. My only regret is that I let it sit this long on my "To Be Read" pile. I was so thrilled to have received it from Simon & Schuster Canada as part of a sweepstake giveaway and yet I let it sit on my shelf for far too long (a rarity for me). Let that be a lesson to me for next time! ( )

A nice story about a young Indian boy who became a three-star chef in Paris. ( )

The Good Stuff

* Wonderfully vivid descriptions of the landscape and of the food
* Nice light humour
* Intriguing realistic characters
* The food is described so vividly you will become hungry while reading. I don't even like Indian food, but I was drooling by the descriptions
* I can definitely see this being made into a movie (author talks about this at the end in the acknowledgments)
* Nice simple story, that makes you both laugh and cry and encompasses the important theme of forgiveness
* Liked the recipes at the end, would have liked more though
* Nice character development
* Did I mention the food -- family enjoyed the creative meals I made after reading - plain old grilled chicken wasn't going to cut it after what I had read about

The Not So Good Stuff

* Think I gained 10 pounds while reading it, because I was hungry all the time
* Story falters for a little 3/4 of way through, but does pick up again
* Could have done without all the various descriptions of bodily fluids -- ick I got 2 kids I deal with shit all the time, don't want to read about it

Favorite Quotes/Passages

"And the strange people thronging and jostling on the sidewalks-- the ring-studded Goths in black leather and green Mohawks, the posh girls from private Hampstead day schools down for a bit of slumming, the winos lurching from rubbish bin to pub-- all this sea of humanity reassured me that as alien as I felt, there were always others in the world far odder than I."

"But what Umar obviously didn't see, and I did, was that Abhidha's face was permanently lit by the most intriguing smile. I did not know where this smile came from, in a women of twenty-three, but it was if Allah had once whispered some cosmic joke into her ear, and from then on she walked through life filtering the world through this amusing take on events."

"And in the depths of those glinting little eyes she sees the balance sheet of her life, an endless list of credits and debits, of accomplishments and failures, small acts of kindness and real acts of cruelty. And the tears finally came as she looks away, unable to see things to the very end, for she knows without looking of the terrible imbalance, how long ago the credits stopped while the debts of vanity and selfishness run on and on."

Who Should/Shouldn't Read

* Fans of Chocolot and Like Water For Chocolate will very much enjoy
* Perfect for Foodies

4.25 Dewey's

I received this from Simon and Schuster in exchange for an honest review - thanks guys for once again introducing me to a fantastic story that I probably never would have picked up ( )