This book is an attempt to present selected Nepali traditional vegetarian cooking accompanied by health-related information and the wide use and respect for medicinal spices and herbs in the kitchen. The book also shows that local foods are deeply intertwined with culture, religion, and traditional values while providing us with a balanced diet and practices of health maintenance and well-being. It also presents some ideas on how added
variety, combinations, and improvisation can add value and give healthy results.
Nepal, a tiny South Asian country by any geographic standard, stretches from the lowlands of the subtropical Terai plains in the south to the highlands of the Himalayas, combining Nepali culture with different traditions and festivals rooted in all corners of the country. Such diversity has provided an ample space for the growth of multiple Nepali cuisines that demonstrate a way of life, associating food with religion and culture and representing multiple castes, ethnicities, eating patterns, festivals, geographic and seasonal contexts, and special occasions.
Each festival of respective communities is associated with eating and feeding rituals. In general, Nepali cooking is also influenced by Tibetan or Indian styles, either by using varieties of spices, stir-frying, boiling, or steaming. With specific reference, many Nepali dishes are derived from a mixture of great culinary traditions of the indigenous Newari culture of the Kathmandu valley, Brahmin/Chhetri practices in the hilly region, the famous Thakali cooking of the high mountain of the western region, Sherpa and Rai Limbus of high altitude, and Madhesi cultures of the southern plain. Thus food diversity has also been one of the mediums in terms of building links between ethnic groups and respective social institutions and cultures.
About the author
Ms. Sharada Jnawali has extensively used common spices and herbs in the kitchen in her life time experience in home cooking. She focuses on the culinary use of spices and herbs more for health preventive purpose and at the same time for enhancing nutritional values and tastes. Her enjoyment in cooking takes it as a satisfactory health results of the family and a productive pass time. She enjoys sharing her knowledge on the healthy cooking through personal consultations and write up. Ms Jnawali primarily is a development worker with 30 years of experience in development project planning and management. She has master is Economics with relevant trainings in development.
An Ayurvedic therapist, Yoga Practioner and Organic Beauty Consultant in Brazil, Cibeleh De Mata went through a wonderful experience of learning to cook Nepali vegetarian foods with Sharada Jnawali and working as an Intern at the Dhanawantari Ayrvedic hospital with Dr. Navin Banstola in Nepal in 2010. While in Nepal, she enjoyed cooking training photographing and helping to organizing the technical presentations, despite tremendous language barrier. Having come from totally different part of the globe, leaving the home country for the first time in life, Cibeleh finds this a great adventure that changed her life totally building stronger bonds with Nepal. Such continued to promote the Nepali vegetarian recipes in Brazil. Cibeleh finds helping this book experience an honour that narrates a piece of the beginning of her relationship with Nepal, the greatest and most successful adventure of her life.
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