Hoppers: The Cookbook

This collection of Sri Lankan and South Indian recipes comes from a group of three London restaurants named for one of the region’s most distinctive dishes: a bowl-shaped pancake made from fermented rice and coconut batter.

Hoppers is a dense book, enthusiastically offering instruction and perspective, passionately convinced that not only are you going to enjoy the food, you're going to want to know more about it. Abundant photography presents not only the finished dishes but images of cooks,  market vendors, and farmers.

Author Karan Gokari is a co-founder of Hoppers and himself a convert to Sri Lankan cooking. Born in Mumbai, India, nearly a thousand miles away from the island nation, he has an eye for what makes this food distinctive. He writes about lamprais—a multi-course meal wrapped and steamed or baked in a banana leaf—and about pickles and chutneys, sambols and mallungs (lightly cooked dishes of herbs and vegetables).

A book of strong an appealing character.

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.