The Diaspora Spice Co. Cookbook: Seasonal Home Cooking from South Asia's Best Spice Farms

The Diaspora Spice Co. built its reputation on sourcing exceptional single-origin spices directly from small farms across India and Sri Lanka, paying fair prices and treating its growers as partners rather than suppliers. This cookbook extends that philosophy into the kitchen, with 85 recipes drawn largely from the farming families themselves, many of them women who have been cooking with these spices their entire lives.

The book is well-suited to home cooks who suspect they are not getting the most from the spices already in their cabinets. Founder Sana Javeri Kadri and recipe developer Asha Loupy have calibrated the recipes for accessibility, and the cooking spans chutneys, pickles, snacks, and vegetables through to rice dishes, breads, and desserts.

Some recipes will be familiar in outline: a Sri Lankan coconut and shallot chutney, vegetable pakoras, a jammy egg curry. Others open onto less frequently documented culinary traditions. A fava bean chutney originates from Ukhrul, a district on the India-Burma border and home to the Tangkhul Naga community, a Tibeto-Burmese ethnic group. Blistered asparagus with herb-spiced salt comes from the Himalayan foothills. A ripe mango curry represents the cooking of Kerala in south India.

The book treats its subjects with evident care, and the farmer profiles and photography reinforce that this is as much a document of living agricultural communities as it is a collection of recipes. Notably, none of the recipes call specifically for Diaspora Co. products; any well-sourced spices will do.

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.