Picklehead: From Ceylon to suburbia; a memoir of food, family and finding yourself

(Paperback)

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A moving and mouth-watering memoir of growing up as part of an immigrant family, surrounded by exotic food Rohan Candappa, author of bestselling humour books such as the Little Book of Stress and The Curious Incident of the Weapons of Mass Destruction, is the son of a Sri Lankan father and Burmese mother. He grew up small and round in South London, riding his chopper bike and supporting Leeds United. But every day his mother would conjur delicious meals out of thin air. His father cooked too, with fiery flavourings, black curries and green coriander chutneys. Their home became the focus for family gatherings and feasts of such delicacy and exoticism that you'd never have known Norwood lay outside the window.Yet somewhere in his twenties Rohan forgot his culinary heritage and it wasn't until he was bringing up his own young family that he began to think more about his identity as a second generation immigrant and the binding, identifying power of the family meal caught his imagination.And so he began this beautifully written, funny, poignant memoir of his heritage and his home. Of curry leaves and curried chips. Hot chillis and hot dogs. Pataks and Heinz. About the past and the present - and the place where time should cease to matter... the family kitchen.

Reviews

Candappa's about quality rather than quantity. If you've ever been part of a family or loved eating food then Picklehead is a book for you * Daily Express *
His story, sharply funny, is about the positive, zestful contribution made by immigrants to British life; about their turbo-charged will to succeed; about exotic food in a culinary desert * The Times *
[An] evocative memoir * Sunday Telegraph *
A vibrant taste of what life was like growing up in 70s suburbia ... A heart-warming memoir * Sunday Express *
Wholesome and sustaining ... As thoughtful as it is amusing * TLS *

Author Bio

Rohan lives with his wife and two children in North London. After a career in advertising he is now a full-time writer.