Of generations ago.

Acknowledgments

All writers, particularly those with journalistic training, cultivate the impression they know far more than they actually do. My inclination is to create an aura of wisdom by expertly pilfering the knowledge and experience of my betters and presenting their insights as my own. So while there are countless people and sources that enhanced this work and lent it credibility—too many to name and thank here—I do hope you will bear with me as I thank a few key people and resources that made significant contributions to The Hundred-Foot Journey.

This book is an homage to the late Ismail Merchant, the talented and irrepressible film producer behind Merchant Ivory Productions, who died unexpectedly in 2005. Ismail and I both loved eating well and banging pots in the kitchen, and one day, as we dined at the Bombay Brasserie in London, I urged Ismail to find a literary property that combined his love of food with his love of filmmaking. I would help him in this endeavor, I promised. Sadly, Ismail died before I finished writing this book, but it is my sincere hope that one day The Hundred-Foot Journey will make it to the screen, a fitting memorial to my late friend.

My desk is cluttered with culinary references; I relied heavily on their expertise to portray as accurately as possible the technical mysteries of the kitchen. Here a few resources: Life Is a Menu, by Michel Roux; Ismail Merchant’s Indian Cuisine;French Chefs Cooking, by Michael Buller; Flavours of Delhi, by Charmaine O’Brien; The Cook’s Quotation Book, edited by Maria Polushkin Robbins; Cuisine Actuelle, Patricia Wells’s presentation of Joël Robuchon’s kitchen; The Decadent Cookbook, by Medlar Lucan and Durian Gray; The Oxford Companion to Wine, by Jancis Robinson; The Sugar Club Cookbook, by Peter Gordon; culinary essays of the incomparable New Yorker; and, last, Scribner’s classic Joy of Cooking, by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker. There were of course countless other sources, from websites to articles and novels, that inspired me during the writing of this book, but my special thanks to Forbes for my journalism career that has allowed me to visit foreign places and learn about the world.

In India, Adi and Parmesh Godrej deserve my thanks. They kindly introduced me to the restaurateur Sudheer Bahl, who invited me to spend half a day in the kitchen of his first-rate restaurant, Khyber, a key piece of research that greatly enhanced my understanding of India’s robust cuisine. In New York, meanwhile, my friend Mariana Field Hoppin used her charm and connections to similarly get me into the kitchen of the esteemed fish restaurant Le Bernardin. In London, through our friend Mary Spencer, I was able to spend quality time in the bowels of The Sugar Club, when Peter Gordon was that restaurant’s star chef. But let the record show that it was Suraja Roychowdhury, Soyo Graham Stuart, and Laure de Gramont who kept me honest by reading my work and calling me on the accuracy of my cultural transgressions, besides correcting the many examples of mangled Franglais and Hindi-Urduisms.

Also: thanks to my friends Anna Kythreotis, Tony Korner, Lizanne Merrill, and Samy Brahimy for their unfailing good humor, friendship, and support. V. S. Naipaul, whom I don’t know well, was nonetheless uncommonly kind and generous to me during a key period, as was his wife, Nadira, who regaled me with colorful stories of her upbringing, some of which I pinched.

Most of all, however, I must thank my dear friends Kazuo Ishiguro and his wife, Lorna. I cannot recount the number of times, despairing at the latest rejection, or stumped by a technical writing problem, that Ish picked me up, dusted me off, and sent me on my way again with a kind word and some stimulating insight. No one could have asked for a better friend and role model than I had in Ish.

Tom Ryder, fellow chowhound and publishing legend, has been an immensely generous promoter of my fiction. His advocacy cleared many paths and I owe him a damn good meal. And a martini or two. My thanks also to Esther Margolis, for representing my book in its early incarnation.

It is Richard Pine of InkWell Management, however, who has brought about much of my recent publishing success. Richard has fantastic genes: his father, Artie, was my agent when I started my career. But Richard is undeniably in a class of his own—with a keen editorial eye and a creative flair for deal-making—and it is Richard who paired me with the sensitive and gifted editor Whitney Frick at the storied U.S. publishing house Scribner. Whit is the consummate pro: she sweetly stroked my ego one moment, while firmly poking and prodding me to improve the manuscript the next. I am in fact grateful to production editor Katie Rizzo and all of the Simon & Schuster/Scribner staff for their professionalism and hard work publishing my book. My growing number of publishing deals overseas are, meanwhile, almost entirely the result of one tireless and much-valued advocate: Alexis Hurley, foreign rights guru at Inkwell Management.

Last, I must bow deeply in reverence to my wife, Susan, and my daughter, Katy, both of whom were elated by my successes and anguished by my stumbles, and who still stood by me through all the ups and downs that are the writer’s lot. And to my parents, Jane and Vasco, who gave me courage, and to my older brothers (John, Jim, and Vasco), who instilled in me an instinct for survival. The youngest must quickly learn how to be wily and eat very fast—if he is to eat at all.

And to you, dear reader, for purchasing and savoring this book, my sincerest thanks and best wishes. May you, when times are hard, always find a moment for a restorative meal in the company of true friends and a loving family.

Richard C. Morais

Philadelphia, USA