In 'Mad Love' cookbook, chef Devan Rajkumar shares a world of flavors

Chef Devan Rajkumar has spent years cooking French, Italian, Mexican and Japanese food while traveling the world.

Rajkumar’s new cookbook — "Mad Love: Big Flavors Made to Share from South Asia to the West Indies"— merges his roots in Guyana, South America and the Caribbean.

Both of Rajkumar’s parents were born in Guyana. His great-great-grandparents were born in India and made it to Guyana as indentured servants to the British working on plantations, he says.

“I grew up with a lot of Indo-Guyanese food,” Rajkumar says. “Things like dal and rice, and curries, and coconut chokas, and palauri, and all these things that have roots in India.”

Geographically, Guyana is not considered to be a part of the Caribbean. The nation sits right above Brazil at the northern tip of South America.

“But because of the climate, the culture that is exhibited in Guyana, it is said and considered to be among the Caribbean countries,” Rajkumar says, “whether that's the lifestyle, the music that's listened to, the accent — it's like a patois, it's a type of Creole that they speak over there.”

By Devan Rajkumar