India, Aug. 1 -- Sea, Salt & Spice is a definitive culinary biography of Mumbai - a city shaped as much appetite as by tides and trade. Long before it became shorthand for ambition, excess and overcrowded trains, Bombay was a porous island city, its kitchens stocked by fishermen, merchants, settlers and empire. Meher Mirza traces this history through what was cooked, preserved, traded and eaten: from Koli hearths and Peshwa courts to Portuguese enclaves, colonial ports and the restless streets of the late-20th century. Moving nimbly across centuries, she shows how geography, climate, gender, religion, caste and commerce worked their way into everyday meals. Richly illustrated, this volume blends scholarship with storytelling and wit....