 Hello, and a very warm welcome to what is set to be quite a special event for the British Library of Food Season, which is generously supported by KitchenAid. My name is Angela Clutton, I have the complete pleasure and privilege of being the guest director of the Food Season, working with wonderful Polly Russell, who's the season's founder and its creator for the four years it's been running. A little housekeeping before we get to the excitement of Magda Jeffery, you should be able to see on screen some tabs using those you can give feedback on the event. You can find out a little bit more about our speakers, you can find their books also, and maybe even make a donation to support the work of the British Library. You might even like to ask your own question, you can do that with a box that's just underneath this video, and there you'll also find the social media links to carry on the conversation on other platforms. Also there, details about the food season competition that we're running with KitchenAid who are our supporters. That gives you the chance to win a set of KitchenAid cordless appliances placed on a virtual cooking class and a copy of Karen Franklin's really lovely book, The Pyroon. Okay, all that out of the way, let's get to it tonight's event with Magda Jeffery, culinary royalty, joining us to talk about her life and incredible career in food. She's going to speaking with the chef and food writer, Ravinda Vogel, we're going to be learning a lot about Magda tonight. So I'm just going to start us off by telling you a little bit more about Ravinda. Ravinda Vogel, author of two cookbooks. The later has been Duconi, proudly in the quantity in authentic recipes from Immigrant Kitchen. Duconi is also the name of her fabulous restaurant in Maryland, one of my very, very good places to go to. It's reopened tonight, can't wait to get back there. Ravinda is monthly food colonist, the FT weekend magazine and a contributing editor of Harper's Bazaar. She's a whiz with food and flavour as is Magda. This is going to be wonderful. Ravinda, over to you. Thank you so much, Angela. I am so excited about this. It's great pleasure and honour for me to be speaking to Mother Jeffery. It's not every day that you find yourself in the company of someone with such greatness, albeit digitally. Mother, you've been an icon and a legend and someone who's had such bearing on my own career. Mother is a polymath, an actress, food writer, cook, broadcaster, educator with a career spanning decades. She's written countless cookbooks, a memoir, two children's books and has been the star of several TV series and films, including Shakespeare Wala, for which she won the Best Actress Award at the Berlin Film Festival. Many of us now know about the regionality of Indian dishes, about ingredients such as asafoetida and tamarind. We cook with them and we write about them, but really Mother was the first to demystify Indian food and lift up the veil of complexity that surrounded it. She was born in Delhi in India. Her food writing covers regional Indian food as well as food of the Indian diaspora. She's also collected global recipes from around the world and her books are classic terms of knowledge that for many have led to their first clumsy foray into the world of Indian cookery. Beyond her failsafe recipes, her writing is witty, evocative and eloquent and manages to both educate and entertain the reader. Mother, let's start at the very, very beginning. You were born in Delhi and when you were a baby, your grandmother inscribed om on your tongue with honey. And with that she awakened your palate and taste buds. Do you think it was in your destiny to always work in food? I don't know, but it seems to be because it started with this honey. And then I was named Madhur, which means sweetest honey. So obviously somebody up there intended me never to forget that there's food on my tongue, how important that is and how important the palate is to to whatever you are to your senses to your sense of being. And to yourself your palate is a very important part of it. And Indians are said to be super tasters because we taste so early on spices and so many different kinds of spices so many different things that play on your palate. And you, of course, had that experience and you're in your memoir, you described such an idyllic childhood full of mango trees and ice cream parties. There's always food, especially the illicitly eaten street food that your father didn't quite approve of. If you could click your heels like Dorothy and go back to any one food memory, what would that be and why? I think it would probably be the what we call the home chawala. The home chawala was a guy who had a kind of stand. It was like a drums. It went in the center and then it came out on the two sides and he put it down and on it. He had a big tree and the tree held all that a child might desire or an adult might desire. It was what we call chart chart to lick to like to get excited about to have heat to have sweet to have sour all mixed together. So your palate is just feeling sensing one magical thing after another in bursts of extreme flavor. This is not just like nothing semi eggy runny nothing stuff. This is crunchy. This is hot. This is spicy and it evoked in us the what the highest you can go in terms of taste. How much can you taste how severe the edges could be of taste and this is where chart led us. So my ideal was this chart walla and my uncle used to do this very special treat for us that once a year. He would call the chart walla with all his wares like candy shop to a Western kid and say come to the house for the afternoon and the children whatever they want. And it's free for the children because we just say this or that. And he makes it up for us. But it was this wonderful mixture of the extremes of sweet and sour and hot and crispy and salty that he put together and that even when I think about it now my mouth waters waters. It's true. Even even you just talking about it. I mean, I think chart is such a nostalgic thing for Indian people and you're right. It's like an absolute party in your mouth because all your senses are going off all at once. Or in your directions. Yes. And there are so many different kinds of chart right from Barney Puris to Bale Puri all of those things that they just call and you're right. It is watery form. You can have it in a solid form. You have have it in a crispy form. But you're right because it is it is in a way for us like the version of a candy shop and I remember you know my mother not letting us have too much of it it was like you'll get a bad throat if you have too much tamarind you'll have you have to be so it was like they were limits to how much you could have. So it was that thing right. I mean I love your recollections of food but the ones that particularly sort of stayed with me where there's really voyeuristic recollections and sort of hungry peering into your school friends lunchboxes. Because what's wonderful about India is that you have people from everywhere it's so regional the food right so depending on what religion you are or what caste you are or you know what part is where you come from in the country. Everyone's food is different and you were fascinated by that right tell us a little bit more about that. Well you know when I started school my school was a very mixed school and it was initially meant it was a Christian school, but it was meant for pardah girls girls who are in the inner city and war the veil, and they could come to the school and be educated. So there were people who came from inner neighborhoods inner cities, and they had probably all wore the burqa, and they would come in from their, their in their school buses they weren't buses really they were driven by a horse they had curtains all around them and the girls the door would open and these girls and burqas would jump out take their burqas off go and hang them. And of course then it was party you know everybody the Hindus, the Muslims, the Sikhs, the Jains, everybody would get together and and eat so whatever group of friends you formed let's say you were five or six friends, you may be two Muslims a Sikh, a Jain, a Hindu Punjabi, you would all be together, and we would bring our little tiffin carriers, and we would take them out to the back where it was sort of garden like and we would spread out these tiffin carriers and we would eat them because sometimes in the winter particularly the food got quite congealed, and then we would share. So then the Muslim girls for example from UP or from Delhi would bring their Kaliya which was absolutely delicious or their meat cooked with spinach, it would be spicy and hot, and it had that particular flavor that comes from a Muslim hand, this is what in India, and the hand was slightly different it was a Muslim hand and that with it brought a certain taste, a wonderful flavor that only was in that particular tiffin carrier and not in the other and the Jain girl would have her food and sometimes it would be literally a boiled potato and I so remember she would mash it in her hand that too was so sensual the way we Indians do it with our hands, we slightly mash it and then open a little packet it was a a puri eyes week so call it, a little pack that paper packet and take out a powder and put it on the potato she would just sprinkle it on the potato and then eat it with a roti or a puri and it was so delicious I tell you that just that mixture was absolutely out of this world. So the Sikh girl might bring an aloo paratha or something like that and eat each other's food and we reveled and enjoyed each other's food so much and then when the partition came, it was the worst political thing for me because my country was being parted and torn up but it was also terrible for us as people who would meet together but we could no longer meet because each group the Muslims went to one side, the Hindus went to one side and I remember being sort of in the middle because I wanted everyone to get along, please get along but everybody got along it was very very difficult so in my mind somehow food politics they all tie up somewhere in some very difficult way. I really like what you were saying about you know certain hands cooking the food because I really believe that actually your cooking is about your inheritance and I think when we come to the kitchen we bring our ancestors with us and that's what you taste in the food and I feel that very strongly that I have all these women who are standing by me every time I cook in spirit and they've come with me and they're the ones almost seasoning my food. Talking of lunchboxes I remember being a child in the 1980s coming to England from Kenya, Indian parents, I felt deeply embarrassed about my lunchbox because I got teased so mercilessly and I used to pray to God that my mother would just pack a jam sandwich and a packet of crisps and I never got that I always got these sort of you know strongly scented you know parathas or like keema sandwiches or whatever it was when you came to England did you kind of experience any kind of negativity when it came to Indian food? You know maybe I came so much before you. I didn't. I cooked my own food and people liked it and I would like to entertain just wildly all the time and I started cooking nothing but Indian food because people loved it and I had people over and there were people from all walks of life there were Americans from different sorts of Americans mostly they were artists because I was an actress and they were you know from the art world painters, writers, actors and we would all collect in my house and I would give them Indian food and everybody loved it so I didn't know this side of Indian food I think it's your generation and I just felt it much more. Thankfully things have come right back round the other way and now everyone wants parathas in their lunchbox so thank God for that, thank God for travel and for supermarkets you know really championing ethnic foods and all of that. Just experiencing all that. And what kind of you talk about these dinner parties I mean how I long to have come to one of those dinner parties with all these very interesting friends, what were the kind of things that you cooked? Well I cooked everything from biryani and pulau, things that I liked. I think I wanted to make things that I would want to eat and therefore I assumed other people would like them. I made lots of vegetables because I like vegetables so there was always at least one meat, there was always one rice dish either elaborate or not it could be a biryani and there were two or three vegetables that be a raita of some sort it was a proper Indian meal like Indians would like to serve and it wasn't stingy of course I was exhausted but I loved to entertain and I suppose in entertaining it's like acting you get applause you get you know you get your little being told how nice things were and you get happy from that there's a certain acceleration that comes from that and I have to say that one thing that I did discover about myself and that I found very interesting when I was growing up I had no sense of the word palette. I didn't know what the word palette was, I have begun to think that over the years that I always had a good palette like my husband has a very good ear. So what happens when you have a very good ear is that you're not only here but you record it in your head and you remember it and you can recall it. These are the things that happen when you can hear well. So when you have a good palette, you taste it, but not just taste it. You remember this and that. You remember it, you catalog it and you can recall it and therefore you can recreate it. And this is something I learned after many, many, many years that this is not everybody has it and you don't have to be an Indian to have a good palette. Other people have good palates in other parts of the world and they do exactly the same thing. They taste it, they record it, they can recall it and they can remake it. You're absolutely right with that. It is, it's a bit like having a catalog in your head. It's a computer brain, really. I mean, I remember having something like a Bengali tomato chutney, not having a recipe for it. But, but being able to recreate it because you can taste those oily spices, the banjabur and all of that. It wasn't this, but it wasn't this but it was that. You get to the dish, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So you're absolutely, it's taste memory, right? Yes. And it's what takes you back as well, that sense of nostalgia as well. I think food is very emotive in that way. And you see in India, every family has this. So can you imagine how many taste memories are going for those that make it go? Each family has their own traditions. Yes. They're totally different. I mean, I may have, I'm a kais and I may have another kais family living, you know, in another city, but their taste memories are different. The recipes they remember are different. So can you see how rich a country India is and how much there is for us to tell, because we see all these different traditions in each and every family and people say to me, what else is there left to say? You've written about Indian food, you've written 30 books. What is there left to say? I said, there is so much I don't know about India. So much. Absolutely. Every time, yeah. And cooking in general, I mean, I always say to my team, you know, this is such a gift because we have the privilege of doing something which is a lifelong education. You learn something new. You never stop learning. There's so much to learn about, you know, cultures and cooking always. You never, you're never fully qualified. There's always something else. There's always something else. And very recently, I went down to Kurg. And every dish there. The spice. Something I did not know. You know, mushroom dishes come in the monsoon season. There were dishes I did not know. And this is true of every part of India. You go to any place and you go deep into that place and you explore it. You will find things that you do not know. I spent a whole month or so in Andhra traveling from one end to the other end of Andhra. Well, there's so many parts of Andhra. There's so many different types of people who lived there, each with their own traditions. And that is what you can find in India. And if I go back again to Andhra again, I'll find more things. So it's an endless supply. And when people say to me, what else is left to say about India? There's plenty left to say about India. You know, I always say, I mean, because you're talking about Kurg and Andhra. And I always think of spices when I think of Kurg because they have such beautiful spices growing there. And I always say that my cooking without spices would be like elevator music. Just one tonal, not interesting at all. How do you feel about spices and what are your kind of rules? Because people get so confused by spices, but what are your kind of routine rules? See, I think the spices are one thing that Indians are really magicians. We are magicians. And why? Because since ancient times, we have catalogued them. We have catalogued our spices for various reasons. We want to know medicinally for each one. What do they do, actually? And as you read, you find things out like Asafatida is a, we know, is a digestive. And I was reading books from this 17th, 18th centuries, and they were saying that it used to you. We used to cure stallions of wind when stallions when they were given Asafatida. Arabian stallions that came to places like God when they were had wind, they were given Asafatida. So it could cure horses as well. So indigestion of any sort. Asafatida is wonderful with beans, for example. So these are things that we know medicinally. We know the taste of Asafatida is like truffles. Adding a little truffle to a dish is the same. When you add truffles, there's a kind of strong taste. And so Asafatida does the same thing. It's between garlic and something else. I have to say, I mean, I heard you talk about Asafatida and liken it to truffle. And it was the first time I'd heard it said, and I'd never thought it myself. But the moment you said that, I was like, of course, it was obvious. But yeah, it's a wonderful description of Asafatida. And actually, Asafatida is so useful for a country that eats so many beans and pulses. Exactly. It completely has its taste. Yeah, you have it with your beans and pulses. So it's good to know the medicinal side. It's good to know the taste side. And you want to know all the traditions that go with it and then how to use it. This is the other thing. So I find that Indians are really so clever with knowing every aspect with spices in it. And we can cook with one spice, two spices, three spices, four spices, mixtures of different kinds of spices. And it's all just a little bit of magic, a little bit of magic. That's what it is. I always see spices a bit like personalities and according to how you treat them, whether you cook them whole, whether you grind them down, whether you pop them in oil, whether you dry roast them, all their personality changes accordingly. And mustard seeds, for example, I call the jackal and hide of spices, because you just crush them. They're sort of pungent and slightly bitter. But if you pop them in hot oil, they turn nutty and sweet. So they really, they can be absolutely the opposite of themselves. So it's good to know about these things and experiment with these things. And it's very, spices just are a major part of our culture. And we just have passed it down from person to person over thousands and thousands of years. So they are part of us. I've really been enjoying rereading, climbing the mangoes. And, you know, so much of what you say about your life, I really relate to like the extended family coming to a new country. You know, the kind of meals you had with your family as well. I remember those meals, my grandfather being the head of the house and everything. But in your book, you say you kind of seemed to really bristle against what was permissible for girls as opposed to boys. You wanted to fish, you wanted to shoot and swim just like the boys in your family. And then in your memoir, you've written, My family considered itself very liberal, but lived by the ancient rules of the joint family system where men dominated and only men made it into history books. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about that. And I'll ask you as well, was there a specific moment when you when you sort of had an awakening and knew that you had to find your independence. Well, I went into my grandfather, my grandfather was a barrister. And he had a there was a set of rooms where he worked. So I went into his office room. And there was a history, a family history. And it was all always, you know, the man and the son he had and the son he had and the son he had and the son he had no women in the history books. And I said, What is this? What were the women doing? They were very much there, but their work was not recorded. So I thought, you know, this is ridiculous. And in every way the family was the only people who seemed to matter were the men, the money went from the men to the men to the men, the property went from the men to the men to the men. And the women were sort of completely left out. And I began to feel a certain rebellion, a certain anger that this is not right. I am going to change it. I will do whatever I want to do. And no man is going to tell me what to do. And I think that started pretty early in my life. I think I was six or seven when I began feeling this because I wanted to play cricket. I wanted to fish. And it happened that all the cousins, my age or my friend were boys. So there were six boys and me. And we did everything together. And you were daughter number four, weren't you? I was daughter number five. So daughter number four, sorry, you're right, daughter number four, but child number five. I was a sister after five years later. So I was sort of the last child for a while. And I just resented what my brothers could do and what I couldn't do. And I was determined from a very early age to find first of all something to do, not be like my mother, who was just a housewife. I looked at other people who are the painters or doctors or it didn't matter. As long as they were doing something, I looked at them with respect and I wanted to find something for myself to do that would placate me in some way and fulfill me. I was looking for a certain kind of fulfillment that came from doing anything fully and well that I wanted to do. And I knew that it would come, I always knew that one day I would define it and I hadn't found it yet, but one day I would find it. And I think leaving home, telling my father, I actually got a scholarship so I could go to RADA. But I could go and my father let me go, which was the one thing. I wanted to ask you about that. So actually, you got the scholarship and you came to England to study at RADA when you were 19. Had you been to England before then? No, I've been nowhere. I've been in Delhi basically. Wow. Hadn't been to South India ever. That was a real adventure and you came completely by yourself. Yes, and I was completely ready. You were ready? Completely ready for it. It wasn't a culture shock then to come from a family where you'd been cooked for and then suddenly having to fend for yourself? No, not at all because something in me was just ready. I was ready to be on my own and I enjoyed every second of it. Every second of just being on my own. And I knew that your parents were very supportive of that move and your decision to act. But I was listening to an interview with a wonderful Arundhati Roy recently and she recounted a very funny story where she was warned by a friend's mother or her mother's friend who said to her, bold girls never get married. And I've heard similar things myself as I was growing up to which she retorted, while I've been married several times, how did your family and community react to this bold choice of wanting to become an actress? I just think that they had two perfect boys, two perfect girls in their eyes, all good looking, doing the right things. They sort of gave me a pass. I think my father just said, let her do what she wants. I thought of the test case. And the others were so perfect that they just let me be. My father let me be. I don't know what he thought I would come to. But he sort of let me be. And that was the best thing he could have done for me. And so I went to England completely unhampered. But I knew a lot about England. I'd read every book. I'd read, you know, children's cartoons from England that we got. I had read all the English novels. I'd been to college. I studied English literature. So there was nothing I really didn't know. I watched the news and I was familiar with what England was going to be. I just wasn't familiar with how cold it was going to be. And the pea green smog that came in at three o'clock at that time in 1950s, late 50s. But other than that, I was ready. I was prepared for the bad food. There was no Indian food. I was not prepared for that. Let's come to your memories of English food. I'd love to hear about the kind of things that were available to you then. Well, I'll tell you, I'll start with the good stuff. There was only one thing that was really good and really cheap. And that was fish and chips. So much better than they are today. So much better. It was really good quality fish. Didn't smell of horrible oil and the chips were delicious. And I used to eat that a lot because it was good. But as for the better English food, I'll say there was, I couldn't afford whatever if there was better English food. It may have been somewhere, but I couldn't get it. And what I got at my head rather when we took these five flights upstairs to the cafeteria, you got sort of see through roast beef and cabbage that had been boiled for days and potatoes that had been bought. And you would just sit there and dream of the Indian food that you had left behind. And it was all so fresh from straight from the garden, the vegetables are fresh. The chicken was absolutely scrumptious in those days. It really was. Yeah. Not tampered with. And what you were getting was really nothing. So that's when I started dreaming about Indian food. And actually I went to a few Indian restaurants, but they were so bad and so general and so awful. I said, I can't eat this rubbish. It's not possible. And before I get. Yes, I was just going to say, I was just going to remind the audience that they can also send their questions before I get into to my next round of questions. I wanted to talk about how you made this this amazing move from from stage to kitchen and then to presenting your own cook ratio for the BBC. How did that all happen? Well, the thing is I didn't think I was making a move at all. All I thought I was doing was to make my life bearable and interesting was to eat decent Indian food to learn how to cook it. So then I started writing letters to my mother and saying, you know, please teach me how to cook. I'd like to make curry masala, a ghost, for example, which is meat with whole spices and for meat. We all meant goat. That is what we meant. But there was no goat available in those days. I wanted to learn how to make cauliflower, cauliflower with potatoes. And my mother would send me these three line recipes, take a little bit of that, add a little bit of this and then brown it, Bruno, it brown it a little bit. Yes. And when it's done, then you eat it. So I think it was my memory. This is when the memory started kicking in. I would try what my mother said. And if it didn't seem right, I seem to know instinctively what was missing and what I needed to add to correct that problem. And I was able to correct it. And my idea was just to feed myself. I had no intention of feeding the world or writing cookbooks. So that was not in my head at all. And then I left and came to America to work to work. I finished Rada. I came to America and the idea was to find work as an actress. And I had great trouble because in England, I had learned to speak with a sort of British accent by that time. And there was I looking not really like an Indian to most people who wanted an Indian as an actress and not really like a British or the way I spoke. So I was not being cast as anything. And I was sitting around doing nothing. So I would just cook for the family or cook for friends. And that's where that thing of entertaining started. I just started entertaining lots of people. Come for dinner. I'll make you food. And I would experiment and make food. And that's how it all started. And then I think I did this film, Shakespeare Water. Yes. Which the food writer and the New York Times was persuaded to do an article on me by a small merchant who was the greatest persuader of all. And he persuaded him to do an article on me as an actress who cooks. So I actually had no kitchen. I borrowed somebody's kitchen and made something for him. And he said, I'm going to come back tomorrow. I'm going to do a proper cook in front of me. So I had to borrow the kitchen again and make it again for him. Anyway, he wrote a wonderful piece on me. And as a result of that, I was approached by people who said, would you like to do a cookbook? And that's really how it all started. It was very an odd way to start. But and also I was writing. I was writing a lot. I was writing magazines about, you know, things I knew something about art, dancing, painting. And I happened to write one article on somebody said, would you like to do an article on Indians and what they, what the food that you ate as a child. I said, yes, I'll do an article on the food I ate as a child. And that too, then led to this whole business of people thinking I could write about food. Because they had great requirements about people who wrote about European food, but none about people who wrote about Asia. They didn't know much about Asia. People would write about Asia and their minds, I think. So I started writing for all kinds of magazines about food in India and then starting to do books on food in India. And then one thing led to another and I was soon being called an expert. I never was an expert and people who call me chef, I shudder because I'm not a chef. I'm not a chef. I'm a cook. I'm just a housewife who learned how to cook and who had a good palate and managed to make a good living at it. But I am not a chef. I chop onion slowly, you know, like I don't chop like a professional at all. I cut slowly. I believe in the sort of Ayurveda which says, you know, this chopping and cutting and these are the graces that lead the soul upwards. And I do believe that because slowly, do them calmly. And the soul is nothing to do but rise as you're doing these wonderful activities. So I do believe in that aspect of Ayurveda a lot. As a cook, I mean, you really were responsible for creating an appetite for Indian food. And then you fulfilled it as well by writing these home cooking recipes that actually really, really worked. In fact, I remember when I was growing up, it wasn't Mother Knows Best, it was Mother Knows Best. So if we had any questions, it was your books that we turned to. Were you surprised to have had such wide appeal and success? I'm not in a way as I look back on it. I'm not surprised because I was like you. I was another you. I knew nothing. I started from nothing. So I felt I should explain every detail as if I was seeing the food for the first time. What would I want to know? If you're browning onions, what would I want to know? I would want to know how big a pan are you using? It's going to make it easier. How much oil are you putting in? What's your heat? Is it low, medium, hot? I want to know all these things before I start so I don't make a mistake. So I wrote for you because I was you in many ways. And I think that is probably the answer. Why my book sold and why the recipes did well. Because when people made them, they turned out as they turned out for me, they turned out for you in exactly the same. People trusted you. And I think that, you know, once you have that trust, I mean, I mean, you're such a great writer as well. I mean, you're writing not just recipes, but just that sort of you researched your recipes so well. And you spent ages, I think five years, it took to write your first cookware book. I just wanted to ask you while we're on the subject of writing, you have, I mean, you have such a melodious way of writing. And I was reading about Maya Angelou, another great writer who said that she wrote on a bed with a dictionary and ashtray, a Bible and a bottle of sherry. I wanted to know about your writing rituals. What do you have with you? Where do you write? Well, I always have a little food in front of me. When I, in the olden days, when I was writing mess earlier, it was always some kind of quiver or something like that. Delicious. A picture of nuts and spices and it's a little like chart, but not quite like chart. And no one eat that. And I discovered that for every recipe I put on eight pounds. This is not going to work because eight pounds and then eight pounds and then eight pounds, this is no good. And writing is pretty sedentary too, right? You're just sitting there. You're writing sedentary. You sit and you just do nothing but write. And I would write for sometimes, you know, 20 hours and I would be eating this cheera, which is not good to do. Then I changed and I started. What can I eat that's not going to put on weight and it became radishes and became radishes with a little seasoning on it. And then it, you know, it sort of kept changing to trying to write with just a whiskey, which is of course calories. But I loved whiskey and I used to drink whiskey. Not so much now, but I drank whiskey then. So I would sit with a whiskey and write and write slowly. And when it kept changing and now I try and write with no food. I try and keep the food out at the most. Sometimes I'll take a popper. Okay. Yeah. And I will sit and eat with that, but I try not to eat because it's so easy to get into the food. And eating is just very easy for me to do that. And of course, while you're writing about food, that's just hunger inducing in itself. I mean, one of the things that slightly frustrated me, and I wondered if it had frustrated you was that. I mean, you're so knowledgeable. You're so well traveled. Did you struggle with the constraints of just being commissioned to write exclusively Asian recipes when, when you've traveled all over the world and you've written globally. Yeah. I hated being pigeonholed. And I really would go up to editors and say, why can't I write about Italy? I've been to Italy 50 times and I love Italian food. Why can't they, they wouldn't let me. They wouldn't let me. And they would let an American white writer go to India for the first time. Yes. Two pages on Indian food and never having been there. And yet I wouldn't do the same with it. And yet you couldn't. Yeah. You couldn't be an authority on Italy. I really hope that that's that's still changing. It's changing. It's changing. Slowly. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about travel, you know, because we're all grounded. You're in the countryside, right? Upstate New York right now with your garden. I'm with my house with my garden. But you love traveling. So if you could travel right now, where would you go? And what is your fantasy of what you might eat when you got there? Well, the last fantasy, let me tell you the last one. The last one was Peru. Because I wanted two things. I wanted to go to the Amazon area and see everything growing there because everything I knew was the root of everything I am eating. A lot of the things that I'm eating originated in the Amazon. So I wanted, then I wanted to go to the high mountains of Peru because the potato originated in that area. And the potato is such a great thing. I remember reading something that some Indian Wiseman said that the best thing the European has given us is the potato. I'll argue with that. We cook it in hundreds and hundreds of ways. And so I wanted to go to the land where potato originated and see it for myself and write about it. So I wrote a piece for the times about it, but I didn't go for that reason. I got the piece for the times after I decided to go because I was curious. I wanted to see the land of the potato and go up into those high mountains. I wanted to see the land of the potato and just see it for myself and it was such an experience to see the different types of potatoes with their different textures, totally different. Some are sort of translucent and slimy. They're all different from each other. And it's such a world to find out. And then there was the Amazon where you saw the origin of the tomato. The first tomato ever was tiny and how it developed from the learning trip and a trip to just be so happy about discovering all this new world. So now what is left? There's still places that I so want to go to. They're parts of Africa that I would love to go to Nigeria. I've not been there, written a lot about it because I've had friends from there, but I know so much food has developed there that I love to eat like cuckoo parka. There's lovely chicken dishes and coconut dishes. We have it on the menu. I love you to taste our cuckoo parka. I want to ask as well about, I mean obviously food is a big part of your life, but so is music because Santa Dal and your husband is a classic violinist. What kind of music do you listen to while you're cooking? What's the kind of soundtrack to your life in the kitchen? It's strange. I don't have a soundtrack. It's very silent because my mind is going so fast as I'm recalling things, tasting things that I like utter silence when I'm cooking, which is unlike most people. Most people have some kind of music on. I don't. No, I'm with you on that. I am absolutely quiet and I'm thinking and I'm concentrating on the taste of what I'm making and the taste is all, absolutely is all, even when I'm cooking my everyday dishes. The other day I did something to spinach where I used the roots. It was sort of spinach that had wintered over and the roots were so tasty. And I want to find a way to cook them that I got the taste of the roots and I didn't somehow, I wanted the taste of the spinach to be there but the taste of the roots to be there. And I was working it out as I went. So I was in total silence as I was thinking and tasting. There are some lovely questions coming in from the audience here. Jackie Robinson wants to know, she says she loves your books first of all and she wonders if you have a favourite food writer or a cookery book that you turned to. Well, the cookery books that I like, strange enough are by people, I don't know how England is familiar with them, but the French food that I love comes from Julia Child and her very explanatory books that tell you if this goes wrong, you do this. If this goes wrong, you do that. She has solutions for all your problems and she has very true French dishes. So I love her. I love Marcella Hazan. I don't know if you're familiar with her. I love her books. Her tomato sauce with butter is the best thing. Who would have thought to put butter in an Italian tomato sauce? It's wonderful. Exactly. So I love her books and I use her books and for different, for Chinese food I use somebody called Irene Kuo. I don't know if you know what I mean. It's wonderful because it goes into all the details. That you need to know about how you take chicken and just let it cook in water or oil just to start it off for a few minutes and then it's ready to put into dishes. So all these things, I like details. I like these details that some people give for their local foods. So I like Irene Kuo for Chinese food. So it depends on what I'm cooking. I love David Tannis. Do you know David Tannis' book? Yes, I do. I do know David Tannis' book. Wonderful. He has my taste. The taste is very similar to mine. If he's cooking rabbit, I'll cook rabbit. Whatever he's making is fine with me because it's always to my taste. Amanda Clegg here wants to know what would mother say is her signature dish and what does it mean to her and would it be the same dish now versus 20 years ago? Signature dish. Well, it keeps changing and the recipe keeps changing. So I have a new recipe now for alugobi and in which the potatoes are boiled I take the cauliflower and cut it into pieces and I brown it before I do anything. I really brown it because I'm not going to be able to brown it later. So the raw cauliflower and potato, I brown together. Then I cook the prices. And I brown them for a little while. Then I put a little water and let it cook. So it's just how I cook it and I keep changing. So this is one of the current dishes that I'm making that I've changed the recipe for and you'll find it in my next book probably. This particular recipe for cauliflower and potato but it's quicker, it's easier, it doesn't burn and it doesn't get too soft but it's soft enough to break by hand to eat with a chapati. That's the wonderful thing about cookery as well is it's about the kind of adaptations and the evolution and I wanted to ask you actually what do you think about the evolution of Indian food in particular and how it's going? Well, it's going in all directions. What will last is what we'll see. I don't know which of the many variations that people are trying are going to last and pass the test of time. So I will just wait and see. I will not judge it. I will eat it and either enjoy it or not enjoy it but I will give time a chance to do its magic and we'll see what remains 15, 20 years from now and what is gone. I'll tell you what will remain dull. I never get enough to dull. Mountains can crumble and all sorts of things can happen but they will always be dull and I particularly love your description of dull as LSD, life-saving dull. It's wonderful. Yes, I love that. Exactly that. I could be dull, roti or dull and rice anytime, any day. Give me one vegetable with it and maybe a raita and I'll pick a lot too and I'm fine. People always sort of, you know, they ask that question often to cook. So what would your death for a meal be? Mine would definitely be my mother's dull rice and a char. I'd be really happy going out on that. I'd be happy with that. One of my last minute's death bed foods is also noodles. I love the various noodles that come out of Kerala. So I would be happy. Delicious. I think people are always so surprised to find noodles in India, generally in Indian food. There's another question here that says when you first wrote a book for the UK market in 1973 who did you think you were writing for? Who was your audience? You know, I have no idea. I was sort of writing for myself and writing for anybody who cared to listen. I just wanted people to know that Indian food was not curry. That was one of the main things that I wanted people to know. Whoever they were. I didn't know anybody would be interested and I wanted people to know the variations that you could get in Indian food, the variety. So my first way of writing for people was to tell them what I ate. So the first book is really filled with the dishes that were served in my home. So this is what I eat. What do you eat? How do you eat it? This is what I like to eat. And that's what I presented to anyone who cared to listen. Over the years, what have been sort of the greatest misconceptions that you would like to quell about Indian food, the things that really irritate you? They still irritate me because that is the whole thing of curry, curry, curry. What is curry? It's so generalized that word. Does it imply curry powder? Does it imply all Indian food? What does curry mean? It's always bothered me. And I've not come to terms with it and I've sometimes felt if you can't beat them, join them. And I've used the word curry myself only to regret it later. So I've had a battle with the word curry all my life. There's so many more questions coming in. Eva wants to know, hi, mother. And this is a question I had for you. What's next? What's your next book? Also, do you think fish and chips was better when you first came to the UK? I think you answered that part already. Yeah. What's new? What's coming over? Is that what you wanted to know? Yeah. And I mean, we've seen... I am working on a book. Of course you are. You're so industrious. I can't imagine you sitting still, mother. No, I don't. And it's a book on Indian food and medicine. And it's not the medicine. I'm not a doctor and I'm not going to go into that. But I'm doing a book on what we inherit from our families, what we are told by our families, and all the dishes that we are told are going to be good for this, good for that, good for this, good for that. And I'm just recording it historically as I was told these things. So grandmother's sort of kitchen medicine in a way. Yeah. I love that. Do you know, I picked up a book recently. I was in like an Indian supermarket and there was a book like that. And I opened it to a page and there was a thing for, you know, coughs and all of that. And then I turned the page and I was absolutely shocked that the next grandmother's law was how to do a home abortion. I was like, what? Oh my God. Oh my God. The thing, the power of spices and sort of women, you know, this is what women did back then. It's very, I found it really interesting. I wanted to know, I mean, we've seen so many manifestations of you. We've seen the actor, the cookery writer, the memoirist. And then recently, of course, she's been wearing cigarette toting potty mouthed Nani rapper. Do you have any more kind of film projects or anything like that lined up? I don't talk about them because I don't know what will happen and what won't happen. Let's see. They may have done this. I hope so. I loved Nani. I thought she was brilliant. That was so fun to do. Yeah. Did you enjoy doing that? You had to learn all the words like this. So much. I just had, we shot it in two days. And it was, we had a whale of a time shooting it. You know, mother, you've always had such an amazing zest for life and such a great attitude to life. I was really curious to know whether you have a motto that you've always lived by. No, no, I don't have a motto as such, but I, I like to stay active. I like to work and I'm a perfectionist. I like, when I'm doing something, I want to do it really well. I won't let loose ends be loose ends. I'll try and cover everything. So it's done as well as I can do it. I have another question from Eleanor Ford who says, I have recently finished writing a manuscript for a book about the history and movement of spice. Your curry Bible has been an invaluable source of research and inspiration for me. I wanted to say a sincere thank you for your pioneering work that has guided me and so many other food writers. So it's not a question as such. It's just a compliment which is. Thank you back. Thank you so very well deserved. And Shabon wants to ask. She says it's such a pleasure to be here. I'd love to hear about your food memories of Nelson Mandela. Oh gosh, yes. That was fabulous. You know, I, I think I wrote about them. I, I was talking to somebody who was working for the African National Congress. And I was in touch with her. I needed a contact in South Africa. And somehow she was the one I reached and she had worked with Mandela. She was, she's died since she was an older, beautiful woman, very pretty, extremely pretty woman. Like you. I'm very, very cute. And she had worked with Mandela. She said, I'll set it up for you. I'll have all the women who used to work with Mandela. These were all political women's kids. I would have all of them come and cook for you. So you see the dishes, the kind of dishes that were, that we served each other during the years we were fighting for independence. So I said, fine, I'll be there. She had made sure that Mandela's cook was there, who was going to make a bean dish that Mandela liked very much, which I wanted to record because I wanted to write about it. So it was, she was there. The cook was there. I was interviewing her. I was talking to the other ladies who were the kids of all these political men and women of the movement to free South Africa. And I was just doing my work when suddenly a door opened. I saw these flashing light bulbs. And there was Mandela coming through. And he said, how could I not be here when all these beautiful ladies are here? And he came in and we sat and I sat next to him and he was at the head of the table. He was sitting next to his right. And throughout dinner, we were chatting about him being on Robin Island and the food he ate on Robin Island and what he had to do. They were made to go in naked into the water to get these pierced pins, these lobsters that had pins are like, you know, they were made to go in naked into the water. And they had to get these lobsters for the guards to eat. But sometimes they would let them have one or two, but he was telling me all these stories. And it was absolutely a magical, magical lunch that we had sitting together like that. Well, this has really been magical. And I really hope that you're in London very soon. And we get to have lunch again. And it's been such a pleasure speaking to you, mother. Thank you so much. Thank you. My goodness, I had every intention then of pretending that my camera and my microphone weren't going to work. And then you guys could have carried on and on and on and on and on because that was completely just joyous and moving and motivating. And an absolutely wonderful way to spend an hour. Thank you both hugely, just the loveliest conversation. Thank you also to KitchenAid, who support the work of the British Library Food Season. We have more to come. The Food Season runs until the end of May. Tomorrow afternoon, Friday lunchtime, we have a film actually, which is Audio Hercules Cooking and Talking with Elizabeth Luard. And that's part of our Lunchtime Legends series, and will be completely lovely. Head to the British Library website, and you'll see all the information there to book your place. If you would like to support the work of the British Library, click the link button on your screen. All I can say, again, is just the most enormous thanks to Evenda and Madagafri. What an honour to have you as part of the British Library Food Season. Thank you all for watching. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I think from the rest of the videos we had coming in, I feel fairly confident that you did. So thank you and goodbye from the British Library Food Season.