Asma Khan: More Than My Food

(upbeat music) - So I love pig trotters, right? - Generally, any life. - You can't call them pig trotters. - Okay, any hoax. - Okay, whatever, trotter, any trotter. (laughing) - Any hoax, any, you know what I mean? - Yeah, so we have fire. - Is that what it's, okay? - Yeah, right, so pig cow, you name it. Just like, anything with the hoax, yeah, I mean, the gelatinous, I have gelatinous, you know? So, you can't really find much of it, especially like, who na ni is? I think that's how you pronounce a cuisine in South Africa. So Eugene one day says to me, he goes, "Yo, what on I, I can cook that for you." Then I was like, "Shame, my friend." He's really, this is like a lovely gesture, but completely unnecessary. (laughing) Do you know what I mean? And then he was like, he's like, I was like, "What do you mean?" Then Eugene said, "Oh, I cook." Then I went, "Ah, I understand what he means." He means that he will put food together on a stove, heat it up, and then ingest it. Now, many people can cook. - Yes. - Most people shouldn't cook. (laughing) Do you understand what I'm saying? - Yeah. - Yeah, I've met many people who can cook. I've met many people who say, "You should come over, I will cook." - Yes. - And then when you go, there you go. I pray this never happens again. (laughing) I pray this thing you've done to me should never be done to another person if I could call the haig, I would. (laughing) Because of what? In fact, I'm shocked that you spent time doing this. The fact that you said we'll be busy for the next few hours, and then this is what you made. - Oh my god. (upbeat music) - This is what now, with Trevor Noah. (upbeat music) - I feel like the universe conspired for this interview to happen today because of what happened to me this morning. And I feel like you might be overqualified for this question, but you will indulge me. - What happened to this question? - It's actually a, for a word, we use a lot in India calamity? - Yeah. (laughing) - Oh no, I want to know what happened to you. Use the word calamity. (laughing) - That's a lot of fun. - That's a lot of fun. (laughing) - That's a loaded one. - So this morning, bought groceries two days with the groceries. And I thought to myself, this morning, let me make myself egg and toast, right? And a little bit of Italian sausage. Then I try to turn on the stove. The stove said, do you have the app? I said, no, I don't have the app. Downloaded the app? - Swing. - Was the stove talking on does it write this? - It writes, still on the screen. - Okay, okay, okay. - See where, on the other side, where it's supposed to show you the temperature of whatever setting you are on. - Yeah, it's a, do you have the app? - Yeah, it says download app. - Yeah. - Searching for app. Then I downloaded the app. Then the app said connect to, put Bluetooth and also Wi-Fi. - For stove. - Stove. - Oh, wow. - Then I was like, okay, maybe let's give up on the oven. Let me go to the induction top side of it. Put the plate, put the pan, put the oil, switch it on, the stove said, do you read it? And I was like, we're on, we're in business now. Pick my temperature. Five seconds later, stove went off, kept doing that. Went on to YouTube, tried to Google what's going on. At the end of searching after five videos, it says for the induction stove of that make exactly you have to have steel bottom pan. - Pan. - Yeah, that makes sense. - Yeah. - Yeah, but I looked under the pan and they looked like metal. - This is not a visual thing, this is a real thing because induction will not, every pan doesn't work. So calamity is also, I think it's too big a word for this. This is more. - Why were the pan's then the first plate? - Induction doesn't work, every pan doesn't work on induction. - The pan's were there. - I know, I'm not disputing that, but I'm just telling you, it's not a calamity, it's a kind of you not knowing what you were doing. - Me or the person that bought the pan. (laughs) - Okay, the person who bought the pan. So you've come hungry. - Well, I knew you were coming, but I thought you'll bring a little tip away of something. - Do people expect that of you? - I did. - No, because I assume if you are a world-renowned chef, who has appeared on chef's table, time 100 most influential people, the royal family has come to your restaurants to participate in the making of food, and then they call you to the palace to come and be honored. You would think now the pressure of food follows you everywhere. - No. - It doesn't? - No, because I don't allow that to come through, because I am more than my food. I bring to the table the blessings and the stories of my ancestors. - Is this an excuse, Asma? I feel like you're just giving us a fancy excuse for not bringing food. (laughs) - I know Asma, Asma, Asma. She'll trick you real quick. You like waste my food. She's like, let me tell you about my ancestors. Then you like her. - That's what it is, no food here. - I don't have induction and fancy pans, I was just sitting in a hotel, an ordinary hotel. That I couldn't even work out how to use the coffee machine to make tea. - Yes, calamity. - Yeah, that's the calamity. (laughs) - I said shut up for the water, in, in the bottom of the bottle. I don't have time that they, I believe you're on purpose. - When did we get here? When switching on an oven and making a coffee and has become so technical? - You know what it is. It's because somebody tricked us into believing that all things need to be updated in terms of their technology, but there's no real reason for this. Your fridge doesn't need to be connected to the internet. That's not a thing. Your microwave does not need to be connected to the internet. These are things that we're working just fine. There is no benefit to them being connected to it. People like, "Oh, but then your fridge knows when it's empty." You know who also knows when your fridge is empty? - You. (laughs) - You don't need the internet to know that your fridge is empty. - That is so true. - That is so true. - We've just added, it's almost like a layer of difficulty. - Yeah, but it's also, it's also a myth of progress I find. - Yeah. - Sometimes what we do in society is we go in order to prove that we're moving forward, we have to add complications and layers on top of something when the simplest execution of it was actually the best. Sometimes the real way to move forward is to go as far back as possible and then you find like the real sort of like, the evolutions or the progress that have been forgotten, I would even know. - You becoming more and more anti-technology as you grow older. - No, no, no, no, no. I'm pro-technology. I'm 100% pro-technology. - Do you have a few layers on you too? - No, no, I'm, (laughs) analog. - Let me tell you, I'm 100% pro-technology. - Yes. - That's why I don't like technology in the wrong places. - I think that's a very valid point because where technology is used in areas where it's not required. I think that technology has done amazing things and you know, lives are saved. You know, you can do a lot with it, but I completely agree with you that this is being used literally like a blanket on everything. - Yeah. - And it's almost like sometimes I feel when I struggle with things that you know, that everything has been updated and you know, gone through this you know, technological process. Maybe I need to do it. I need to go into some machine and get sapped. So I know what the hell is happening. Because you know, at 57, I never saw a computer till I was in my early 20s. So I'm that generation. We had, the year I left India, is when we first got color television and we used to get just state television for a few hours. - Yeah. - And I feel I am the most blessed generation without technology and also without getting into trouble because no one could then text my mother and say, "Is your daughter a school?" I've just seen her in a motorbike. - She's the guy. - I know, but nobody could say anything on. But I feel that technology is great, but I feel that this, my generation is so blessed because we lived a real life. And now no one can. 'Cause you're constantly watched, you're scrutinized, you're analyzed, you, and we live in images in front of us constantly feeling that understanding that this may be filtered or maybe AI, but feeling inadequate. Because you're comparing yourself to something that's not real. And then you left in that doubt. Like I watch like an obsessive person, these cats dancing. I know it's AI. I know it's AI. But I'm dying to figure out how to do it so I can make my cat dance in a video. But you know, but this is like fun or fate. You know that there's this kind of technology that you see, cat is like grooving and dancing. I just obsessed with it. I have like endless videos of that. But I just feel that you know, there's a space for everything. All the lines are being blurred in everything. - I feel like you exist in one of the last bastions for real, right? Because when I was thinking of this conversation, I was thinking of who you are. As Makanah is like, there's so many places to try and position you. But you exist, you spill over into more than one space. Which is what I think I've always loved about you as a person. You're so dynamic. You know, you can say Asma Khan from chef's table. That's how a lot of people go. Oh yes, chef's table, have a chef's table. And it's like art that talks about food and then it talks about culture and then it brings you into a world. And if people know you from there, they'll know one side of you. There are some people who will know you from your restaurant in England and they'll go, oh, I've been there. It's one of the most amazing places and the food and the stories in the kitchen and everything that goes into preparing this feast is how I know you. Then I'm sure there's some people who know you've backed from India, there's some people who know you just from England, from getting your PhD, there's some people who know you, you, you, you're this person who's so complex and so broad. And I feel like you have to be like that because of your life, you're like a product of your life. Does that make sense? Absolutely it makes sense. And I mean, you've explained it better than I could have tried to explain to someone else. Why I am this person who I see myself always, there's this kind of, in Sufi Islam, there's a lot of talk about this journey of the river into the ocean. That is the ultimate thing. But it's also what we say. That is when you reach fulfillment as well and you reach that goal in life. And as a river, I've, I've always seen myself as a force of water. And I'm most in the earth around me. And I will never see the harvest that grows after I move on. And I break the, the bricks and the stones that block me and I block everybody, my color of skin, my name, my accent, my fabric that I wear. So I have to be more than one kind of thing because it's not just that we don't have a seat on the table. There are multiple reasons why you don't have a seat on the table. I need, you know, a lot of people after Chef Stable told me, oh wow, you broke the glass ceiling. He was a first British chef on Chef Stable. But underneath that is very nuanced. I'm layered. I have lots of other things that I am. But one thing I felt very strongly and I would tell people that I am not standing in some glass ceiling with glass around me. I want to bring the other first down. I want to break every door and every window that keeps out people like me. Not just women, men and women who are excluded from having a seat on the table who are excluded. And for that, I had to use deep inside who I am. So from my spirituality, to my education, to being discriminated as a child and being made to feel unwanted, unloved surplus in a family, I clawed myself out of that to victory. And it's not that it's easy. I run a different race from a white person, a white man. I run a different race from a white woman. Because in my race, I carry cultural baggage, my choice. But I have to go through fire every time to prove that I'm good enough. But what happens is I come out glistening like gold. I know where I need to go. And this is probably why it helps. That at different times, I can dig deep into something I learned as a lawyer, my time in India, understanding the importance of solidarity between women. So it's not that there's one thing that I can lean on. I go through storms using different techniques. Because in the end, I need to get to shore. My mom would respond to this by saying, Amen. No, 100%. This is literally, there are so many things you're saying that I feel like I've experienced or felt through many women in my life, like my grandmother, my mom, et cetera. It's a powerful and beautiful message, and it's a vibe. But if I could think of where I'd hope to get to in this conversation is, I'd love for people to see how you came to be. Like all the pieces of the stained glass window that ended up making Asma Khan the way we know you today. Because you throw it away so flippantly. But imagine, you're sitting down with one of the most accomplished chefs in the world. Who casually then says, my time as a lawyer, then you're like, here? Do you get what I'm saying? Also, don't forget the coffee machine. The coffee machine didn't work. But I don't know if that was an accolade machine. That was a-- That's one of her trials and tribulations. One of the many things Asma has-- As I challenge by, yes, one of the things. But let's go backwards through your life. Because I want to understand how you got to this place. Because this place seems so obvious now, like many people's stories do. If I said to people, Asma Khan has one of the most successful restaurants in the world. It's based in London. She has a kitchen that is stuffed by women. She earns the same as everybody who works in her kitchen. People will just be like, oh, yeah, well, this makes sense. Because look at her. She's a force of nature. She's-- yeah, but where did all begin? So let's go to the beginning. Where would you say is the most formative moment that starts your life? I remember this so clearly. I remember when my brother was born, who was three years older than me. So I was three. OK. And everybody came-- because then you don't have a kind of Facebook text saying, oh, this is my baby, just arrived. This is 1972. And people came and didn't believe that I had a brother. Because after the two girls, the boy was born, the heir to the family name. And I remember that time being confused why everyone called me a liar, because my mother did not celebrate. My parents did not light the house up or distribute sweets, which is a tradition in our culture. When a boy is born, a lot of sweets are given out. Oh, I know that, OK. Yeah. And often when a girl is born, nothing happens. No fireworks, no kind of celebration, because it's almost like a death. Because the family has now got another burden. The girl is not so celebrated. I remember from then on that nobody believed me because nothing happened. And I think that that and the way that my sister stood by me really transformed things, because we are very obsessed about color. And I was dark-skinned. I was fat, but I love cricket. I played on the streets with the street children. My parents ignored that. My father would come and ask me, did you get out? I hope you beat those boys. I hope you did well. But would not say it openly. If he saw me on the street and drove past, he ignored me. So that he did not have to acknowledge that he saw his daughter playing on the street, street cricket. But when people would tell me that I was fat and ugly in my extended family, and that nothing good would happen, that no one would marry me, which was the biggest thing they can say. My sister, who everybody loved, my sister still bloody looks younger than me. She's a year and a half older than me. She's a rock star. She still looks like a mortal, beautiful girl, fair, long hair. She was the princess in the family. And everybody had taught her, everybody loved her. I don't think many people loved me. And she would hold my hand in the darkness away from everybody. And tell me, Asma, you're the warrior princess. When you speak, the earth will shake. One day, the world will know who you are. I believed her. I believed her because everybody who loved her thought she was great. But that person believed in me. And this is why, at a very young age, I realized one thing. If you speak up and you tell someone, in the darkness, you don't need to be brave to speak up. Say it in silence, do something. My sister, by telling me, I was the warrior princess. Today, I am the warrior princess. But it's because of her. These are the transformation things that happened when I was very young. And I realized that my mother and father were not discriminating between me and my brother. Between my me and my sister. Even though I know that behind my back, and sometimes in my hearing, I could hear people saying, what's going to happen to her? She's the liability, that must have been so hard, though. You're growing up in a world where, because when, you know, I think we take for granted how when you're a child, you're just a child, you're just being, all you are. That's all you are, and that's all you've ever been. Yes. You know, when you're an adult, you get to look back on yourself as a child, and then try and make sense of these things. Think about your parents, think about your life. You try and reinterpret the experiences that you had. What I'm trying to imagine, you as a child, is listening to people talking about you as if you are, you know, like a like a factory reject family. Yeah. And like a liability. And the thing is that I, it was, you know, both sets of grandparents and, you know, elderly aunts and things. I was loved by some, but the authorities, you know, the big figures, never kind of understood. It's still very raw. I, a few years ago, I wrote a book during over COVID, called Amu, you know, all the recipes I learned from my mother. We went through the family archives my grandfather's a photographer. I never remember seeing a photograph of me and my mother But I thought you know maybe you know it never got developed right to do in this dark room We went through the entire archive And I I remember him saying Usman not you because you'll spoil the picture. No, there was no picture of my mother and me But my mother went to a wedding She was six months pregnant in someone photographed her because you know how they say in our culture Oh, you look like you're having a boy. You look like you're having yeah, depending on the shape of the summer. Yeah, yeah Oh, it's an advocate's your size of your nose You know, he's being serious We have to see what shape of stomach so the photographer took a picture of my mother pregnant with me So in the introduction I Use the picture of my pregnant mother because I know it's her and me in the world. I am there And at some point the publisher was really lovely and my you know booked editor was saying we can just do an image I said when that image didn't exist Don't Don't do this because I'll always know it's fake. I don't do that. I'll I carry the scars and It's not that the scars with all the success, you know that I've had you know, I'm grateful for that. Yeah with all the accolades No one sees the scars. Everybody has met me when I became famous right no one met me when I was nothing For the scars they still stay and they heart they still hurt so that picture of my mother and me And when they put that book together that's my favorite picture my mother, you know looking I embarrassed You know with a you know all dressed up in a wedding with me in the womb and that's when I was completely convinced about one thing That's my original home For all of us the womb of our mother is our real home now when people call each other immigrants migrants, you know, you know people The day you leave your mother's womb they're all migrants. Mm-hmm. And then after that They're lost then you out you on your own. Yeah, we then we are away. They are tripped It's funny how people use immigrants and migrants, but then depending on where you're from and the color of your skin Then they say expats. Oh, yes. Have you ever noticed that yeah expat because expats are immigrants But I mean, let's be honest you everyone wants to be an expat nobody wants to be an immigrant and if you planning to go somewhere else Yeah, no man. Oh, yeah, no man digital no man. I'm a no man. I'm a no man. I'm a no man. I'm a digital. No. Are you an immigrant? Please I'm a no man. Yeah, and if you if you're there for long enough Yes, and you're acceptable your natural life. You're a natural course. Of course, but it's only natural my friend. Yes, it's only natural but it's Wow, you know, you know what's so important about what you're saying is I think a lot of people will feel the wounds that they felt growing up or experienced in their life as they're being formed if They're lucky. They'll achieve a modicum of success or they'll find themselves in a new place in life that doesn't look like where they came from And then they feel guilty voicing that they still have pain or hurt or do you get them saying absolutely and then but then what happens is they'll they'll act Out their pain I find yeah, yeah, so I think I think in in life if you're hurt or if you're in pain or if you have suffered or you You know you've gone through traumatic things when you're growing up If you're unable to voice those things, I feel like you will act them out Whether you like it or not and then people wonder why Someone who's famous or rich or powerful you're like, why is this person such an asshole? Why they being like this? I think it's because They can't say their pain. Yeah, you're right. I think it's vocabulary. I think when you're younger your vocabulary is acting out That's all you can do babies after they're born. Oh, yeah, yeah, when they're when they're hungry they cry when they can't sleep they cry Yeah, so I think as you get older, but I also think when you There's something strange that happened to me when I reached the age of what my dad was at the time that my parents divorced I looked at their divorce differently I looked at a man who wanted to do something else and end up doing another thing That's you know, I didn't look at a person who couldn't want responsibility. I looked at a guy who pushed away His happiness for so long and took on responses that they didn't want and when he suddenly decided to stand up for himself He had all of these people around him that needed him and he chose not to be there because he wanted to put himself ahead and Your story so much reminds me of my aunt because my my my dad's my sister was the only girl in the family And she had four brothers and every time something would go wrong Their wives our moms would go tell her and no one cared about her story Oh, no one ever said how's Auntie doing she would she would make turns every time because she used to sell vegetables So she would knock off from the from the from the rank in town They should make turns in every house to drop off a packet of something onions tomatoes and she would sit around for a small chat with the kids Then after was she would sit around with the wives and ask how's my brother going? Yeah easy behaving Then she would the third turn would be her going to speak to the said brother to say but I think what you're doing is wrong Then after she would just cut a lonely figure going to the next because we lived almost in close proximity to each other But no one ever asked my aunt how she was feeling and how she was doing and now that you speak like this. I'm thinking She was playing cricket with the boys and winning and no one pulled it to the side and said you're doing great and said it in public even Yeah, it's just the thing I the reason I speak and the reason why I'm not afraid I'm even discussing this before you joined The table is that I I am here to represent First women in their graves The unlaw the unwanted those that never got appreciated Who never were told that the Skorma that you made was beautiful or that like your aunt that you know every time you came for vegetables It gave something extra to my table or that there was this kindness in you asking me how I am because you know My husband didn't have time to ask me how I am We don't say these things to the women. We also don't say to men, but I think that women particularly Because we make it so we make it look like effortless people think it's valueless Because we because we make it look effortless. Yeah, they think that's it's valueless because we don't you know I don't sit here and say You know, I'm this I did for you because now you're going to have this extra dish And you know I've I've taken half an hour out of my time instead of washing my hair I'm sitting here talking to you. They may don't do this especially women of that generation don't do it so in that silent Sacrifices that so many women have made There is this hollowness in the storytelling Every day I live one day less all of us do I try to tell the story of Myself, but I also tried to tell the stories of all women because in that Space yeah, where they never said anything my voice echoes Every time I come back to this Because I know the next dawn is not guaranteed to me and I want to use I Want to be useful When that time comes and I'm submerged in the ocean. I want to look back and see greenery And moisture and That there is no barriers that I managed to break it even it meant with my body Yeah, you want to be buried in the ocean? No, no that I don't want to I'm scared of water. Okay. I was worried because I'm not gonna visit you No, no, no, I'm scared of water. I'm scared of water because I don't know how to swim. Oh, okay. That makes sense I grew up. Do you know how to swim? I do yes. I can swim to save my life Okay, but did you learn later life? I did. I did. Yeah, I don't so my mom my mom tried to teach me how to swim by pushing me into a pool Hey, and then All that happened was I I basically almost drowned and then someone had to come in and say wait hold on Was this a home pool or a public pool? It was a home pool Would have been always there No, no, not in my house not in my house So we were at a we went to a prayer meeting like you know, you'd move from house to house right so the church You'd have prayer meetings and each week you'd be at a different person's home And she was like today the day so we're at we're at a prayer meeting. It was at the Vos family All right, so we're at the Vos family's house and we're all in the backyard He's making up the name and it sounds like no, no, no, it's not I remember they I remember that like you It's such a specific thing to me Wow, and so we're in the backyard and everyone's having a good time now I used to love swimming pools. I still do but I couldn't swim So what I would do is I'll get in the pool and then I would hold the edge. Yeah, and I would just go I would just go around the side go around the side go around the side That's all I know when I get to the shallow end out bounce. Yeah, I just bounce pretend I'm swimming. Yes, I'll do this good Been your child. I still do now. Yeah - Yeah, it's the virus thing, yeah. (laughing) - We spot the punts and we're the old people. (laughing) - So then what happened? - So then, I was outside the pool. We're standing on the edge. I forget how this even happened. People were talking, talking about, I wish it was a drop kick. Then it was like talking, swimming, not swimming, whatever, whatever. And then someone said, someone said, Trevor, can you swim? And I said, no, I can't swim. He said, oh, how can you not swim? And I said, no, you know, sorry. Then he said, then I said, I haven't learned. Then he said, oh, learn. You don't need to learn, my dad just threw me in the pool and then I swam. - No, no. - And then my mom laughed, and then she pushed me in the pool. 'Cause she was like, oh, I've been slacking as a parent, and then she pushed me into the pool. And then I flew in, and then it was deepened. So I was down. And it's hard to explain to swimmers how hard it is when you're in water, and you can't swim. - That's what's happened to me. - But it just doesn't know, it doesn't exist. You just go to the bottom. - And you make the mistake of gossiping. So you, and then water goes in, water goes in, water goes in. And then I remember looking up, you can see it's blurry. You can see up through the surface of the water, you there, you there, you there. And then eventually Mr. Voss jumped in, clothing and everything, jumped straight in, and then he came and he fetched me. And then my mom was laughing hard. She genuinely thought it was the funniest thing ever. And then I was like, you, you killed me. Then she's like, why didn't you swim? And then I was like, that's not, what? And then the guy who said my dad pushed me, he was like, that's not what I meant, I'm sorry. (laughing) So then I decided that I would learn how to swim for myself. And I just did it myself. It was actually my cousin who taught me. She's a good swimmer. And then she was like, okay, just do, we went through all the different strokes. You know, it was like, wrist stroke, freestyle. She's like, you got it, one of them has to work. Oh, so yeah. And then she was like, try this, try this, try this, try this. And then one, I could like pick up. So I can swim to save my life. My learning to swim experience was more traumatic than yours actually, and actually very dangerous. What did you do? Because we had just moved into this new neighborhood. And then there was a place where it was a dam almost. So whenever it would rain, the water would rise higher, then everyone would go there after school. But the thing was, everyone would talk about it at school. So if you haven't been there, you are a loser. So the conversation would start about something, something, something, and it would end up with a dam. Oh, it's got to the dam. Always got to the dam. So one day after school, I was like, I have to see what this dam is all about. But I still remember, you know how fresh water smells differently from swimming pool water. And then we all went there after school, shorts on small t-shirts. Because after school, you play with your old clothes. That are not so fancy. I remember we went there, then we stood there, and then everyone jumped in because they'd been there before. Some people were swimming from branches jumping in. And I remember to myself thinking, yo, if I don't go into this water, I can't show my face at school, too. You're a chicken, bro. Yes. But what no one tells you about a dam is it's gradually getting deep. So it's not just a hole. So I remember the feeling of sand, river sand, under my feet, and going, and the smell, and the dragonflies, and the end, and the next thing, you know, feet are not touching the ground anymore. It drops off suddenly. And then the advice starts. [LAUGHTER] Just-- [LAUGHTER] It's the advice. And the water hits the-- yeah, then alternating between the advice and the-- and the advice and the advice. And then after a while, it's too far to go back. It's too far to go forward. Then I decide to myself, this is not my day. I've got an exam next week. My mom wants me to wash the dishes because I left without washing dishes because I just dropped my school bag and I went home and said, I'm not going to die now. This is not how it's going to end. Obligation pulls you out. Obligation and responsibility pull-- Because I thought if I die, my mom would come fetch me. And she would embarrass me in front of all the space. You'd be my trouble. I thought, let me-- there's nothing that I'm doing now that can save my life except for listening to this advice. And I listened to the advice and the coaching, kick, kick, pom, pom, pom, pom. And I kept on doing that. And the next day, you know I was staying up-- No ways. 100%. I was staying up. I was staying up and confident in screw. And then I was out to the shallow side. And then I just remember being hugged by everyone and thinking, you're a hero. I love this, the fact that he didn't want to die because he was just worried about what his mother would do. Oh, that's crazy, right? Just responsibility. I've gotten so many-- It says something about African mothers, too. I just thought she had powers to fetch me. She would come and fetch me. Oh, my God. This is like telling. The next day, it's over. Who said you can drown? Are you drowning? Who said you can die? Mom, I'm just going to kill you. Can I say you can die? Can I say you can die, when I go home? Mom, but I'm dead. Hey, hey, hey, yeah, when I-- Yeah, when I-- there's Lom dana. You think you're going to die here without my permission? Go-- did you ask the dishes? No, I didn't ask the dishes. Are you blo-- are you bloating? Why-- who said you can't bloat? Yeah, when I-- Who'll record more tests on my watch? Never. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, African mother is the Asian mothers, too. Same-- same vibe. Same, same vibe. So wait, so I mean, obviously the-- most people don't understand your access to pools, determines all bodies of water, determines your ability to swim. So where were you growing up? I was growing up in Calcutta, and the thing is that in our tradition, we don't swim, because you've got a very swimming costume. How do you swim? You can't go in shorts and a t-shirt, you know? Oh, wow. So it's not that-- Because it's revealing. It's revealing, yeah. OK, OK, got it. And also, it was just like a lot of strange men around. And so I never even thought that I had to learn how to swim, because it was like the things you don't do. I have cousins to swim, and you know, like my knee swims, and a lot of people swim now. But even at my time, in the '80s in Calcutta, you know, we had a swimming team in school. But because of the kind of heritage I came from, it was a bigger issue and a challenge. OK. And of all the battles that I was fighting, drowning in a dam was not something I was worried about. So I always, from very young age, you know, I will not go to every battle I'm invited to. [LAUGHTER] So I-- You know, I'm also-- What a great tour. I will pick the battle that I know I'll win, as well. OK. So why go in and swim in water and drown, because I'm scared of water? So I picked the other battles that I had to fight. Like, you know, I was the first girl in my mother's entire, you know, my generation who went to college. Nobody went to college. I mean, the reason I went, I mean, I make it sound more heroic. Nobody married me. Because by '18, everybody got married. But at '18, nobody married me. So then I told my mother to stay at home. So if you were married, education was not out of the question. At that age? At that age, you know, at '18, you got married and you went off. I mean, like, my sister went on and studied after a marriage. OK. So some people did choose to do that. But at '18, you got married. And was it? That was it. So everybody's marriage was arranged-- you know, an arranged marriage is different from forced marriage. OK? Can you explain the different type of marriage? Yeah. That one. You've come to the right place. Yes, yes. So now, I need to explain arranged and forced marriage. Arrange marriage is a bit like being on Tinder, but all your family involved. So they all choose. So it's not your choice. And everybody is deciding-- so you marry-- and they look at things like, you know, compatibility, you know, this person likes certain things, went to the same education-- same school, same education, speaks the same language, likes the same kind of stuff. And there are middle people, aunties. Aunties who are a class act, because they are interfering, prying, meddling people, but they also arrange marriages, because they will ask you things like, so tell me, what music do you listen to? Do you smoke? Have you tried to smoke? So they are the ones who ask these questions, and then they will carry news about you to other people. But because I was seen as trouble from a very young age, because people felt, even though I wasn't, like, defiant and doing crazy things, but everyone saw me as someone who wasn't broken by the system, that they had not overcome that I was resilient. I think they could see it. I radiated that at a very young age. I did not-- I was joyous. And I loved playing the guitar. I wrote poetry. I played Shakespeare. I had a love playing cricket. And I did things that were unusual. I had a joy, but I had gratitude every day for me. I was grateful and lived. I was so grateful every sunrise. I would say, yeah, I have another day. I'm going to do something exciting today. But I think that this kind of signal to others that she may be troubled. So I come from a royal family. So ideally, I should have married in a royal family. Where were you? You can't just say that and move on. Yeah. Both my father's family and mother's family, both royal family. OK. And my parents help us understand, because, as you know from South Africa, Sometimes people will be from royal blood. bloodline, but we mean like cheeks and clans and it doesn't mean that they live in a palace. So when you say royal family, what is that? Well, our palace, I should have lived in, but it's a crumbling edifice. Okay. So we have a palace and we have a fortress. Got it. But we're not like, you know, we don't go back generations of royalty. So maybe don't need 200 years of, you know, become becoming royal before that we were thieves. Oh, isn't that all royals? Yeah. No, I'm being real. Yeah. Which royals just started as royals? Yeah, yeah. So we, I still need a visa, but then you can't. Yeah. Let's not call that diamond. No, but let's be honest now, which royals did not start as thieves? Now we're going to act like you just, you were just born and ordained a royal. Yeah. Oh, sir. If you want to be a royal, you've got to steal enough, yeah, for long enough. Yes. Yes. That you become so powerful that you then no one tell you that you're royal. You declare that you're royal. And then you're lineage. So now. Yeah, yeah. So like, you know, our ancestors claim that they were descendant from the sun. There you go. And, you know, send from sun and moon and, you know, basically, so we're basically your thugs. We used to loot caravans. The caravans going across the desert. Wow. We looted caravans. That's part of your heritage. Yeah, yeah. So that's where your thugs. And we then basically the thing is, yeah, that's a separate thing as well. But we were not that. We, uh, we stole, we just stole, uh, no, didn't take money to, like, and essentially then we were made royals and quietened down and given land, a lot of land. Wow. And we became very rich after that. But they would have wanted me to marry in that same kind of, I don't want to use the word lightly, but it's class. They want me to marry in that same kind of level of, you know, of the other families. But, you know, my sister had got married to or other cousins that ain't happening with me because everybody who is a funeral and has a feudal son, I would beat and cricket. So and I would probably beat that boxing too. I would beat at everything and it sounds like you were fierce at crickets. I was, I was so embarrassed because recently I met a, met in a random place. The sky was like, you know, I was your neighbor. I used to play cricket with you. And then suddenly my bad luck, you know, that times when the room gets quiet, they said, when you hit me with a cricket bat and suddenly I was like, oh my God, I remember him. I remember hitting him with a cricket bat. You remember him? Yeah. When you hit him on purpose or yeah, why do you do accidentally hit people with cricket bats? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I'm giving the benefit of the doubts. No, no, no, no. It was the person who was watching a pool. Yes. You should know intention. Yeah, so I did hit him because he was cheating and how was he cheating? He told me I was out. Oh. And I was an out. And we didn't have, because nobody wants to be an empire. Yeah, nobody wants to be an empire. It's a kind of, it's more brutal. They all declare that you're out. But when the, when the bowler says you're out, then kind of too many people were saying that I was out. I was only a girl in the whole gang. But did the, how did it, because I wanted him to hit him, which, I hit him because I was going out. No, also I, also the bat was mine. I took the bat home. Damn. I was out here running these cricket streets, so when I went to India, I saw like huge fields where there's just, no, we didn't play in the field like a hundred cricket games happening at the same time. And that's, that's the great, this is, this is our religion. It is a obsession in India. No, we played on the street and then we had someone in the string stopping cars and then we would all clear out. So we played just outside our house, but on the street. Yeah. Because in the eighties, we had a Marxist government running Bengal. So they were very frequent strikes. You know, there was a lot of labor unrest at that time. So then we would go on to the main street because there were no cars. And because mobs of burning cars that were going around, we knew no cars on the street. Then we played on a big road. And then we could have like a lot of space. Because you're lords. Yeah. Otherwise, we had, we used to just play in a narrow road outside my house. What was your forte? Bowling or batting? Bowling. Bowling. Why did you assume bowling? Yes. Oh, okay. I was to bowl, but the thing is that, yeah, so I was so embarrassed and everybody turned around. And I was just tired of embarrassment because I was so apologetic to him. I apologized like, you know, 40 or 40 years ago, I hit him and I told him, I'm sorry. It was hard. No, I don't think so hard. He did cry, but it wasn't that hard because more the humiliation. You can tell how much you've changed. You've gone the opposite way because you go, the guy says, you hit me with a cricket bat. And then you like, I apologize, I apologize, I feel like in that situation, you go, someone goes, you hit me with a cricket bat and you go, do you want me to do it again? Shut up. You want me to do it again. Well, I'm putting this up in 40 years later. Do you want me to do it again? No, but I was very embarrassing because I couldn't recognize him. He kept saying, can you recognize me, do you recognize me? And you know how this means you hit him hard. If he remembers 40 years later, you did a good one. So I couldn't, I was too embarrassed, I said, no, I can't. Did you remember that at the beginning? No, I didn't remember. People changed 40 years, so I'm not recognize him. But then he told me, what you hit me with a bat, not immediately he was, I knew his name, I knew the match, I knew exactly very well, and I remember hitting him. Yeah. I'm not proud of this. I'm very embarrassed that I hit people when I was, but then in cricket, that's how, when you're very young, and you play street cricket, these things happen, but they're not very frequent. So I think, I think we need more of those things. You know, we were talking, Jonathan hates on the podcast a while ago, but like in general, Eugene and I talk about this, I talk about it with my friends. I think there's a shortage of that in the world today. And I don't mean it in like an old man like in my day, you're used to, no, I think it, I think it was great that we used to live in a world where kids would go outside, have their own conflicts, have their own resolutions, have their own stories have, but also you define your own world without your parents. Yeah. You define your own world without an authority figure that's looming over you. I think now we're like growing a generation of people who are always looking to something and not, not just doing this, just what is this conversation? What is this disagreement? What is this lesson that you're learning? You're swimming, that's something that's formed you as Eugene, you know, whether you like it or not. And I always wonder what would happen to people when their whole lives have been defined by the moments that they had with their parents because they never had moments alone, essentially. Yeah. Like I love that, I love that kids used to do that. I wish more kids would do that. Go outside, get hit with a cricket back. It's a very different one. And the thing is you can see this when the moment there is a crisis and it's so much worse after COVID, you know, I run a restaurant, you know, 41 staff, the moment there's a crisis, the fear and the panic, there is no attempt like, you know, you know, advise that, you know, use your arms to get out. Because the thing is that when you have been in a difficult situation and you overcome, there is a memory, it's in your DNA. You now remember. It all tells you, yeah, that you did it, that you got out of it. And whenever I've had terrible things happen to me and the success is a, it's a vineyard that hides behind a lot of battles that I'm, I still have to fight, which no one else has to, who's in my position, but I have to. I worry about this younger generation for whom, you know, challenge is something that is so different from what we face, you know, it's, it's not that drowning moment, it's not that panic, it's not that. And you worry and you, and I've spent a lot of times with young people now telling them that you are the future leaders. You must believe in yourself. If you do not believe in yourself, no one will believe in you. And as a leader, you must be willing to go out first. When you go into battle, you carry that sword. And maybe it's because I come from this ancient warrior tribe, but I remember this as a child always, my father would always say, you know, you've got to stand up, you've got to believe. Because most of the battle is one in your head, because otherwise you're lost. If you have to, if you don't back yourself, no one will back you. Yeah. And why should they? Yeah. Absolutely. But there's a whole generation now who doesn't think that this is a thing that, you know, that you back yourself. And it's, I worry, I worry a lot, but I'm also optimistic because I hope that they grow a backbone. They grow resilience in their souls. And they stand up for justice and right and equality. Don't press anything. We've got more. What now? After this. I feel like young people today, like the younger generation, they may have been shielded on an interpersonal level a little bit more, but I think they're facing like a more systemic issue than we were in a way. And I could be wrong about this, but I find, I think it like Gen Z and that young generation, I think they were the first ones, for instance, to sort of break the internet and how we see it. If you look at how they use Instagram and how older people use Instagram, they were like, we don't care about the artifice. We're not going to try and make this fake. We know. going to try and make it beautiful. We're not going to try an inventor world that doesn't exist. We'll show you the messy, we'll show you the gritty, this was the picture, this was the realest moment that existed. Look at the kids now booing AI. You know all these commencement speeches that are taking place and you've got these CEOs and everything coming to a college and being like, let me tell you how your life will turn. And then as soon as they mention AI, these kids start booing them. To me, that's amazing because I don't know about you, but I feel like our generation wouldn't have booed the AI institutional thing. But we were dealing with like interpersonal scuffles and family and life and friends. You know what I mean? We were almost dealing with like the micro. And they're dealing with the macro, I feel like. And so maybe they'll be, I don't know, I don't want to use the word weaker, but maybe they'll be a little less resilient than we are in some interpersonal instances. But I think on a societal level, the younger generation is coming through with the fierceness that I wish we had sometimes, to be honest. I also think us not, I'll speak for our generation growing up the way we did. Our parents are not around because they couldn't be around. Yeah, that's true. So that's one thing. And what I've noticed is how we behaved was totally influenced by what we had. So if your parent goes to work, then at the end of the month in 30 days, they get a salary. That salary gets to do whatever needs to be done so that life can go on. I understood from a very early age that soon time will come for me to find a job and be that person. So every moment after school was a good time with my friends because I knew it wasn't promised. It wasn't, I didn't see any other 25-year-olds having a good time with us at the dam. So I knew that when you get older, you're going to have to get a job and do a same thing. Every responsibility is staying in the back room of your house until you meet someone and then afford a house of your own. So there was always that moment of, I have to enjoy this. I have to play soccer after school. I have to go play with my friends. We have to go hunt for birds. We have to go learn how to swim. We have to share one BMX bicycle amongst the 10 of us and one soccer ball. So the other one gets responsibility with their Christmas Manny's. You know when the other one gets a BMX, the other one gets a ball, the other one gets a this, the other one. So we had this communal, we were bonded by our trauma because we saw what it did to our parents and it happens especially when you look at pictures when you think my mom was 35 with three kids at that time. It's crazy. And she already been working for this long. Yeah, it's crazy. And then waking up at this time and earning this much. And then I go, what excuse do I have when a flight is delayed, when this happens, when that happens. So I get to look at life like that and I was fortunate enough from an early age that I would wake up in the morning and go, let's get it started. I'd never struggle waking up. I never struggled getting ready for school because I knew that as soon as you leave, the good times begin. I hated sleeping because I was like, ah, now we have to end the good times. The good times have come to an end. Yeah, the good times have come to an end. But where did I want to understand like how your journey leads to food? And forgive me if I'm wrong here. The girl who's out playing cricket and hitting people with a bat and writing poetry and playing guitar. And in none of these stories are you mentioning food. And yet sitting here with you at this table, your name is more synonymous with food than it is with cricket or with assault or with guitar or with poetry. So I want to understand like, where does that happen? You're growing up as this young girl in Kolkata, India. You're forging your own path. But where does food come in? I love to eat. When I was growing up in India, I'd always presumed that I would marry a prince. And I would be some princess and some palace. And I'd have lots of cooks and be spoiled. It wasn't something that excited me. It's not really something I wanted to do. But I kind of presumed that I didn't know how to cook because girls didn't cook really. I mean, in our family because especially in my house, because my mother had a catering business. So we had more cooks than everybody else. So it was mad. Our house was constantly full of food. Just to cut you off there. So help me understand. I don't know how you know, sometimes we will simplify India or make it seem like it's like one place everywhere. There were some parts of India that I went to where people said most people sort of weren't cooking. They were just getting the food from place. Is that true? How does that work? So I mean, the thing is that there is, I always find it challenging when people think India is like a kind of a homogeneous one. That's what I mean. Yeah. And it's never like that. And there are huge differences from the north to the south. But also our food wise, you know, there's wheat growing areas where people have roti. There are rice growing areas. Wheat can grow in dry soil. And for rice, you need a lot of water. Rice grows in water. And so there's loads of differences. And we are very, even three villages away in India, you know, the Baghad which is the tempering of dal is done differently. So we're not a society where people are all together. There's huge differences in people. And in my household, my father and my mother never ate the same food. My father came from the north. If he saw a fish and if he saw eye of fish, he would just like almost pass out. He found and my mother loved fish because she grew up, it was born near the ocean and the Marivas. And my dad was landlocked, never saw fish when he was growing up. So there's a huge difference with my parents. But because I grew up in Calcutta, which is the food capital of India, the best kind of food, you know, it was where, you know, so many cultures were there. You know, the food there is incredible. I didn't learn how to cook because I didn't have to. When my marriage was arranged with my husband who was teaching at Cambridge University through an aunt and my poor husband was like, you know, oh my god, I don't think I want to do it. I convinced him overnight. To cook. No, to marry me. I told him, I said, you know, you walk away from this is the biggest mistake of your life. You have no idea what I'm capable of. I am going to bring so much joy in your life. Where is this happening? So yeah, I can miss my husband. And yeah, it didn't happen for a guy. He's an innocent man. He's still married to me. He requires a medal, you know. He believed in the story. And he's, you know, very, how old are you in this year? So I was 2021, 22. Okay. And I realized this is my one chance to marry an intelligent guy because I'd asked my parents. Wait, so is this this is also arranged? So the Tinder family had got together. Yeah, that's why you're okay. Yeah, yeah. So they had, they found this person, they lied to him and they brought him to Calcutta under some pretext, which is not to see a girl. He would never have come. He would never have come because, you know, my husband was not into all this arranged married stuff. He was teaching in Oxford and then he was teaching at Cambridge in his kind of ivory tar academic. Okay. Okay. Okay. Professor economics. So yeah, I treat jacket absolutely, you know, a mustache. Yeah, and beard and cycling with, you know, I'm looking like Batman and his black down. So he was that guy. So and also on paper, I, I am fuel. I come from royalty. So I'm everything that he's against politically. So politically. So he's left of center, you know, works with, you know, works on poverty, on corruption, on, you know, on, you know, failing states, all of that. So he's not trying to end up with some princess. No, no, absolutely not. Absolutely not. I realized, oh, wow, because I told my mother, please, I want to marry an intelligent person. You might find any intelligent man. I will marry him. So they found this guy. But I realized I have one evening to convince him. And I told him this. I said, you know, look at me and don't see the princess in me because I am, you know, I am fun. I do this. I can do that. I did. But I did tell him I don't know how to cook. But then this was much later after he'd agreed to marry me. Yeah. He told me, oh, I don't believe in gender roles. I'll cook. I know how to cook. You don't worry. You just come and, you know, enjoy your life. The last three months. Then I went into this kind of princess kind of mode of this grand wedding, which I planned, you know, everything, including all the food. Yeah. So it was, it was so good that I was managed to convince him to marry me. And the relief of all these aunts, somebody agreed to marry Asma. And all the aunts that we didn't want to come with wedding came just to make sure that they watch the wedding. My mother was like, you know, why is everybody saying yes to the wedding? I think because they're coming to make sure it happens. To witness. Yeah. To witness this absolutely incredible experience of seeing me getting married. Yeah. And I got married. And it was very exciting. And I did not cook. Came to Cambridge. It the really bad food that Mushhtarq made. Shockingly bad food. But he said he was good. No, I didn't say good. He just knew how to cook. That's what he told me. He just said he knew how to cook. There's a difference. Yeah. It's the same way when you told me, you know, how to cook. I was like, oh boy, here we go. Because Eugene did this for me. Eugene was like, he was like, oh, why don't I I can cook your favorite dish or what? Because I was trying to. So I love pig trotters. Yeah. Right. Generally, any any like. You can't call them pig trotters. Okay. Any hof. Okay. Whenever, trotter or any hof. Any hof. Any you know what I mean. Yeah. So we have fire. That's what it's okay. Yeah. Right. So pig cow. You name it. Just like anything with the hof. Yeah. I mean, I mean, the gelatinous. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. You know. So you can't really find much of it, especially like Hunanese. So Eugene one day says to me, he goes, yo, what on I, I can cook that for you. Then I was like, shame my friend, he's really, this is like a lovely gesture, but completely unnecessary. Do you know what I mean? And then he was like, he's like, I was like, what do you mean? Then Eugene said, oh, I cook. And I went, I understand what he means. He means that he will put food together on a stove heated up and then ingest it. Now many people can cook. Most people shouldn't cook. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah, I've met many people who can cook. Yeah. I've met many people who say, you should come over, I will cook. And then when you go there, you go, I pray this never happens again. I pray this, this thing you've done to me should never be done to another person, if I could call the hage, I would. Because of what, in fact, I'm shocked that you spend time doing this. The fact that you said, we'll be busy for the next few hours and then this is what you made. Oh my god. So when people tell me they can cook, I, I take it as a, so I understand what, but he can actually like make food that is delicious. Yeah. But I understand what you're saying. He said he can cook. He can cook. And that's what he did. He cooked. Yeah. So food was no longer raw. Yeah. It was cooked. But that's when I really realized that I could not change the weather where I'd moved to. And I come from Bengal where the trees are lush and I moved to Cambridge in January and all the trees that lost their leaves. I'm that generation where we didn't have internet. Obviously, you know, I predate all of that. And because of the government that we had in West Bengal, we didn't see a lot of films from abroad. So you didn't see a lot of Western films. I saw love story and I remember crying, Ryan and Neil, oh my god. So gorgeous. And then I saw snow and you know that, you know, how, how do you go to an encyclopedia in a library to see pictures? That's, that's, I'm that generation. So I was a shock, you know, I, I felt and then there was this bad food at home. Then I went out. It was bloody freezing and all the bark in the tree was raw and I felt this was me that the tree would never have a spring. I would never have a spring and it was this kind of, I was so lost and I yearned for home. And I realized that the one thing I could do to change things. I couldn't even talk to my parents because it's no internet, no mobile, nothing. And I realized that I had to cook because in the aromas in that kitchen, I would have felt like the presence of my mother because I would have felt she'd come next to me. And it was food became then not, not something I ate, but it became everything, my identity, my culture, my religion, my everything, my name. And so I came to start cooking, not out of a sense of, sorry, I, you know, my mom is wonderful, but I, I, I, I realize how lucky I am that every day she lives there and she cooks for me. And now she's kind of not remembering things too well that she still manages to cook for me. It's a privilege and an honor. But, you know, 30 years ago, I cooked and I felt as the aromas of the spices and everything and I, that I was connecting not just to my mother, but to my ancestors, to the matriarchs who had gone, I was now connected through food. So for me, food is not about, you know, yes, I love eating and I enjoy cooking, but food for me is about identity, it's about power, it's about language and so much of the challenges that we face today, we have not used food as one of the tools to talk about justice. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. And, you know, there are, you know, there's things like that I will not use. I hesitate to use, like poppy seeds in my, in Bengal, poppy seeds are, is used a lot. Yeah. But because I did my first degree in history, I know why we're using poppy seeds. We're using poppy seeds because the British forced the farmers on my land to grow poppy to get an entire population in China addicted to opium so that they could get tea for free literally for nothing and export it. Their desire for tea, they used farmers, my brothers on my land to grow, and the problem is that when you grow, and they control the price, it was a catch crop. They control the price, they had a whole department controlling the price of poppy. The farmer had nothing to, no money left to buy food. So his wife, the farmer's wife, poppy seeds are hard, crushed them, soaked it and crushed it. So I feel the belly of the children. So they ate, poppy, the added poppy seeds to whatever little they add. I refuse to use poppy seeds. So if food is not just about my identity, food is also about speaking about injustice. And the fact that we don't talk about these things, it's almost like, you know, why should we talk about it? No, I want to talk about slavery, I want to talk about colonialism. I think that British children in school should be taught about the empire. Yes, learn about the Tudor history and all of this, very good, but you need to know. So when you push a child, a brown skin, dark skin child, and say go back home, you need to know why that person is there on the land, why they, you know, they were invited as guests after the war, so many family that just, I know why they're there in the first place. Why are they here? Don't, the problem is they don't understand, they don't understand. The wealth of Britain was built on the blood of my people. And I see so much of the food, the fact the spices were traded. And it's not just, you know, the Indian East India Company, the Dutch East India Company. Oh, yes. We are well familiar with it. And the atrocities. So I think that food should be a lesson in history and justice. And that is, I first came to food out of just loneliness. I missed my home, I missed my parents, I missed being that child and being free of responsibility in this ivory tar, in this university, I was abandoned and left alone and I struggled. And, you know, my husband and I sky, but, you know, he's an academic and a bad cook. And, you know, and he's a very, very below average cook and, you know, and he liked us. We've still got that cricket bed out here. It's just metaphorical. That cricket bed is ready any time. And, you know, and he would spend the whole night writing and listening to opera. And I thought opera was the worst thing possible. Wow. I never heard opera in my life. It's really an academic. Yeah. And I was like, you know, I'm dead. I wouldn't listen to, you know, I wouldn't listen to Brian Adams. I wouldn't listen to Madonna. I know I was like in the 80s, you know, pop music. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. I had to wait for him to go to the lecture so I could listen to pop music. And it was a kind of crazy life. But because I understood that wow, people don't get justice. They don't understand whose water is it, whose land is it, you know, the trees that grow on either side of India and Pakistan, whose water is being nourished by. You know, I think that's so important to understand the roots go so deep down. Borders are there. But, you know, even just a tree that grows, you know, where is the nourishment really coming from? And I've always been interested in justice because, I mean, and that's why I did law and I went on to do a PhD because I think that is important to understand and to be unafraid to challenge authority because with knowledge, the reason why there's so much racism and so easy to ignite, you know, hatred is ignorance. If people understood, you know, why is this, you know, Jamaican person sitting next to me in my class? I'm going to tell this person, you know, that, you know, go back home. I'm going to tell the South Asian child that your food smells, you know, your mom smells. Did you know that the wealth was built on spices, that is the base of that curry that that child has eaten? If you don't understand all of this, you're going to be ignorant and you will easily be swayed by people telling you random things or you've got to hate them. And it's, you know, the fact that, you know, in element in my skin inside has made me a shade darker. How am I attracted to you? I bring with me the vibrant culture, the color, the music, the spices. I bring life, you know, and yet you want to hate me because of the way I look because of my skin tone. I pity you. I want to sit with you. I want to break bread with you. I want to tell you about my people. If you get up from that table having eaten with me and still want to hate my people, I forgive you because that's my culture. Wow. I will let you go. But first I must be able to tell you the stories. This is why, you know, in the Koran, the Torah, the Bible, there's all this thing about breaking bread. Always. But for me, that is so important. It's not about peace. It's that shared moment. When I break bread with you and you, we have had a shared moment. We've all had our different journeys coming to this table. When we eat the same thing, we talk about what connects us. You might tell me about the bread you ate or you tell me about something that you ate. But then we all realize there is more that connects us than divides us. Food is the greatest way to connect people. And as an immigrant, as a Muslim living in England, I built a successful restaurant and I always say I could only have done it in London, where people are open-hearted, I managed to kind of build a business, an immigrant business, with an all-immigrant female kitchen. And we have been embraced. I don't know many other cities where I could have done it. I haven't tried anywhere else. But food has been used for too long as we become consumers and leaving religion out of it, you know, and completely leaving religion out of it. We no longer say grace. When we see food, we take out our phone and take a picture. And if it's a nice picture, we post it on Instagram, we send it to our friends. It's become a tool of how successful you are. You know, I'm in this really posh place, I'm eating this fancy stuff. Or even if you're in street food, you know, because you've had the ability to travel to Mali. Yes, yes. It's a signifier. It's a signifier. It tells you the food is part of that story, that you know, I'm not just in this cool place. This is what I'm eating. And we become consumers. We see it as our right. The fact that eating is a privilege, a privilege that not everybody has. Not in the past, even today. And hunger is in our midst. So unlike a lot of other chefs, where they use food to show off, to impress people. To make art. Yeah. I'm the artist. I am the storyteller you need in your life. Oh, damn, I love that. So this is, I never see my, you know, and I think it's so important because this is, everyone can relate to that beautiful meal. And you know, in our culture, not any more, our kids are sitting on tablets and watching stuff. You know, you see, and I don't remember, of course, I was too small, but I remember seeing other children being made to sit on the lap of the mud and fed by a hand. Yes. Yes. And the touch of the, of on the lips of the rice, wow. And you can't replicate this as an adult. But I want people to understand that food is spiritual. It is healing. It's the most powerful language of love. And even if someone says, you know, you're all funny, daddy, and this is all, I don't care. I want to be emotional. I have the right to be emotional and I have the right to use food as part of that emotional language. So anyway, because we got more, what now after this? Well people might say that to you, but I would challenge anyone to think of their favorite meals and disassociate them from a memory. Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing, there's nothing more powerful than biting something, drinking something, tasting something, and immediately being taken back to a moment, a memory, a person, an experience, a time, a place, you can't, you can't, the other, this was one of my favorite moments, because I'll remember it, I don't think she will. But one of my best friends, daughters, she's now at guest, you know, in the twenty, eighteen months or something, somewhere that you know, baby ages, this or whatever. So they were eating, we're eating Thai food together. So it's myself and it's him and it's his two girls, right? Twins really young and all they wanted to eat was the rice. So they keep going more, that's the, they only got like ten words maybe now, more, so I put rice on the table, we eat, we eat more, put more rice on the table. They don't eat the curry or anything else that comes with the, with the food. But then on the, on like one corner of the rice, some of the spicy sauce had like touched the rice. So Kora takes the rice, she puts it in her mouth. And then like, you know when you, you can see something that has never happened, is happening now. So she first like, she glitches, she glitches, and then she like opens her mouth to try and take it out, but there's nothing there anymore. And she looks, and then she looks at us, and then she looks at her dad and she's like, and then you know what the spice is like warming up inside the mouth, inside the mouth, inside the mouth, the way she cried, but it was, it was like a funny cry because she wasn't crying like somebody was hurting her. She was crying out of confusion. And literally I sit to him, I was like, you do realize, I was like, this, obviously she stopped crying because it wasn't the worst thing in the world. But I was like, this is a memory that comes from, this is like this moment, it's, I'm like you in a hill tell you when it comes to food, I'm exactly the same as you like because things happen around food, you know, friendships are made, you, stories are shared, the hearts are opened, there's like a, he ignored me when the trotters came out. Ah my man, my man, I did the, how grateful was I to you? I sent this guy pictures later on that night of the, of like, like you don't even understand because when, when somebody prepares food for you and, and that's one of the biggest reasons I, I'm so sad that we have food delivery services. I understand they've made life convenient. I understand it. You say this all the time. But I think we take for granted and we, we haven't yet studied. What we lose when you don't hear the food being prepared, you don't see the food being prepared, you also most importantly do not see who is preparing your food. That is so important. Do you not mean? Yeah. You don't see who is preparing your food and to your point, if we live in a world where we are separated from the labor that is providing anything for us, how can we then appreciate said labor, you know, how do we, how do we even begin to, and I know for some people might be like, oh, that's, that's a, you know, to, to reduce it to something. But I think of somebody like Muhammad Salah in, in, in Liverpool, right? Muhammad Salah demonstrably changed people's attitudes towards Muslims in and around Liverpool and out argue in England. Right. Yes. But what would the effect have been the same if you didn't see him, you just heard about the goals being scored, but you didn't know who scored them, that someone just scored goals for Liverpool and got assists for Liverpool, it wouldn't be the same. There's something powerful in seeing the person, yeah, prepare the food. Who is this person? Oh, who are those people in the kitchen? Who is in my kitchen? Who is that thing is so magical? And I think it creates a gratitude in us that we, we've taken for granted. And I've, you know, I haven't now, I'm just moving locations to an, a bigger site in London. Oh, congratulations. Thank you. Wow. It's stressful, but it has an open kitchen and the thing with open kitchen in London, especially central London, because of the cost of rent, all kitchens are in the basement. You don't see the people, you don't see the people there where the bathrooms are used in the basement. Yes. It makes sense because that's the money space, you know, massive open kitchen. But for me, the honour comes from that. I have two grandmothers, I've got three mothers, I've got a kitchen of 12 women who are cooking and singing in rhythm. And so we're now moved to a bigger open kitchen. I've always, you know, I love King Lee Court where I was right now, but I've had to move because, you know, it was just getting too small for us. And I found this amazing site and it's in a, just off-pick it really circus. And these things matter because this is my flag in the ground. For all those women and all those men who cook hidden behind walls, I have opened it up. Watch us. We are cooking not as a show, we're not trying to impress you, but we want to remind you that someone is laboring food. And even just, you know, I do a lot of work with farmers and I've always felt that, you know, the way chefs look at ingredients is that God given right. And anyone who comes to my restaurant will never get okra. I do not want a jet lag okra on my table because it is flown from Africa or in a plane. I do not want. So I only serve, you know, some stuff comes from Europe because of British weather, you have no choice. And a lot of it is British, but you know, I make alugopin butter, I make really traditional Indian stuff, no fusion stuff. But I use ingredients close by because I think that if this whole thing of hospitality, the customer is always right, no, the customer is wrong if they want to eat out of season. No, do you know that that phrase, by the way, this is one of my great joys in life. He will tell you about this. I love more than most things in the world, digging into the history of anthropology of phrases. The customer is always right. Do you know that? - That's not the phrase. - Really? - That is not the full phrase. - Okay, I'm gonna get a must less enough. - No, really? So we've grown up, I grew up thinking that, right? I remember, I think-- - 'Cause we heard it all the time. - We heard it all the time. Customers always write, that's what they'd say. The customer's always right, and we believe it means that if a person is buying or doing something, then they are right, and they must be catered to 100%. No, the full phrase is not the customer's always right. The phrase is, I'll read it out to you, so I get it proper, but it's basically, the customer's always right in matters of taste, but when it comes to, I'll read it to you. - Oh my god. - Yeah, yeah. The basic of the full phrase means, this idiot doesn't know anything. They're right when it comes to what they want to choose for themselves, but it doesn't mean that they're right. - Oh, man. - No, no, no, I'll read you the full one. - I know, idea. - I promise you. - So how did you dig this up? - I just love it. Every time I hear a phrase that doesn't make sense to me, 'cause I started, so okay, the first one was blood is thicker than water. I fought with this my whole life, right? Because I remember like my mom would, you would talk about struggles with her family. And I would go, but mom, you know, family's the most important thing. Blood is thicker than water, you have to. And then I would meet people who struggled with their families, people who cut them off. - Yeah, people who had families that were, you know, running the spectrum, everything from abusive, all the way through to just dismissive, let's say. But people who realized that they were not of their family, right, and what would society always say to us? - Blood is thicker than water. - Hey, blood is thicker than water. You go and you make up with your family. - Yeah, of course. Don't you, your family, you can't choose your family, it's the only family. And they always say blood's thicker than water. And then one day I discovered the full phrase, and it is the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, yeah. That's the full phrase. The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. It means the exact opposite. When they say blood is thicker than water, which they shortened, and then people misunderstood, what they mean is, the blood that you make in a, the blood pack, with friendship or with chosen family, is more important than the water in the womb. You didn't choose this person. They might not have chosen you. You don't choose the people who surround them. No, that's not as important as who you choose. Who are the idiots who have used it, and then. - We are. - Mutated it too. - No, because they shorten it. - Just shorten it, shorten it, shorten it. - Shorten it, shorten it, shorten it. - Shorten, shorten it. - Yeah, I'll read you so that the. - I think it actually came funny enough from self-ridges, if I remember correctly. - Oh, we. - Yeah, it was, it was like a fool, you know? And it just, it morphed over time. Oh yeah, yeah, here it was. So it was, all the person said was, the custom was always right in matters of taste. And that was it. But it was in matters of taste. - And we left it at the customer. - He's always right, they're not. - Now I'm wondering what Keshe's been saying from. - This is so interesting, because I had. I do have difficult people from my own community, my, you know, South Asian, especially men. Some of those mean that, can you take the price of the dial off the menu? And so they, so my manager came and said, we're taking the dial off because he didn't like it. I said, no, but he ate it. I'm gonna go and ask, this customer is always right, kind of situation happens. So I walked up to me and I said, you know, did you not like the dial because you ate it and you want to take it off. He said, it doesn't taste like the dial, my mother made. And I was like, yeah, but your mother's not working in my kitchen. - I'm so sorry. - I was like, you know, I always tell you as my, you are busy kicking that Michelin star away. Day by day. - Oh, no, no. No, no. That's, it's, I never aspired for Michelin star. I, because Michelin is so, it's the whole basis is excluding people like me, because they, they're looking for a standard, which is so French, which is so white, which is so much about alcohol pairing. It is about, you know, the appearance. If I was given a one inch food on a 10 inch plate, and this is Michelin's standard, and I have something drizzled and rough and there's a puff and a puff and, if I need to eat so much edible grass and edible flowers, I'd go graze in a field. I don't want to run my plate. And I don't want to pay, sit for two hours, getting one inch food at a time. After the third one inch food is, I wouldn't even know what I'm eating. I always look at that stand I'm thinking, that was the biggest food colonization scam that has ever been perpetuated. People want to travel for so long, for familiarity. They wanted to eat what they know everywhere they went. How crazy is that? That became the standard of what good food is. - Again, that one was an interesting one is like, when you look at the, I love that you, essentially, if I heard you, the subtext of what you're saying is like, we take for granted how political food is. And not political as in, like, who did you vote for? Not vote for no. It tells a very complicated story of the people that came before it, you know what I mean? There's no food that does not contain a story. - Yes. - Who moved, who was forced to move, how were they forced to move? What did they do to survive? It's all, it's all in the food, right? The same thing goes for those quantities of food. So, if you look at old, you know, like history, you know, and like, we only have images, obviously there are no photos, but the stories that were told, what was the way you displayed your wealth through massive amounts of food, right? The richest would eat gluttonous amounts of food, they would have banquets that would go on for days. - Yes, the pig would end up in his mouth. - Yes, and the way you would show that you are rich is by eating more food than you needed to eat. Getting big, throwing it up, by the way. - Come back again. - Yeah, they go that throw up, that come back and eat some more. And so, this is happening all throughout like England and France and all of these places, but this is like how the rich live because the peasants can't have as much food. Then what happens, we discover this thing called farming and industrial farming and we create this new way of mass producing food, right? What does it do to the price of food? It brings it down. What does it now mean for the poor people? They can also eat more. And then the rich people went, I don't want to be the same as, but they also have a full plate and I have a full, we all the same now, I don't want that. And so now, the true measure of wealth is how little you eat was to show how much you could pay for how little you could get. And so it became this thing of like, oh, that's the best explanation I've heard of it. - It literally became that. And so it became a, it's like poor people have a plate full of food. And so the way you would show how classy you are was that you had, you had so little, it was just a tiny little amount. And I grazed and I'm nibbling. And that became the new signifier of class and power and wealth. And poor people had lots of food and like, you know what I mean? And it's actually crazy how that thing goes back and forth. It is, it's so fascinating what you've just said because it deeply concerns me. And also in India, we've, you know, for us food, there's rice, there's roti, there's thing. Now, all Indian fine dining, the ones are facial and star. They're soft food that I don't recognize. - Yeah. - And the fact that it's gone into this one inch stuff with no rice, no rice, no nothing. - Yes. - It's unrecognizable and they put caviar and they've put, you know, truffle oil, which is like the worst thing in the universe. - Yep. - In any case. - Thank you. - Thank you. - Everyone said it. - No, no, no. I'm absolutely overrated beyond belief. And I think French food is also overrated. Just that-- - Yeah, I must, my shirt's fired. (laughing) - No, because, you know, so much butter and cream, you know, wow, you know, I put so much butter and cream in my shoe. It might taste nice. But it is, it just is, you know, I know a fence man, you know. It's a great cuisine. I'm sure that, you know, this brigade system, all of that, they have a great history. And I'm not insulting any French cuisine. Please can I have that caveat? - Yeah. - You please, yeah, I love French men and I love French cuisine. Sorry if I said that. - French food. - But it's true. - It's true. - I love French men as well. (laughing) - This is nothing to do with the men. - No, no, no, no. - This is nothing to do with the men. I was like, I'm sorry about the, I love French men. And I love the food as well. How? - Who are you saying nothing about the men? And as far as I just threw that in out of nowhere. You know, I do a nice one thing. I did a law degree. So, you know, this is that you cover yourself at every hour. - Oh, okay, okay. - This is you now. - Yeah, so this is me building this place. - Okay, got it, got it, got it, got it. - Building up the case. - Oh, got it. - So in case, I get into trouble, let me try everything, you know, one time. (laughing) Oh, I have to say I like French women as well. - These are all the clauses. - These are all the clauses, I see. - But I mean, yes, I think it's over. I think the problem is the fact that very few people say there's a, you know, I want to say this, that there's a lot of racism when it comes to what is elevated cuisine. - Of course. - And the fact that French, Italian even, and when it comes to Asian, now you have, you know, Korean and Japanese food, it's seen as elevated. But so much of our cuisine, you know, and especially when you look at Africa and you look at large suites of South Asia as well, you know, Middle East, it's seen as cheap and cheerful. - Yeah. all about wholesome, cheerful food. This fact that we are not either sophisticated. I remember someone telling me Asma no one's going to pay 139 pounds to come for your biryani. We sold out within minutes, and I said no This is my price tag. I want to end this monopoly of this Tattooed, you know aggressive testosterone driven madman who's in a stainless steel empire Beating up people allowed to be up. Yes shouting and screaming in this tormented soul has produced this dish I'll get indigestion. Please and I want to eat it And I just feel that, you know, why is it that we are you know, we Are food heritage in Africa in everywhere goes back, you know centuries. We grew food You know, this is the cradle of civilization We actually, you know, so much of what we eat today is because of what happened in our lands Nourished in our lands our soil Please don't dismiss us. Do not walk over the souls of our ancestors and see that our food is not sophisticated Today the world eats because of us because of our farmers and in the dust that flies are the roof of the soul of these amazing men and women who grew crops No one is telling their story and this is what bothers me that You know, we are not seen our food is not seen as sophisticated immigrant food in in too many places is seen as, you know, ethnic food We are bracketed in yeah, and you know, we cheap be spicy, you know, and so in England you have people who say oh, you know This is a hangover, you know pure go for a Vindalu a people go to these, you know, what they call curry houses and have beer and Aggressive and just drink a lot and eat a lot Please stop because it's a desecration. Yes, it is. It is and the problem is no one is saying it And if it means that someone doesn't want to come to my restaurant because they find my politics uncomfortable Let them not come exactly The king came to my restaurant and he was amazing It was amazing and I think that if the king of England can come to your restaurant come into your kitchen and Packed biryani for you know refugee families that were sitting outside. He was packing biryani for himself But also for the refugee families. This is the great equalizer. Yeah from one pot Food is very powerful. We should be unafraid But the problem is that in this desire to succeed You will not find chefs talking about these things not talking about power and equality And you have this fringe of these people who I'm also uncomfortable with talking about, you know Environment and sustainability at a huge price tag. So this particular dish The moisture in that was the rain forest from whatever it dropped from my leaf and this this milk came where the moon was full And the cow was happy and they sang a song and then massage the cow and then did yoga the car cholesterol. Yeah, so This also like dressing mad because again, you are twisting food into some kind of You know you're separating it out. Well, I said essentially what's happening. You're right is you know I always fall back on on on the phrase. It was a beautiful one that I read once. I think it was actually a British author. She said She said I can't wait for the world to get over Race so that we can realize we're all dealing with class and fundamentally that's all this is right? Yes It is it is a way for people To define how much their class is superior to somebody else's and it doesn't matter how they do it So to your point with quote unquote ethnic food. What why is it ethnic? So then where's the center then? Yeah, where where is the The normal if that's the ethnic The second thing is like the food itself I find it interesting even when you're talking about it that people make it seem like those foods are not a default at all They are being they are the things you eat when you're going off in between us. Yeah. Yeah, adventure. Yeah, adventurous. Yes. Oh, yeah I couldn't track. Oh, I couldn't then it's like no, no, no, no, no Adventurous is eating food that has no spice That's adventurous when I see people that eat food with no flavor. I'm like wow you truly you're your adventurous. How do you eat fluid? It has no flavor, bro The food that we like I think people take for granted how some of these things are used to define even what we're supposed to aspire to yeah, right? So to your point you know how many kids Oh, I mean adults now, but how many people would talk about when they were kids Korean Indian You name it they had distinct cuisines and they were embarrassed their whole lives as kids. Oh, yeah embarrassed Yeah, my best friend in school when I was growing up decent pile hated the fact that his mom gave him curry every single day Yeah, to take in in a sandwich We became friends mostly because of this we swapped our curry like I gave him the money that my mom would give me for food He'd give me his curry sandwiches every day when I'd eat it. I was like, bro, I don't understand how You don't think this is the greatest food ever, but most of it boiled down to the fact that He felt like it was like less than Yeah, because the other kids were eating burgers and hot dogs and all the things you could buy it cheese sandwiches. Yeah, and then he had this curry sandwich that came in this little box and the smell would obviously Exactly when the exact thing, but it's interesting how that it's interesting how all of that Becomes a signifier of your place in society and in the world is like oh, I I think we were able to measure growing up in the township. We were able to measure time Of the day we were able to measure What day of the week it was based on what food there was? Yeah, definitely. Yeah Sunday had its old smell and flavor. Yeah, after work five six Sunday, right? Yeah after work five six You'd be hard-pressed to find any house in the township In this cupboard that didn't have a box of curry curry powder. Yes So there was this famous brand called Raja. There was just curry powder. So the staples in every township home onion Tomatoes you notice cabbage on a good day you notice Potatoes is a must. Yeah, potatoes are staple. But the elevator was always Just a pinch of that curry powder that box would last the whole month But it just elevated the whole dish and you'd know when your mom is home when you were playing in the streets When you could just smell you smell it everywhere you smell in the whole neighborhood, right? There was there was a fragrance that it it I love that you say that it was it was it was a it was a It was almost like a siren's core. Oh, yeah, so come home. Home existed was a dinner bell. Yeah Actually, this is something I've always wanted to know. I'm confused by this So when I was in India, I would say curry and then people were like what are you talking about? Yeah Not really so they're like what do you love and I'd be like oh, I love curry and they'd be like what What do you what do you what are you talking about and then like once I said like even when I was there I was like none and the guy said which none and I was like none of that none none And he's like and then the one guy said to me that like none is bread. Yes, and I was like Yes, I want some none bread and then he said no, you're saying and then he said and then he was so cute the way he said it to me He's like he says Trevor. He says do you understand right now? You're saying bread bread. Yes No, I was like what do you mean? He's like you basically came to me and you said I want bread bread And I was like I don't understand. I love the Indian accent in there. He's like because he said it so like yeah as a matter of fact Yeah, yeah, so okay help us understand yes all of us who want to be initiated into this world help us understand so What is curry? It's not a it's not I didn't never heard of the word till I came to England First time someone told me do you do you know how to make curry. I was like I don't know I don't I'm never heard of it It's an English word that the British used that they morphed from probably from curry which is a kind of you know South Indian kind of source spicy source We don't know every dish has a name Curry is not a name of anything I never heard of it and first time I heard of it was in 1992 I've heard the word curry and never heard of the whole And it's really interesting because it's almost like they need to Dumb it down to the lowest common denominator by calling it one thing and The fact that they actually think there is it's complexity as well. Yes. Yeah, also The fact that they think a country the size of India has something called Indian cuisine Let an Indian try and say there's a European cuisine Or that I'm I'm in America. There's an American cuisine, you know putting the North and South America together. Yeah We are not that But the problem is they take away from us our layering our identity our accent The fabric that we wear the thing that makes us different By literally making our By painting us all in one corner in the same shade. Huh. It's easier for them to deal with us Curry is a problematic word and you know I recently did a show where it was secrets of the curry kitchen and I was like I don't want to do it curry, but they were saying that people will not understand that it's about Indian food And eventually I gave in I said fine, you know, I draw the people understood and the first thing I said the moment the camera comes And I'm gonna say there is no word like curry. They said say it So every literally every episode I said there is nothing called curry but I'm going to show you how to make karma. I'm going to show you how to make chalferism. I'm going to show you how to make things. - Okay, so the thing that we are calling, so when we say like, when people are like, I love butter chicken curry and I love vindaloo curry, and that's wrong. - It's absolutely wrong. - Okay. - It's like, you know, I love spaghetti pasta and I love, it's generic word that is added on it. It has no meaning at all. There is no dish that doesn't have a name. And there are things that, you know, like in, you know, random things like, you know, you will say, you know, Zira alu, Zira is cumin alu, alu is potato. So sometimes you might call something by the combination of things that are in there. - Okay, okay. - If you don't have a name because it's, it's an ordinary everyday dish. But no, we have names where everything. - So it's like saying rice and beans in that way. You could say rice and beans, so that's what it is. - Yeah, it's just brilliant. - Two things that are simple. - Yeah, yeah, so we do have a lot of that as well. We have simple words like, you know, that we combine because they're, they talk about the two main ingredients. But I think that this is again to do with the fact that they have not, you know, I say this to a lot of people. I say, I will not let you eat my food. Unless you sit down and understand who I am. My music, my poetry, the rhythm. You cannot take away, you know, my fabric, my culture, my music, my architecture, my everything. - Yeah. - And then dismiss me. I won't let you have my food then. Because you cannot appropriate my culture by dumbing down my food. And taking the easiest thing for you is to accept my food. You cannot have my food unless you have me. You need to understand. The problem is that so many cultures are, I mean, in England and in a lot of other countries as well. This is what they find easiest to take. But are they interested in hearing about your tribe? Are they interested in hearing about your faith or our poets or the books that excite us, you know, what is it that we wear in certain festivals? What keeps us up at night? No, they take our food because it's so easy and they walk away, there is no respect. And where there is no respect on the table, I will not serve. - Yeah. - I will not. I feel like sometimes in our quest to be accepted we become part of our own exclusion, you know? - Yes, and I think that it's hard because when you're bread and butter and 41 families that I work with my team are dependent on our success. I have to be careful. But I take it to the very edge of where I can be. - Right. - And I know everything I'm saying now, people will listen, you're a hugely popular and I'm very grateful to be here speaking to you all because it allows me to reach out to an audience in my Muslim name in my accented voice, the fact that I tell the story of women and our food, you know, people should come and watch an open kitchen. There's no anger, no one is screaming and shouting. - It's not the thing that we see in TV all the time. - No, no. - And the problem is that television is worshipping and all these crazy manic men who are not being able to deal with the pressure in the kitchen, I can send them to an ashram in India, in Himalayas. (laughs) If you can't deal with pressure, go away. Do not traumatize young people because we're losing. - Yeah, you're not strong. - We're losing so many people, young men and women who leave hospitality because some crazy person cannot deal with the pressure. Why do you ever hear of a CEO of a company going out slapping their secretary or someone else in there on the board? No. And who are these chefs, powerful people picking on? They're playground police. - Yeah. - Tell them to go slap the owner or the head sommelier or the investors or the landlord. - No, no. Who do they burn with hot spoons? Who do they bite? I've seen bite marks on women who've been bitten by it. And the way that they slap, you know, when our skin is dark, you really need to hit hard for us to show bruise. - Yeah. - How are they being allowed? In no other profession, and I'm saying this, not because I'm just a lawyer, but in no other profession and no other space, with this level of assault, physical, sexual be allowed as allowed in the kitchen. If it was outside the kitchen, they would be in jail. - In full display. - But we are allowing this because we allow the excuse that this is pressure. It's glorified. - It is glorified. This is seeing like they're these tormented people. And I feel that it's almost as if the men who cook today do not want to be reminded of the women who cook for them. - For them. - Because like in England, I'm, no, no, what it's like inside, but like school meals were served by older women. - Yeah, lunch ladies. - Yeah, lunch ladies, exactly. Your memories are your grandmother, your mother, lunch ladies. Now that you're an artist, you will become this mature kind of crazy man who will result, you know, radiate testosterone because you've made cooking into a combat sport. - Yeah. - So that it is so far away from the spiritual rhythm of the spices as they're crushed in our homeland. - I even think the instrument that is used to symbolize cooking, the big, the knife. So combative, you're right. I think it's a man that is a, why not the spoon or the ladle? - Yes. - Come to my kitchen, you'll see that the only knife we have is a very small tomato knife because every household had one sharp knife. And in my kitchen, we have one sharp knife and it moves between people. - We all had one sharp knife, do you remember? - Yeah. - There's one sharp knife in every one's house. - Yeah. - In my kitchen, I have one sharp knife. I don't have fancy knives. I got very excited. I met in Watson, Japanese knives. We had to take women to A&E after that because they cut their fingers. They're like, they're not used, they're like, we don't know because they're used to bloody working with blood knives. But the whole thing is that why has it become so combative? Why has it become about aggression and show and that you are taking this ingredient and you are imposing yourself on it? Can I tell you why I think? I think it goes back to something that you said literally at the beginning of this conversation. It is because if you make it seem like it is combative and if you make it feel like it is pained and if you make it just look like the most gritty and difficult task, then people are more likely to appreciate it. Whereas the women who, as you said, when we first started, they make it look effortless. They make it seem as if it didn't take their time, as if the planning wasn't meticulous. They make it feel as if it was a foregone conclusion. You're less likely to appreciate it. And so funny enough, even just, if I'm just guessing in a way when Asma Kano, any other woman, our grandmothers, whoever they were, when they would cook, and it would just be, when I think of like my grandmother and how much food she would cook every single Sunday for everyone in the family. We all had those, that story. There's not one, one time where I can remember her, like barking like Gordon Ramsay, like screaming at people. Get me my bloody, where's my spirit, you little shit, why? But the amount of food that was cooked for people and the quality and the consistency of that food, do you get what I'm saying? We're not talking about burnt bottoms, we're not talking about undercooked anything, but I'm using only four plates. Yo, and the stove itself, there was nothing fancy, there was no, you know what I mean, a coal stove. But if you think about it, beyond like her family and beyond that world, the appreciation isn't known, everyone's like, everyone will go like, oh yeah, I'm grandmothers, how about grandmothers know how to cook, do you get what I'm saying? But when you punch walls and slap people and scream and come and wipe a plate with your serving, you know what I mean? And turn the plate, you know they love doing that thing, you turn the plate, turn the plate, then it makes it feel like, oh, I mean this is the effort. The effort, have you eaten there, have you, oh, we're lucky that we got in. It's so hard to prepare that, that one carrot in the middle of the plate, even the world's gastronomy. Oh, I mean, I actually think that's a lot of what it is. This is so true what you're saying. And then the added insult is that often I hear chefs being interviewed and they say who's the best chef? And they say my mum or my grandmum. Show me a mum and grandmum who's in your kitchen. Yeah, they are not there. There's also ageism. You know, and if you told me now to go chase a deer in a forest, deer will have gone to another continent by the time I even go near it. But you asked me to cook with very few ingredients and this is the simplicity of a thing. I will cook you a meal you will never forget. But the problem is that the world will judge me, will look at my body shape, will look at my age, will look at my gray hair and decide she's not creative, she's not dynamic. She's not this muscular tattooed pierced monster who's screaming. When was that ever something that was required to make a beautiful meal? Our grandmothers, my grandmothers, slight and small. And you know, you come into my kitchen, you'll see, you know, We've got people. men who are not even five feet. They're small, they're bright, they're full of spark. They love to cook. And they love to cook. And there's a joy in this smile. But I, I feel so sad because we have, and also I must blame the media as well. Oh, definitely. The media, television, you know, all kinds of media, worship this kind of irrational, erratic, you know, kind behavior, unkind behavior. And the thing is that what bothers me is the physical, sexual abuse that's happening. And we are aligned this to happen. It's shameful because it's, it's, I am ashamed of hospitality. I'm ashamed of our industry that we have not stood up for our women. There's not just women, it is men too. It is the, you know, empathetic men, men who are of different sexuality, the way that young, because often in an England, you'll find young kids who are struggling in school, be sent off to, you know, vocational training. They're often known cooking because it doesn't require to read and write too much. They come in at 16, then they're called most aggressive things. They are reminded, oh, they're reminded about all the struggles that they had. How are you powerful when you cannot embrace the weak when you cannot actually show them hope. For me, a leader is someone who tells someone who's gone in afraid and broken, who has been bullied in school and comes in boy or a girl, it doesn't matter. You take them into this world, your secret world of cooking and you show them how spice works and use the food to speak to them about hope and love. Our industry is all about, you know, pushing each other down and, you know, this kind of very fake service where service and hospitality is all about, you know, impressing people, making them feel good. But when there are tears behind the wall in your kitchen, who are you actually looking after? We don't look after your own. So then if the guest leaves and thinks that this is great, give you a five star review, Michelin gives you a star, Michelin might give you three stars. What is that star worth when you have broken the soul of someone in your kitchen and we are aligning this every day and we have not been able to protect our own. I often think, you know, to the point you're making about the media. I often think it's quite an indictment that, you know, I'll use Hollywood as a shortcut for it because it's just one of the media spaces that has informed how we live that Hollywood has been really lazy at finding ways to glamourize things that seem as if they contain no glamour. What I mean is this is like, if you think about how many industries Hollywood has taught us about and how they've shaped how people see them, you can't help but think that it now becomes a case of like the tail wagging the dog. I'm yet to meet a policeman who didn't see police in a movie on TV and think that that's what policing is, you know, simple example. We all, at some point in our lives watch the TV show where they were police, where the one cop wanted the law to be done so badly that they slammed someone's head on a table or they smashed them against the wall and the story tells us that they are the good person because they're willing to break the law to save the law. And he's just like, wait, no, but if you, what are you doing? But the way it's portrayed to us like, that's the way you do it. At some point it's like, you know, turn off the cameras. I'll get this guy to talk. And we at home like, yeah, turn off the cameras, screw their civil liberties, get them to talk, you know. And then they do the same thing with like the military. They go like, this is how you do it. You go to that country and those people are savages and you shoot them all and we like, yeah, shoot them all. We do this with everything. That's not just for the same thing that we do with the cooking or with the chefs. It's like, it's these stories of like, the only way you can make this food is if you're paying, if you're struggling, even artists, it's interesting how we forget that the image that we give out, that inspires people to become this thing, becomes how they define who they're going to be in it. Yeah. Yeah. And so when when I was approached by chef's table, I was so shocked because still then I was like, you know, oh, these are like the world's best chefs. And they're like, you know, serious artists, you know, with gold leaf and caviar. Yeah. And then when I realized that this is not a hook. First, I thought there was a hook. And then I realized it's real. I told them, don't script me. Please don't script me. Oh, wow. This is, that's, I'm not scripted at all. I told the story of my people. I spoke about my mother crying when I was born. As a second daughter, the lamenting on my birth, I spoke about inequality and justice. And I was so happy. They just sat there, let me say it. I didn't need to tell them that, you know, my food is this exquisite. And I do this. And I'm so tormented. And I've all these things. I didn't need to. I cooked biryani and I opened the biryani and I fed people. And that's what it is. But I think that the problem is that, you know, when you media is looking for those kind of, it's like, you know, self-fulfilling property. Yes. You're this, you're that yet. And there's so many of us, you know, I'm not just the only one. There are many people who have really interesting stories who understand justice. But where are they? No one is telling their story. They don't get the opportunity to talk about what makes them special and their food special. And then you have, we have flooded by all these crazy, wacko men who are going on breeding people. And we all think they're great because they're abusive. And it really worries me because the problem is, and I don't want to be here but I'll say one thing. I don't have a daughter. If my daughter wanted to work in a commercial kitchen, I wouldn't let her go. Wow. Because of what you know. Yeah. I would, I would be awakened. I would check her all the time to see. Has she got injuries? Is she being bruised? Is she being bullied? It's funny. You say that throughout our conversation, I was looking at your arms. And you have no scars. You have no burn marks. Because I know this female chef who had like scars and burn marks all over her hands, all the way up to her elbow. And she said, that's the only way you get respect in these commercial kitchens is if you have these marks and these cuts on your finger, it means you've done the time and you've put in the time and you've done the work. And our grandmothers didn't have that. You don't have that. Yeah. I mean, if, if, if one of our grandmothers burned themselves, all the other aunties would say, how could you do it? Yes. You'd be looked down upon forgetting but don't, you know, that's a sign of incompetence. You are so right. And the whole poet is that you, the whole culture in a kitchen is so violent. It is so horrible. And I actually took on Michelin. There was proved allegation. Has to be proved allegation. Again, I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. Yeah. I'm backing myself up. It proved allegation where abuse happened in the kitchen, which has a Michelin star. I asked Michelin take the star off. They didn't apply to me for a long time. I kept asking them. Then they got back to me with some kind of, you know, answer saying, Oh, that's not, that's not what we do. But you do, you recognize and you give a kind of accolade to that kitchen and that chef, but they have been brutal. They have been proved to have abused someone in the kitchen. Why can you not take off the star? But they will not. And the problem is that when the entire industry, you know, is based on this that, no, we will not speak up. We will keep silent because I, I've never wanted to be, I am on the fringe of this all male Mayfair club, mostly white people who are in this exclusive club, like you have them in Britain, where women come in. I mean, now, of course, the law has changed because the law says have women are members as well. And in hospitality, women are just guests who you sign in, you know, the clubs that we have, you sign a woman and you bring her in. Someone has to vouch for you for someone has to vouch for you. And if you now look at all the successful women, I have always said this whenever they've been proved allegations of abuse in a kitchen, not a single Michelin star female chef has spoken up. If you Google, and you will see, it's just me. The voucher stops there. It's just me. I've write full page articles about allegations, including some very prominent male chefs who said, you know, we don't hire women because when they get pregnant, they cannot pick up pots. I was like, wow, to say this, I, and every female chef who is seen as a leader of this industry, who has a Michelin star, the silence is deafening. Why are you silent? And this is our problem. And I have said it repeatedly, and not even once has any of these women approached me privately, saying that, you know, I also agree with you, but because, you know, these are my friends, I, and we're saying they haven't been approached me personally. That's how broken we are. That women see themselves as chefs first and women, fine, you can see yourself as, you know, queen of, you know, whatever, you can be who, you can imagine yourself to be whatever you want, but I also see you as a female. I see you as a female leader. There's a woman in your team who might be getting bullied. Your silence tells her, keep quiet, because to progress. Yes, you stay silent, you follow, conform to this become in a complex. I could not breathe, I could not live if I had to stay silent and allow abuse in front of me for my success, my success would hurt me more than anything else. And I don't understand, I guess it's a personality thing, but you know, I do not understand how they are still silent. Nobody else is speaking up. I am one of the only females who is speaking up in the industry and very, you know, not so long ago, a male chef was asked this in a press conference publicly that, you know, what do you think of someone like Asma who says, you know, that male chef, he said, "Tell her to come into a real kitchen and work with men. Tell her to come." And when I challenged him, he said it was his, his English is not his first language. I was like a Englishman, I was like, I was saying English is also not my first language, but I would not say something like that, it's not about English, but the fact that, yes, but Eugene, I challenge you to come work in a real kitchen, was that Trevor and me, no, you see, you see, you know Eugene, I don't know, first language is coward, that's true. So it's, but despite how tough it is, I, I'm so optimistic. Maybe she's not born yet, but the legacy I'm living and the girl that's not born yet, she will know my name. I will be dead and I will be dust, but she will know there was someone like me who created a space that was free for women. And I want her to know, I want her to know my name, I want her to know that I walk in thorns and I go through fire because one day she will be free and she will be without fear. And I, that is what excites me that I will be able to push back and clear the pathway. And through just the water that I see myself, that I'll leave everything moistened and fresh and the harvest will grow and there will be women and men who will be free of fear. I, I believe this will happen, I may not see it, but I feel that there will be a day when there is no fear in the kitchen. And this is what drives me and I feel everything in my life has led me to this place where I fight for those who I will never see. And I speak for those who I don't know, but what a privilege it is and what an honor to be able to do this. This excites me more than everything else because I, you know, all my friends who want to law school with me, who were really bad, are really super rich now, you know, have fancy cars, live in St. John's world and all of this and I think, you know, I'm going to be poor my whole life and I think I will be. But I know that, you know, legacy is more important to everything else. You know, if you are a CEO or a CFO of our company, your name is on the door with the, with the title, but when you die, all your things are put in a box and given away after a respectable, you know, gap, someone else's name is put there. What is your legacy? But I know one thing that when I die, I will live on forever because I did something for women in industry, in kitchens that no one else has done so far. And I asked my father that, you know, when I die, do not bury me inside the fortress and the palace, bury me on the street so that everyone can walk past and I want them to ask who she. I want the world to know the story because I want them to know that you could succeed. You could be kind, you could be graceful, you could be, you know, caring about the community and I'm very successful. I want people to know you can be successful without being scared. You know, that's why you're here and that's, that's, I mean, when I, when I told the team, when I was like, we really got to get Asman, they were like, some people were like, who is Asman? Some people like, oh, from chef's table. I was like, no, no, no, forget all the things, you know, you just, you just have to meet this person. I'm glad you came and joined us today. This was amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. And now, I mean, we have to, we have to go and eat the food now. Yes. I don't think I've ever been this hungry. You have to come. In the podcast. And women cooking. Magical. You've got to come. No, I'm in that. We know that. You can't even like. Yeah. But just like. Now. Lambi less. Lambi don't that. My stove. Apparently. You cheat. Download the app. You cheat. Download that app. Let's keep going. Asma Khan. Thank you so much. You're like, oh, thank you so much. This was lovely. Thank you very much. What now with Trevanoa is produced by Day Zero Productions in partnership with Sirius XM. The show is executive produced by Trevanoa Sanajamin and Jess Hackel. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu. Music. Mixing and mastering by Hannes Brown. Some other stuff by Ryan Padoof. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of what now.