A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That

Jayshri was born in New Zealand. However, she grew up eating primarily Gujarati food at home. For her mum, like many Indian mums, food was the primary love language. Jayshri didn't learn how to cook Indian food until she left home to study. She would try calling her mum to ask her how to cook something and would often be told to add 'a little bit of this and a little bit of that'. 

It's a quandary many of us have faced. Not wanting her family secrets to be lost, Jayshri started noting the recipes down in a wee notebook when her parents sold the family dairy. However, when she told a few Kiwi friends what she was doing, they all said, "oh my God, we need it because our mums are the same". The project turned into a cookbook that Jayshri has self-published with her mum and the duo's book won the Best in the World Gourmand Cookbook Award in 2018. 

 

On the episode we talk about:

• Intuition, a key ingredient for cooking Indian food

Food, the recurring theme in Indian culture

• New to cooking Indian food? Here are the key fundamentals
• Self-publishing a cookbook, why do it

My favourite quotes from the episode:

"Back in the 80s when I went to school, we were the only Indians in my school at Christchurch. Back then no one knew about Indian food. They didn't even know what a samosa was."

"My mum was used to just cook with her own teaspoon she had in her home. So she would use her spoon, then we would tip it into the measuring spoon and that's how we figured out the recipes."

"You walk into an Indian household and straightaway they are sharing food with you."