Eat My Globe

Interview with Award-Winning Author, Shahnaz Ahsan

Simon Majumdar (“SM”):

Welcome to Eat My Globe, a podcast about things you didn't know you didn't know about food. And on today's very special episode we have an interview with a person that I've been looking forward to chatting with for quite some time. She's an award-winning author whose debut novel won an Observer Best Book of 2020. She has also written many articles on various British publications. She has appeared in various shows like BBC Radio 4, BBC Asian Network, BBC Scotland and ABC Radio Australia. She's also taught at the University of Westminster and runs a Substack, which is terrific by the way, called Scribbles and Dribbles. And personally, as a part Bengali cook, I am fascinated by the cooking of the Bengal area of India and Bangladesh. I went to Bangladesh during my Eat My Globe tour, and my grandmother was from East Bengal. Our guest has written the most wonderful book called, “The Jackfruit Chronicles: Memories and Recipes from a British Bangladeshi Kitchen,” which is about her own journey across the globe and her own relationship with Bengali cooking. So, it's a huge, huge Eat My Globe welcome to my author, Shahnaz Ahsan. How are you doing?

Shahnaz Ahsan (“SA”):

Thank you so much. I am really well, thank you. I've been looking forward to this for ages. So, I think that makes two of us.

SM:

Oh, that's great. I'm so thrilled that you're on here. But before we tell anyone else about anything, could we just tell people what is a jackfruit? Because a lot of people listening, A, have never seen them, and B, have never tasted them. So. And how you use that as a discussion point for your book.

SA:

Yes, absolutely. So, I guess the first thing to say is that in the context of the book, the jackfruit is the national fruit of Bangladesh. And so that holds a very personal significance, not just for me, but for Bangladeshis all over the world. But to give an introduction to the fruit itself. So, if you are listening from the West, you've probably heard of jackfruit as this new, fashionable, vegan alternative to meat. Jackfruit can be that, but it's also so much more. It's a fruit in its own right that you can eat without having to cook it. And I was thinking about this, how would I introduce jackfruit to an audience who weren't familiar with it? And I guess I would call it almost the anti-fruit.

SM:

[Laughter]

SA:

And the reason I say that is because I feel like most fruits are evolved, designed, created to look appealing. If you think of strawberries and raspberries, they look like jewels. You think about bananas, they're yellow, they're so inviting. Mangoes, you know, all of these fruits are designed to look delicious. And then if you see a jackfruit, it's, I hate to say, it's very unattractive.

SM:

[Laughter]

SA:

It's very large. It's covered in prickly, like leather skin. It's very like misshapen. There's not like a clear shape that you would attribute to a jackfruit. They're just large and quite bulbous actually. But I think they're a really good example of how something should not be judged by its appearance alone. Because once you cut through that skin and you open it up, it's absolutely beautiful to look at, to taste. You have yellow segments of fruit that are just soft. If you get it at the right kind of ripeness, it's tender. And I describe it as almost your quintessential tropical flavors. It tastes like a cross between mango and pineapple with maybe a touch of banana in there. It's like a creamy yellow colour and the seed that's inside each segment. So, if you imagine like a giant orange, you can't do anything with orange pips, but with the seeds of each jackfruit segment, you can dry them out and you can cook them. So, it's also incredibly versatile.

SM:

Oh.

SA:

So, that's my pitch for the jackfruit.

SM:

I’ve never tried jackfruit pips before. I'm gonna have to try some of that. So, is that why you chose it as your kind of metaphor for Bangladesh?

SA:

Yes, yeah, it was a natural one. So, it's a symbol and Bangladesh as a country has so many symbols and as I write in the book, I think that's partly because it's such a new country. Only won its independence in 1971. And so, Bangladesh has gone overboard almost in having a national everything. It has a national flower, a national animal, a national fruit. So that's partly why I chose the jackfruit and also from a personal perspective. It has really strong family significance that, again, I write about a lot in the book. I have very strong family memories of my grandfather always buying a jackfruit when we went to go and visit them during school holidays. This was my grandparents. These were my grandparents who lived in Manchester and we lived in West Yorkshire, so we would see them fairly often.

SM:

You lived in West Yorkshire?

SA:

But when we went for the... Yes, that's right. So. . .

SM:

I'm from South Yorkshire.

SA:

Oh are you? Whereabouts?

SM:

Rotherham.

SA:

Oh, okay, yeah.

SA:

So, I'm from Keighley, just near Bradford.

SM:

I know exactly where you're coming from.

SA:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SM:

So, I love that. So, tell me more though.

SA:

Yeah, so the jackfruit, because it's such a large fruit, it's 10, and therefore it is more expensive than your apples and your pears. You would buy it in when you have family visiting or friends visiting. It's a very communal fruit. So, there's no such thing as just buying one for your nuclear family. It would be something you buy and you would share. And it's synonymous with that sense of community. And so, everyone would know on your street if you got a jackfruit because you'd be turning up at their house with margarine tubs stuffed with these segments of jackfruit because it's one to share and it's so much better eaten fresh rather than when it's been sitting around for a few days. So, I really associate it with a sense of community and belonging. And it's funny how much of your upbringing stays with you, I find. So, when I started moving around, so, my husband works for the UK government and we have spent the last eight years and counting living in various countries across Africa. And what has been such a lovely surprise for me is the discovery of jackfruit in an entirely new context. And every place that I've moved to, funnily enough, once I've tasted jackfruit in those places, it feels like a little taste of home more than anything else. And I think because it's such a unique fruit. When I find it turning up in unexpected places, it just kind of touches me, I think, in a way that a bar of Cadbury's, although very welcome, just doesn't quite hit the same spot.

SM:

I love Cadbury’s. That's great. And before again, we move on to the food, I wanted to ask a little bit about what you're doing now in terms of, you know, your Substack and everything else that you've got working because this book is so great that I'm sure you're writing another book. So perhaps you could tell us a little bit about that?

SA:

Yeah, absolutely. So, I'm still working on my Substack. So, I try and send updates out every month and it's quite open in terms of themes. So, it's called, “Scribbles and Dribbles.” The idea is scribbling in terms of writing, dribbling in terms of trying to do that while raising two small children. And at the moment, I'm actually writing quite a bit. I haven't published them yet, but I'm writing some updates from our new country. So, we have actually just been in Rwanda for the last three weeks and this will be our home for the next couple of years, we hope. And so, yeah, I've been trying to get the family settled in and still trying to find time to write and so on. And I am working on another book. I would love to share more about that, but it's, I'm actually working on two projects concurrently. So, it's a race almost to see which one gets there. One is another food related book to do with food and literature, so food in books.

SM:

Oh great.

SA:

And then another one is a work of fiction that I've been working on for a long time and it sort of veers into the Bengali Gothic. That's as much as I can say.

SM:

That is going to be really interesting. So, when you're working on all of those things, tell me about this book. Because the first thing I really wanted to ask you, you know, my grandmother came from East Bengal and that part, it was part of India. And it was a mixture of both Hindi and Jain and Muslim. But now, predominantly, it's a Muslim country. So, I wanted to ask about that and how it went from being East Pakistan or India to East Pakistan to Bangladesh. And again, for people who don't know it too well, I think this would be a good way of telling people.

SA:

Yeah, absolutely. So, it's a classic case of colonial rule and its very messy aftermath. And so, I'm sure many of your listeners will already know about the Partition that happened when the British left India, finally, in 1947, and on leaving, divided what was then India under British rule into two states, India and Pakistan. And the idea was that India was going to be the place for the Hindus and Pakistan was going to be the place for the Muslims. But in classic colonial fashion, there was no consideration given to where Sikhs would go or Buddhists would go or Christians would go or the Jewish minority that lived in Calcutta would go and other parts of the region. So, this was very ill thought through, and the aftermath as we know was very bloody. And so, part of the separation was there would be a West Pakistan and an East Pakistan and East Pakistan and West Pakistan would be separated by thousands of miles of India. And we know that that doesn't work. History has told us that a state does not function in that way. And so unfortunately kind of was the inevitable separation again, the fragmentation of East Pakistan and West Pakistan. East Pakistan became what we now call Bangladesh. And this happened through a war of independence in 1971. It was a nine month long, very bloody battle. And too many people lost their lives. It is now referred to by some historians as the genocide of Bengalis. And it was, the effects of that are so long lasting. Every family has their account of what happened in 1971. Every family has suffered a loss. And yeah, it's colonialism and occupation in living memory. And it's not very well taught or known about in the West.

SM:

Not at all, no.

SA:

So, I know, yeah, exactly. And that's part of the reason why I wanted to write the book actually, because I'm... I studied history at university. I'm very passionate about it. And I know that sometimes the most accessible way of finding out about a place is through its people. And we are speaking so much in the UK at the moment about migration and asylum seekers or migrants or refugees or, you know, whatever terminologies we use. And I feel like often they're actually used incorrectly. There's always this undertone of blame, of othering, of suggestions that these people don't deserve to be in the UK, and coming from a family where we were occupied, you know, like anybody who's from the Indian subcontinent, indeed many parts of the world, their families were under British colonial rule for centuries.

SM:

Yes.

SA:

And so, it's almost the inevitable consequence of that, that their descendants would end up in the UK, would end up in Great Britain. And so, I wanted to explore that, but in an accessible way. And that's why I wanted to bring food into it and a personal way. Yeah, that was very much my motivation.

SM:

I love that because that's how I think about food as well. It's migrants. I'm a migrant into, well, I was born in Britain, but I was a migrant, my father and mother. Well, we'll talk about that in fact, because I wanted to, first of all, and I've said this before, this is the most fantastic book. So, I. . . is it going to be available in America?

SA:

I hope so. As far as I'm aware, we haven't published it directly to an American audience, so it can be purchased in the US, within the US. Speak with my publishers. If there's enough interest, I'm sure that, yeah, that would happen.

SM:

I think there will because there's a lot of, I mean, not just Bangladeshis, there's a lot of people who will love this description of Bengali food.

So, I want to talk about your book, “The Jackfruit Chronicles.” And one of the things I wanted to mention straight away, you name the one of your first chapters, you call it “The Home and the World.” And that, to me, is one of my favourite poems or writings from Rabindranath Tagore. And in fact, I had, well, my wife and I had one of his poems, Endless Love, at our wedding. And so he’s someone who has become very, very special to me. And you also have Satyajit Ray. . .

SA:

Yes.

SM:

. . . as a book, and both of those. So. Satyajit Ray, in fact, in our family, he had a blood link and he in fact stayed on our compound for a while.

SA:

Amazing.

SM:

So, all these people that you talk about, they're very special to me. So, could you tell me how you use that to describe that chapter?

SA:

Yeah. So, in a way, actually, hearing your response to that and your connection to these figures is exactly the reason why I chose that title for the first chapter. Because all Bengalis, whether they live either in Bangladesh or in India or the diaspora, they will all feel that connection to these great Bengali icons, Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, the rebel poet, the national poet, and Satyajit Ray, of course, who crossed over into sort of Western popularity as well.

SM:

Yes.

SA:

And it was to speak to that audience. And so yeah, like I say, hearing your reaction to that kind of makes me feel vindicated that I made the right choice because, you know, we are very proud of our artists. Bengalis are known for being, you know, not to deal in stereotypes, but every Bengali is a poet.

SM:

Yeah.

SA:

You'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't write poetry. Everyone dabbles in art to some degree.

SM:

Me? I do. I write...

SA:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because it's just, it's a mode of communicating, it's a mode of expression. And I think it's really beautiful because actually as a population, as a people, we've been through so much. You know, now in the West, in the UK at least, we're hearing more about things like the 1943 famine of Bengal. . .

SM:

Yeah. Yes.

SA:

. . . which was engineered, exacerbated again by the British. And to have gone through so much trauma, sort of generation after generation, but still be able to find beauty and to try and create art, I think is a real testament to our resilience as well.

SM:

Before we talk about the cooking of Bengal, again, can we talk about the treatment of people in the UK at that time? Because at that time, my mother was actually a very beautiful Welsh woman. So, she was very, very light skinned. My father was a very dark skinned surgeon. And he worked in. . . the only place he could get a job was in Rotherham because he had to travel around, had to become what they call a locum. And she always used to cook really good Bengali food. She spent a lot of time in Calcutta. And I'm sure that your grandparents who first came over to Keighley used to do the same. So, what did they do in the 1960s? Where did they get a job? How were they involved in the kind of British community at that point, or were they?

SA:

Yeah, well so my grandparents came to Manchester in the late 50s, early 60s and then it was the next generation so it was my mum and dad who moved from Manchester to Keighley, so that's that trajectory. So, my grandfather came over in 1956 and then my grandma followed almost just short of 10 years later, I think she came in 65. So, in those 10 years that my grandfather was living in Manchester, it was very much a man's world. These were all immigrants who had come, they'd left their families behind if they had them. And it was very much based on mutual, not just cooperation, but support. So, everyone had to help everyone. So, if you had room in your house, you would offer up a bed to somebody who'd newly arrived, people cooked communally. They were each other's sense of community. They would teach each other English. They would help each other navigate bureaucracy. It was a really close-knit but close-knit, born-from-necessity sense of community. And then by the early 60s, men were going back to East Pakistan, getting married and bringing their wives over. Because understandably, you know, want to have a family, you want to set down roots and so on.

SM:

Yes, of course.

SA:

But even then they always had this idea, well the majority had this idea that they were just going to stay for a few years and then go back home. And what ended up happening, certainly for my grandparents, was that those few years just got stretched and stretched and stretched out because once they had their children and saw their children living in the UK and the opportunities that were available for them and Bangladesh or East Pakistan at the time still being so economically deprived. I think it was very hard for people to make that decision to uproot their children and take them back. So, I think there was a shift of dreams for a lot of people, people who kind of came and saw themselves as being temporary, transient, and then suddenly realizing that actually, no, this was it. And I think there's a certain amount of pain and displacement that never went acknowledged. And as I was writing this book, and I think for me as well in a very different circumstance, but having lived in different countries at different points in my adult life, I feel like I had just a very tiny insight into the enormity of how hard that must have been for them. So, my grandma actually talks about, she talks about it as before 68 and after 68. And... She says before 1968, the people around her, her neighbours, her white English neighbours were lovely. She said they were treated with curiosity rather than any kind of hostility. So, they were very curious about her and they wanted to know, you know, where she was from. And, you know, they enjoyed her accent. They used to call her Queen Victoria because they said she spoke English with such a posh accent because obviously she'd learnt it in East Pakistan. So yeah, she talks about her neighbours who helped look after her older children when she had to go into hospital to give birth to her younger kids. And then she says that when Enoch Powell gave his infamous rivers of blood speech in, I think it was 1968. . .

SM:

Yes.

SA:

. . . she just says that the whole culture kind of turned. And maybe he was giving a voice to a sentiment that was already there or maybe that statement made it possible for people to sort of galvanize behind this idea that it was now being put out there in the mainstream. But she speaks about... Yeah, being made to feel unwelcome after that. And I think that was news to me because obviously you have this idea that things get progressively better. And it was strange to hear it that actually it was better and then it kind of dipped. And again, as I write about it in the book, but the family really suffered personal loss as a result of racism in the UK in really tragic ways. My uncle was killed in a racist attack at school when he was just 13. So, this was my grandmother's middle son. And she speaks very much about not really ever being able to forgive the UK. You know, like she's, she still lives there. She splits her time between the UK and Bangladesh. But I think it took a really long time to reconcile her connection with the UK, the place that cost her son his life. Yeah.

SM:

Oh. Well, that reminds me of some of my father wanted to go back to Calcutta and get part of the surgical family we had over there and to be part of that practice, but didn't and decided to be himself and stay in Rotherham and all that kind of area when he was moving around then. But that's a, it's an idea that people from Bangladesh, from all over the migrant communities all discovered when they got to England. I don't remember Enoch Powell saying what he said because I was four or five or something, but I know all about it.

But let's talk about, okay, we've talked about that and I think that's cleared it up for people about Bangladesh and East Pakistan and Bengal because I think they needed that to really understand it. But let's talk about the food, shall we? Because that's so great. You tell us, and I've not heard this before, you eat with your hands, eat with others, eat with joy. And shamefully, I've lost a lot of contact with my Bengali family. So, could you tell us about this joy that you get eating with people? And eating with your hands, which I've totally lost now.

SA:

Yeah, so it's funny, eating with hands has become such a topic of interest recently.

SM:

Yeah.

SA:

So, I actually wrote an article for Observer Food Monthly a couple of years ago about eating with your hands and it completely blew up in the nicest possible way and I got asked to do so many radio interviews and podcast recordings and so on.

SM:

Oh that's great.

SA:

And I think it really, for me, it was a real surprise and I think it speaks to this kind of search of a visceral connection that we have with our food. And, you know, people talk about different practices to try and ground ourselves. I don't know if you've heard of this, but the idea of walking around barefoot outside for like five minutes a day. And the idea is that you ground yourself, you connect yourself to the earth through your feet. I...

SM:

Not in LA you wouldn't. Not in LA. Because there's too many dogs.

SA:

No, because in LA, people...Well, in LA, people buy grounding mats. So, they will buy a mat that has some kind of synthetic fake grass and they'll put it in their offices and walk on that barefoot. And the idea is that that would connect you. I think it's...

SM:

I doesn’t make much sense, but anyway...

SA:

No, it really doesn't. But I kind of feel like this idea of eating with your hands speaks to this deep need, I think we actually have, societally, to want to feel closer and connected.

So, yeah, eating with your hands is, it's not really a big deal in Bengali culture, it's just what we do. So, it's interesting to me that it's so interesting to others. But yes, there's etiquette around it. You always eat with your right hand. Muslims and Christians and Hindus alike, know, whatever religious background, you'd all observe that practice of eating with your right hand, always washing your hands before, washing your hands after. And I think it's also it speaks to the way that we compile our meals. So, it's quite similar to if you're listening as a familiar with Thai food, you know, it's such a shame if you go to a Thai restaurant and you just order your green curry and your jasmine rice and you just eat that. The way that you really enjoy a Thai feast is to then, you know, the four of you, let's say, order eight different dishes and mix of salads and soups and fried things and a couple of curries and so on and you have a little bit of everything.

And that's very much how Bengali food is. You have your rice, you would have a vegetable dish, you'd have a fish dish, you might have a dal, you would have some sort of fried snacky parts. And it's about sharing, you know, you all have a little bit of everything. And I think the idea of eating with your hands just makes it that much more personal and I think in some ways informal. You're not separated from your food by an implement. You're not separated. You would have serving spoons, you know, you would serve from the communal dishes with spoons, but once it's on your own plate, you would eat with your hands. So yeah, and I think it's hard for that to not be a joyful experience when you're with people you know and love and you've got delicious food and you're all eating it in this sort of way that lends itself to sharing and conversation. And certainly my experiences of eating with family are always joyful actually. And now that I'm speaking about it with you, I realize how much of a privilege that has been.

SM:

Oh, that's fantastic, and that that brings it back for me. I like I said, I never ate with my hands and in fact when my parents or my father came over he was taught how to eat with a knife and a fork rather than just eat. . . so he refused and this was actually a key thing for him. He refused to teach us Bengali. He refused and that was part of our bringing up here in the well in the UK because you did away with all of that and that was very hard. Again, that's why I don't speak Bengali. But let's talk about... No, no, please.

SA:

Yeah, that in itself is really interesting. Sorry, if I may, I just find that really interesting because I'm really sad for your father because he clearly thought that he was doing the best for you, the best by you to have you integrate in and not be marked out as different. And I think it is almost a positive thing that I think now it would be very different actually. I think now you're getting...

SM:

it would be totally different though.

SA:

. . . more and more children are raised bilingually. Schools are much more receptive to children speaking home languages at school.

SM:

None of that.

SA:

Even when I was at school, was yeah, even when I was at school, we were very much taught not to speak home languages. And now you've got nurseries that are teaching kids three year olds Mandarin. So there you go, things have changed a lot.

SM:

They have changed.

But let's talk about British Indian cuisine because that was the first point that even here in America, Bangladeshis were the ones who owned the restaurants, they created the restaurants and they created, well not chicken tikka masala because I was up in Scotland and I met the Pakistani gentleman who created the chicken tikka masala which was fascinating.

SA:

Oh wow.

SM:

He was, yes, at the Shishmahal restaurant. He died fairly recently, but he was a fantastic person. And his children still run the restaurant, the Shishmahal.

SA:

That's lovely.

SM:

Yeah, very interesting. But they used to create a lot of dishes just for the UK, and then the UK moved to Australia, to all these different places, and then to the United States as well. So, the Bangladeshi, how do you think they got to all those places and will you tell us what you think?

SA:

So I'm trying to think of how to best answer this. So in the UK, lots of Indian restaurants were founded and run and are still run by Bangladeshi families.

SM:

Yeah, absolutely.

SA:

So, the Bangladeshi or well, Bengali presence in the UK is really, really long. It started with the Lashkas, the sailors from Bengal who sailed all over the world and settled in some places. And so we've got really early accounts of Bengalis being in places like London and Liverpool in the UK. And then obviously the post-commonwealth migration as well. And I think it's just a testament that Bangladeshis. . . It’s true. You kind of turn up anywhere, you go on holiday to any place and you'd always find, if you find your local Indian restaurant, nine out ten times they're Bangladeshi. And so, whenever I go on holiday with my parents, it's always so lovely that one of the first things they do is to try and find an Indian restaurant and then get chatting with the people who run it, who invariably are Bengali or Bangladeshi. And then we order off the menu because they're like, we can't possibly give you what we serve everyone else because it's not the real deal. We'll give you what we cook.

SM:

It isn't the real deal.

Yeah.

SA:

I feel like Indian restaurant food is often criticized as being inauthentic, in quotes. And I challenge this idea of authenticity because actually I think Indian food is so diverse, you know, you can't lump all of it in one.

SM:

Yes, there's 27 states and very different food which we'll talk about.

SA:

Absolutely. Of course, and variation within those places as well. Even Bangladeshi food, you know, there's huge regional differences.

SM:

Yeah. yeah. Well, even from household to household, it's very different.

SA:

Yeah, absolutely. And so, I believe that this should be an idea of shared orthodoxy. And by that, I mean, everyone is legitimate. Every way that you do is legitimate. There's no one way. There's plurality about it.

SM:

Would you say that again what you describe it as? Because this is almost a new phrase for me in terms of food. So, I love that phrase.

SA:

Yeah, well, I've not really heard anybody else say it. . .

SM:

No.

SA:

. . . so I can trademark it now. But yeah, this idea of shared orthodoxy when you're talking about authenticity, because there's often a battle, isn't there, of what's the authentic dish for this, or what's the authentic way to make that? And I think we need to recognize exactly what you just said. There's differences in terms of households, let alone from state to state. And I would include British or, you know, mainly British Indian restaurants in that as well. Their curries are just different. They hit differently. They cook differently. It's its own genre.

SM:

That's how I describe it.

SA:

And it's just true that the chicken curry that my mum cooks. Yeah, exactly. The chicken curry tastes nothing like the way that my mum cooks it. And yet it's still delicious. And sometimes that's what I fancy and that's okay.

SM:

I love that because that's how I always describe BIR, British Indian Restaurant cooking, because it's delicious, but it's not what you would find in India or Bangladesh or Pakistan. It's totally different, but it can be really, really beautiful. And it's like I would describe American Italian in the same way.

SA:

Yes, that's a very good, yeah, yeah.

SM:

That's the same way. would just, it's a totally different cuisine than being in Italy. And it's the same with the, so I wanted people to understand that, that if you eat the Indian food, chicken tikka masala, phal, all those dishes, or even the dishes that carry some of the names over from India or from Bangladesh, they're totally different. And the staff curries and we'll talk about some of those in a few moments, the staff curries are what I want to eat because they remind me more of Bengal of Calcutta of the bung food sometimes of all that kind of thing. So that's a. . . . I mean that to me is something that's really exciting and what's happening now though we're getting more and more places from each of the states and all the states of Bangladesh and all the areas of Pakistan. And what do you think of those? Because now people are beginning to eat, I hate to use the word, but the more authentic regions of these. And how do you think they're tasting those in America and wherever you're being? How do you think they're tasting those? And why does Bengali food or the whole region of Bengal not come in as much as that? Why do you think Bengali food isn't as popular as Keralan or Goan or it just isn't? Why would you think that is?

SA:

Yeah, so I think there's many different sort of strands to that. So, I lived in the States for a year and that's the extent of my knowledge and understanding of Indian subcontinental cuisine in the States. I can speak with much more sort of knowledge about the UK.

But I think a lot of it is to do with the familiarity of the clientele with those places. So, places like Kerala and Goa are just much more on the tourist map. And so the likelihood is that people have eaten that or at least are aware of that kind of food because they've been to the places or they know somebody who's been to the places or they've seen it on TV and so on. Sadly, Bangladesh has always been talked about until very recently in terms of climate crisis. I mean, that's still going on, but climate crisis, you know, deprivation to some degree. And that's really changing now. Bangladesh is actually moving out. Soon it's going to stop being a low economic developed country and it's going to be reclassified as a middle income country.

SM:

Oh that's interesting. Because I know a lot of the times I hear about Bangladesh is because of accidents there or. . .

SA:

Yeah.

SM:

. . . you know, what do you call it, the floods or the all of this.

SA:

Exactly.

SA:

And that's in America, the only time I see it is on the news and they're going, this is a flood that ruins blah, blah, blah.

SA:

Yeah, absolutely.

SM:

And that's to me is not what a country is you know that it's so tell me about that with Bangladesh? When you go to Bangladesh, what kind of foods are you eating because I’ve got here you know we're going to have a. . . Well let's talk about it.

So, let's talk about some of the staples that we have in the Bengali Bangladeshi cupboards would you be able to name just five of your favorite ingredients and then we'll talk about some of the foods. And perhaps we could include Panch Phoron, which they have in Bangladesh, they have everywhere. And that's a particular breed of spices, should we say. And mustard oil, which again is very interesting. And that's something I guess that a lot of people in the US and UK don't really know that much. So perhaps you could talk to us about those if you could.

SA:

Yeah, yeah, so in terms of five key staple, like, favourite ingredients, I call them sort of like my cupboard staples are rice, lentils, red lentils, ghee, I would include in there, panch phoron, the spice mix that you just mentioned, and I'll happily speak a little...

SM:

So how would you just, sorry to interrupt.

SA:

No, not at all.

SM:

How would you describe Panch Phoron to people who don't know it?

SA:

Yes, so Panch Phoran literally means, well, Panch is five, so it's a five spice mix. And they are sort of the quintessential Bangladeshi flavors. So fennel seed, nigella seeds, brown mustard seeds, fenugreek. And then the fifth one changes. Sometimes people use cumin, sometimes people use celery seed.

SM:

Oh. I've not heard of celery seed. That's interesting.

SA:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And sometimes people use yellow mustard rather than black mustard. So even then the recipe isn't necessarily like, 100 % consistent, but it's a pinch of that in anything. . .

SM:

Anything.

SA:

. . . will instantly take it from in anything. So, you can use it in vegetables, delicious in vegetables, in dahl, in chicken, like in a light sort of chicken curry with lots of tomatoes and then a big pinch of that would be delicious and some green chilli, fresh green chilli as well. And I think probably the other one, the other ingredient I would say is integral is fresh green coriander to make something taste Bangladeshi.

SM:

Oh. All of that so I'm getting excited that because we're talking about the thing. And so when you talk about the food you use this phrase that I don't know but it's called the Bengali art of Antaz?

SA:

Antaz, yes.

SM:

Yeah, so tell me what how that works?

SA:

Yeah, so antaz is like estimation, guesstimation, like an informed, yeah, like an educated guess, let's say. So, if you were to ask my mum or any of my aunties a recipe for something, they'd say, oh use like a bit of onion and then a bit of ginger and some garlic. And then I'd say, how much? And they'd say, just use your antaz, just antaz, which just means like guess. And I suppose what they’re talking about is like, the idea of intuition and look at it and make that judgment yourself, which is actually, it's daunting if you don't know what you're doing, but if you watch other people and you see how they do it, it does inspire a certain amount of confidence in you that you can then judge. And I think it forces the chef out of their comfort zone of having like a written set of recipes and more forcing them to be able to wing it, to trust their gut, to make it work. And I think it makes you a much better cook if you develop this art, this idea of antaz. And I think it goes with this willingness to get it wrong sometimes, you know, it's trial and error. Sometimes you might undersalt, sometimes you might oversalt, but that's okay because you're learning how to do it.

SM:

That to me is really interesting because when I was in New York a lot and I still have relatives there, they, the auntie, always used to say when she was cooking, and I still remember she would stand on a stool because she couldn't reach the pots, I would always ask her. What do you put in this? How do you make that? And I'd always go with my notebook there. And she would always go, ectu, which means a little. And I'm going, but you have very small hands, it's tiny. And I have very big hands. And I was going, how does that work? There must be a recipe for it somewhere. She goes, no. And I would always remember this when she'd call it what's called a Ghonto. And would you describe to people what a ghonto is?

SA:

A Ghonto as in like a lentil dish with a fish head in it? Yeah, yeah, it's a specialty.

SM:

Yeah, and so, yeah, and she would always be just putting a tiny bit of something and I was going, what is that? So, that kind of thing is the same thing you're talking about. And I could never make it. But the other thing that I think, which is true of all aunties and other, they don't want you to know it. That's the other thing.

SA:

Yeah.

SM:

They don't want you to know it because then you don't need them. So, they'll always say a little, ectu, a little bit of this, a little bit. And I think that's very important as well.

SA:

That's really interesting. So, I actually did write a piece about the art of handing down recipes. And then I talk about this exactly that, you know, this reluctance sometimes to share something to, to give it away, or maybe deliberately leaving out one of the ingredients. And, as you say, can see why people would do it and the way that you sort of described it, you know, then you wouldn't need them. Doesn't it make me think about it in a slightly different way, actually. Because I prefer to share. So, one of my biggest fears is that I will share a recipe with someone and then they'll come back to me and they'll say, no, that there's something missing, that something's not quite right. And then it turns out that I've inadvertently missed something out or I've missed out a step because I don't want to feel like I'm holding back on people. So, I'm very much of the opposite in that I want to share these recipes and have people make it their own. And I love the idea that people now all over the world are cooking out of my book and cooking family recipes that I've got from other people, tweaked it a bit, made my own. Yeah, it's lovely feeling.

SM:

It's okay. That's a great feeling as well. This is interesting though how the aunties all kind of different and they sometimes didn't even put an ingredient in if you were watching and put an ingredient in if you weren't watching. Very fascinating and I think that yeah.

SA:

No, it's really fascinating, yeah.

SM:

So, let's talk about some of the recipes and I don't talk about too much because I want people to buy your book and it's a great book.

SA:

Thank you.

SM:

But let's talk about one or two of them. Let's talk about something that my mother, I say a Welsh mother who used to cook a lot of Bengali food. She used to spend time in the compound, in the kitchen, in the middle. And that's all the time she could spend doing cooking. And she didn't have anything else to do in Calcutta. So, all she did was go and learn how to cook. Bengali food being a Welsh woman, which is very interesting.

SA:

I'd love to hear more about her experiences to be honest. I mean, I'd love to hear about how she found it and learning a completely different flavour palette as an adult and so on. I'd love to hear more.

SM:

I would, well they're both, they passed away a few years ago. Well my mother died of leukemia quite a few years ago now, nearly 17 or 18 years ago. My father passed away only two or three years ago and so, but he used to cook so they've got dishes here and I'll just mention a few of them and maybe you could describe which ones you want to describe. The first one was Begun Bhaja.

SA:

Mm-hmm.

SM:

So, tell us about that. So, tell us what it is. Because again, a lot of people won't necessarily understand what it is. And then maybe just a little bit about how that's made, because that's one of my favorite dishes.

SA:

Yeah, so Begun Bhaja is also one of my favorites. It's really very simple. So, an aubergine, the Bengali aubergines tend to be the long, slender, sort of Japanese style aubergines.

SM:

Yep.

SA:

So, you would cut them slightly differently. So, with a long, slim aubergine, you would sort of slit down the middle and then cut into chunks, maybe about two or three inches long, and then you would score the skin. And the idea of scoring the skin is then the spices that you rub into it permeate into the vegetable itself. So, you would use a bit of salt, a bit of turmeric, a bit of red chilli powder, and that can be it. Or you can also add a pinch of tandoori powder as well, if you like that.

SM:

Oh, I've never heard that.

SA:

Yeah, that kind of changes the colour a bit. I actually just really like it with chili and turmeric and salt. That's enough for me, but some people do like to use that pinch. And then if you're using a round aubergine, like the big sort of globe ones, you just cut it into rings and score the flesh. And you just rub that spice mix in and then fry it. And this is always a bit that shocks everyone. You need so much more oil than you think. You don't want to deep fry them. You are shallow frying, but aubergines are like sponges and they soak up all of the oil. And so, you just need to close one eye. You're going to need the other eye to see what you're doing, but you just kind of have to go for it basically because it's worth it. And you cook it until it's golden brown and slightly crispy on one side. Flip it over, do it on the other side. You can pop the lid on as well and that helps it get soft. And it's just beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. It's just the easiest thing in the world.

SM:

I make that all the time. And what you said is perfect. You always go, it's worth adding all the oil because it's worth it. And I love that. I always find in each of the interviews, I get so much from all the amazing people, Jacques Pepin and all of these incredible people. But it's usually one little thing that always sticks with me and get at you saying that about Bengali food always makes me feel oh. Okay. Let's talk about Magshor Jhol because that's that to me is again something that I love and usually something I ask if they have any staff curries at a restaurant. That's what I always ask them for and they they're going but it'll be because they don't think I'm Indian. They'll always think no, no that won't be suitable for you usually suitable.

SM:

And I go, no, no, I won't do it. So tell me what makes your job is and how you would prepare it.

SA:

Yeah, so Magshor Jhol is the most easy straightforward way to make a meat curry of any description. You can use mutton or goat or lamb or beef. But it's always on the bone and that's what gives the curry its sort of depth of flavour. And I think that's why in restaurants you would often find it on the staff menu rather than on the main menu because and rightly or wrongly, I think Indian slash Bengali restaurants have assumed that the clientele are scared of bones and they don't want it. What's interesting though is the Pakistani restaurants. So, I grew up just near Bradford. And so, most of the restaurants that we used to go to when I was a kid were Pakistani run. And crucially, the Pakistani restaurants cater to a Pakistani audience. They are their clientele. And so, the food, I think, is much more traditional and what people are used to having. And there the meat is always on the bone and it's always so good. It's so delicious. And now I can tell I'm making you hungry.

SM:

You are making me very hungry.

SA:

But yeah, Magshor Jhol is... So Magshor Jhol is, yeah, a meat of your choice with the bones in. Some onions, garlic, ginger, and then the spices. You use a mix of whole spices and ground spices. You want the whole spices because they give the aroma. So, you want black cardamom, green cardamom, whole cinnamon sticks or cassia bark, a couple of bay leaves. And for your ground spices, you would use cumin, coriander, chilli powder, turmeric, and I feel like I'm forgetting something now, but salt, obviously. And you basically pretty much throw it into a pan, stir it really well, put a... good load of oil in and let it bubble away for a couple of hours. Depending on what kind of meat you have, it can be anywhere between two and three hours and you're left with just the most beautiful dish. Your onions will melt and that's how you know that your food is ready. The onions will melt and the oil will rise to the top and that's how you know that it's done. Yeah.

SM:

Yep. Oh, you're making me feel so hungry.

My mother would always create a fish finger, fish sticks, Magshor Jhol for both. And that's because my father, this was his favorite dish in the world because you couldn't get anything else. So, my mother used fish sticks and it was something I learned to love. And so I know you talk about Dim Bhuna, the hard boiled egg curry, and that's something that she just cooked for your father I believe and I'd love to know what that is because I'd actually love to be able to cook it. I cook all kinds of hard-boiled egg curries here but I've never tried that one.

SA:

Oh, fantastic. Well, I hope you do give it a go. So yes, and my mum would make this Dim Bhuna or egg curry. And I call it the emergency egg curry because that's when it came out. If they hadn't had a chance to get to the shops and all we had were these store-bought ingredients, this is what we would have. So, she made it for the whole family. And my sisters and my dad absolutely loved it. I was never that much of a fan, but now I've really come back to it. And I think it's because I'm a mother. And I have two small kids and I'm really busy and I just think it's brilliant. You know, it's nutritious. It's, it tastes really good. So, you make a sauce base of onions, garlic. You can add a bit of ginger if you like and tomatoes. And then the spices you use are the usual, I say, sort of your chili, cumin, chili, cumin, coriander, a bit of chili, turmeric. Can't remember if I said that.

SM:

Yeah, it's almost like the sofrito of it. That's how I describe it.

SA:

Yes, that's exactly it. That's exactly it. Yes, yeah, that is exactly it. And then you cook that until it's all soft and pulpy and delicious and you don't want to rush that part because that's where you get the flavour. So, while that's bubbling away, you boil your eggs, hard boil them, and by the time your eggs have been boiled, hard boiled, cooled, shelled, then your sauce is ready. And then you combine the two, warm it through, and then that's just such a simple, easy dish. You can have it with rice or roti. Yeah.

SM:

That makes me feel again so happy when I hear of this food that's similar to what my mother cooked and my father sometimes cooked it for my mother and my mother adored Bengali food and actually the thing she enjoyed most of all were the desserts which makes me I'm just gonna because I was disappointed that you didn't mention Misthi Doi because that's my favorite. And I think maybe though that's from a different state, but it was always in Calcutta that I remember it being eaten and it was in a bowl and I just loved Mishti Doi. So tell me about what you mentioned some desserts. Tell me what your favorite dessert was.

SA:

Yeah, so my favourite dessert is Shemai, which is vermicelli pudding. So, you use very, very thin vermicelli, not the Italian or the Chinese type. They're too thick and the strands are not fine enough. You want the really brittle type that you sometimes see in Middle Eastern sweets. It's like a topping. And you cook that with ghee and milk and whole spices, cardamom, cinnamon, and sugar, some coconut, sultanas, and sort of just cook it till it's almost sort of porridge-like in consistency. And you can have that hot or cold and it's just so easy. So, when I have friends over for dinner, I will often cook that as we're standing around talking after we've had our main because it's just so easy to make, you know, within 10 minutes it's done and it fills the room with such a gorgeous smell.

SM:

Yes.

SA:

That to me is the smell of Eid morning as well. So, when we celebrate Eid, we would always wake up to the smell of the house smelling like this because my mum would be making it for our Eid breakfast.

But on what you said about Mishti Doi, it's so true, it's quintessentially Bengali but it wasn't one that we particularly grew up with and I think in Sylhet, people enjoy it but I mean I could be wrong but in our family at least it was something that we ate later on so my mum learnt how to make it from a friend of hers.

And it's funny what you were saying about leaving out a key ingredient or a key cooking step and wanting to keep your recipe your own. So, my mum tried for ages, honestly tried for months to try and perfect this because her friend gave her the recipe and she tried and she was like, it's just not working. I can't work out what it is. And it turned out that the friend hadn't told her that you need to cook this in like a water bath in the oven to cook it all the way through. When my mum figured that out, she went into overdrive. We had doi, honestly, like every two days because I think she just wanted to prove that she'd mastered it.

SM:

And tell me what Mishti Doi is and then I would love them to because it's something that when you cook it in a bath like that it will come out just perfectly and so I'd love you to describe what it is because it's a beautiful dessert.

SA:

Yeah, so Mishti Doi is, it translates to sweet yogurt, but it's so much more than sweet yogurt. I mean, it is both of those things, but it's baked. So, it's almost like a very delicate cheesecakey consistency. If you imagine something that's been cooked in a water bath, you know, you're a Banh-Marie, you would know that sort of almost jelly-like, but softer. It's almost like a crème brûlée, but without the crunchy topping. It's so beautiful. And really aromatic as well. You know, there's cardamom flavours in there as well. So, you get the aroma. People like to put pistachios on top as well sometimes. Yeah.

SM:

Oh, that's wonderful. And I think that is going to be a great way to end this particular discussion of your book and everything about it, because I think people will understand now why Bangladesh is so special. And it's moved on from the Bengal that I knew, it's moved from Pakistan and it's created this wonderful, how shall I put it, account of who it is using food and I think that's just amazing.

But what I'd love to do now is while these are fun questions, I have what I call my fun questions that I'd love to ask you as well if that's okay because I always ask these of anybody and we've had Andrew Zimmern or we've had all these people who've been on and they come up with so many good questions.

Okay, if Shahnaz was a meal, what would it be?

SA:

It would be... I would be tandoori chicken with pulao rice and the chicken sauce that comes from cooking the tandoori chicken. It's in the book under birthday chicken, but I think that would be me.

SM:

Oh, that's. . . I think I would be sitting opposite you doing that. I think that's oh. And I actually end up doing mine in the broiler oven because I don't have a we don't have an outside space here in LA. OK, now this is an interesting one.

If Shanaz had to go back in time to any meal, where would it be?

SA:

It would be my grandparents' house that they lived in until I was about 10 or 11 and then they moved. But it would be that house and it would be around the dining table in their kitchen. And the feasts were always just absolutely magnificent. And I think what I loved about it was that at the time I was the youngest of the family. So, I have many cousins, there's 14 of us, on my mum's side of the family, but I'm one of the oldest. So, at that time I was the baby of the family. And I think it's just the association of staying up late with the grownups, participating with them. And I have this really strong memory of being on a chair, but the table is too high for me. And so, I can't really see what's going on, but I still really love being there and there's lots of delicious food and people keep putting it on my plate. So yeah, I think it would be any one of those celebrations, but with all of my aunties and uncles there and my grandparents.

SM:

That would be great that would be a fantastic one. Okay, though. This is an interesting. There's only two of them.

If Shahnaz had to go back in time to see the invention of anything, what would it be?

SA:

Honestly, it would be the rice cooker. And the reason I say that is because, you know, people talk about the washing machine and the vacuum cleaner changing things for women in terms of, you know, cutting down on the domestic load and then freeing their time up to pursue work and employment and all these other things. And I'm fascinated by, yeah, the rice cooker. I think cooking rice without a rice cooker is an art.

SM:

I agree.

SA:

And I'm pleased to say that my mum taught me very well. But just because you know how to do it doesn't mean that you have to go through the rigmarole every day. And I love my rice cooker. So yeah, I would love to go back and see who invented that and give them a big hug.

SM:

That is a blissful idea because I'm married to a Filipino lady and I'm obviously Indian. So, between us, she has the soft jasmine style rice and I have the basmati or an Indian style rice. And so between us, we kind of use them depending on the meal we're cooking. And the rice cooker is the key thing in our kitchen. It's the number one thing. It goes on 40 minutes or whatever time and then we leave it and then we can create the other stuff. So that to me is one of the best answers anyone has ever given me. So fantastic.

SA:

I'll take that. Thank you.

SM:

And finally, I would love you to describe your social media, whether you're on Instagram or all of those, you know, I don't know what they call it now, Twitter or X or whatever they call it. So, would you be able to tell us that?

SA:

Yeah, absolutely. So, my social media primarily is Instagram. So, I'm on under my name, Shahnaz.Ahsan on Instagram. And also my Substack, which is Scribbles and Dribbles. And it's also under my name, Shahnaz Ahsan. I don't use X or Twitter. And I'm much happier for leaving that behind. But yeah, they're my two main socials.

SM:

Oh fantastic.

SA:

And I also have a website, which is www dot ShahnazAhsan dot com.

SM:

I will tell you that has been one of the most fascinating discussions of a country, of anything we've done. So, thank you for that.

SA:

Thank you, Simon. That's really so kind. And thank you so much for inviting me on.

OUTRO MUSIC

SM:

Make sure to check out the website associated with this podcast at www.EatMyGlobe.com where we will be posting the transcripts from each episode, along with all the references and resources we used putting the episodes together, in case you want to delve deeper into each subject. There is also a contact button, so please do let us know if there are any subjects that you would like us to cover.

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Thank you and goodbye from me, Simon Majumdar, and we’ll speak to you soon on the next episode of EAT MY GLOBE: Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know About Food.

CREDITS

The EAT MY GLOBE Podcast is a production of “It’s Not Much But It’s Ours” and “Producer Girl Productions.”

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We would also like to thank Sybil Villanueva for all of her help both with the editing of the transcripts and essential help with the research.