Interview Madhur Jaffrey
Currying
flavour
Not only an actress and a writer, Madhur WORDS BY FIONA SHIELD
Jaffrey is accredited with being one of the
leading chefs that popularised Indian food
across the UK. Kitchen Angels discovers the
secrets to her success, invaluable culinary
tips and what food means to her
You didn’t actually begin cooking until you were 20, what made you Do you think the two careers have a lot in common?
decide to start? I think so. The BBC was looking for somebody to do an Indian cookery
I grew up in a very large household where the food was absolutely show, mainly as an educational programme. They heard about me and
marvellous and there were always at least 30 people for dinner and asked if I would send a tape. So I pretended I was giving a class and for
lunch. Sometimes if there was a festival it became 100, the cooking was that an actor’s training did help. Then I had to go in for an audition and do
wonderful. In the winter all the boys and men went hunting so there was it in a studio without any ingredients or props, so again, I had to pretend
deer and venison and duck and geese, and we had a lot of our own everything was in front of me and act. When they decided they wanted me,
vegetables. I grew up on a steady diet of excellent home cooking. a new career was born. I’m very precise and exact about my cooking, and
Then when I moved to England in the late fifties to be a student at the I do demand a lot of myself. My books I do all by myself, I have no helpers. I
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art I found there was very little Indian food of think that’s very bad in a way, but I worry it will not be done right. I’ve always
any quality to be had, so I started writing letters to my mother to ask her to felt that from day one with all my books.
teach me how to cook, and asking for specific recipes. The strange thing
was I found I could actually remember the taste of dishes, so even though If you put together the recipes yourself you must enjoy experimenting
TURES
my mother sent me a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, by adjusting it I with food?
was able to arrive at the exact taste of the food when it was cooked back I do, I eat a lot of different food because I just can’t help it. I think that
at home. So I started with these very few dishes and I went from there. happens with all people who have a very developed palate; you
remember the taste of things. For example, when you go to the market
Did you ever imagine these recipes would develop into such a career? you see, let’s say risotto with beans; you are looking at the beans and
I had no idea, I’m an actress and that’s what I trained to do. I was not thinking, ‘I can cook them this way with this ingredient and that ingredient,’
trained to be a chef, I really didn’t even think of the possibility of a career. I and you mentally taste it. It’s like virtual cooking; you can do it in your
© JOHN CHAPPLE/REX FEA was hijacked into cookery! head, if you’ve recorded the taste. }
winter 2008 KITCHENANGELS 69
KA13.InterviewMadhur.vp.indd 69 19/8/08 9:37:37 pm
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