Opinion Express View on Madhur Jaffrey’s James Beard Lifetime Achievement award: A recipe for success

The turmeric-stained pages of An Invitation to Indian Cooking and A Taste of India in kitchens across the world are, perhaps, as much a testament to the enduring culinary influence of Madhur Jaffrey as the prestigious James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award that was conferred on the 89-year-old this week. Yet, food was not the young Jaffrey’s first love; it was acting.

Given Jaffrey’s prominence as chef, TV personality, writer and teacher/mentor, it is hard to believe that she began cooking only at the age of 19, when she moved from Delhi to London on scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She decided to get familiar with the ways of the kadhai and karchchi only because she couldn’t bear to eat what was served in the institute’s canteen. Beginning with her mother’s hand-written recipes and making do with whatever ingredients were available to her, Jaffrey discovered a love and aptitude for cooking. It became a source of livelihood in 1966, when as a newly-divorced young mother of three, Jaffrey needed to find a way to pay the bills. She was living in the US at the time, where there were few roles for Indian actresses. Jaffrey started teaching Indian cooking and writing, with her first cookbook being published in 1973.When Madhur Jaffrey’s Cooking Show premiered on BBC in 1982, she was propelled to culinary stardom.

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For long obscured under the umbrella of “curry” — a word that Jaffrey has dismissed as a western reduction of India’s variety — food from South Asia is finally being recognised across the globe, with restaurants like Campton Place in San Francisco and Dhamaka in New York City, and chefs like Garima Arora and Gaggan Anand earning critical acclaim. The recent honour for Jaffrey only underlines her role in the journey to this moment.