'[Sumayya Usmani is] the go-to expert in Pakistani cuisine' - BBC
Good Food Magazine
'Sumayya Usmani is a brilliant storyteller. She transports us with her
delicious descriptions of the smells and flavours of the kitchen.' -
Jay Rayner, award-winning writer and food critic
Award-winning food writer Sumayya Usmani's stunning memoir conjures a
story of what it was like growing up in Pakistan and how the women in
her life inspired her to trust her instincts in the kitchen.
From a young age, food was Sumayya's portal to nurturing, love and
self-expression. She spent the first eight years of her life at sea,
with a father who captained merchant ships and a mother who preferred to
cook for the family herself on a tiny electric stove in their cabin
rather than eat in the officer's mess.
When the family moved to Karachi, Sumayya grew up torn between the
social expectations of life as a young girl in Pakistan, and the
inspiration she felt in the kitchen, watching her mother, and her Nani
Mummy (maternal grandmother) and Dadi's (paternal grandmother)
confidence, intuition and effortless ability to build complex, layered
flavours in their cooking.
This evocative and moving food memoir - which includes the most
meaningful recipes of Sumayya's childhood - tells the story of how
Sumayya's self-belief grew throughout her young life, allowing her to
trust her instincts and find her own path between the expectations of
following in her father's footsteps as a lawyer and the pressures of a
Pakistani woman's presumed place in the household. Gradually, through
the warmth of her family life, the meaning of 'andaza' comes to her:
that the flavour and meaning of a recipe is not a list of measured
ingredients, but a feeling in your hands, as you let the elements of a
meal come together through instinct and experience.
Recipes include:
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Nani Mummy's prawn karahi
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Potatoes with curry leaves and turmeric
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Chicken boti tikka, Bundoo Khan style
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Mummy's wedding-style chicken korma
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Bitter lemon, mustard seed and garlic pullao
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Dadi's banana and fennel seed gulgulay doughnut
'I can't decide whether I want to devour Sumayya's story or her recipes
first, but this has left me hungry to travel, to explore... and, of
course, to eat.' - Felicity Cloake, Guardian food columnist and author
of Perfect, The A-Z of Eating and One More Croissant for the Road
