Shahnaz Ahsan's British-Bangladeshi Kitchen
Photo by Tracey Aiston
On this month's Lecker Book Club, a regular interview series with authors writing in or adjacent to food culture, The Jackfruit Chronicles by Shahnaz Ahsan.
The Jackfruit Chronicles is a recipe book and memoir hybrid which integrates food into the text in a very specific way. In the book, Shahnaz tells the story of her family’s migration - three generations across three continents - which begins with the arrival of her grandfather Habib in Manchester from Bangladesh in the 1950s.
You can still sign the open letter which Shahnaz was involved in creating and circulating, calling on Keir Starmer to take action over the Israeli government’s deliberate and systematic campaign to use starvation as a weapon of war against the Palestinian people of Gaza. Link here.
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The Jackfruit Chronicles is out now. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list. [aff link]
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You can find this episode’s transcript below the embed. Please note that this transcript is auto-generated by Descript and may contain unintended errors.
[00:00:11] Lucy: This is Lecker. I'm Lucy Dearlove. this month's book Club Pick: The Jackfruit Chronicles by Shahnaz Ahsan.
[00:00:20] Shahnaz: It's a fruit that, as I say in the book. It's almost a, a part-time hobby for most Diaspora Bangladeshi to try and find where can they source this fruit.
[00:00:30] Lucy: I love the Jackfruit Chronicles, a recipe book and memoir hybrid, which integrates food into the text itself.
As you'll hear us discuss in this conversation in a very specific way that works so well in the book, Shahnaz tells us the story of her family's. Migration, three generations across three continents, which begins with the arrival of her grandfather Habib in Manchester from Bangladesh in the 1950s. It's a deeply personal and emotional narrative with tragedy, comedy, struggle, and love at the heart, but it's also a meticulously researched account of Bangladeshi experience in the uk, a story which hasn't really been widely told up until this point.
Shahnaz Assan is an author and food writer who grew up in West Yorkshire and currently lives with her family in Zimbabwe. She's previously published a novel, has Shemen family, and this element of her work I think is really apparent in the rich style, very descript. And also the confidence of her writing.
I found this book really captivating and it was a real pleasure to get lost in the story. I asked Shahnaz to explain a little bit more about the Jack Freit Chronicles to get us started.
[00:01:51] Shahnaz: The full title is the Jackfruit Chronicles. Colon memories and recipes from a British Bangladeshi kitchen. And that really just sort of sum sums it up. Really, it is a collection of recipes and personal history of my family. So it follows the story of my grandparents and parents and me and our movement and migration through three different continents in three different generations.
And in it, I explore the food that we eat along that journey. How we use different ingredients, how we make what we would consider to be traditional recipes, and then how that changes with each generation and the food that we eat being informed by our environments. And I also try and look at the broader British Bangladeshi community as well.
Mm. It's a migrant community that has contributed so much to British society, and I say that with hesitation because I feel like the conversation often is about. Migrant communities having to bring something, having to offer something. This idea of a good immigrant, and actually I think that's, um, an expectation that is placed upon migrant communities, perhaps unfairly.
But to take it back a step, the Bangladeshi community in the UK is really long, well established, and not very much has written about it. Not very much has known about it, even in terms of food culture. It's not really as. Popular as I believe it should be. And so I wanted to sort of tell the story of the cuisine through the story of my family.
So yeah, I guess it's a story that has lots of different. Pros to it and food and taste being the major one.
[00:03:29] Lucy: Yeah, I love that. That's really interesting as well, because it's hard, it is important to kind of draw that line, isn't it? That like, yes, it's really important to celebrate the contributions of what people have brought to this country over the years and the fact that this country, in so many ways would not be what it is without, without the British Bangladeshi community.
But at the same time, it's like you don't. It's not a, it shouldn't be a requirement. Um, so yeah, I appreciate you drawing that distinction. So tell us a little bit about the significant of jackfruit. So we kind of start and end the book, like there's almost like this circularity to it where we begin with a jackfruit or begin with a, a number of jackfruit and we end with it.
What is so significant about the jackfruit to you and your family?
[00:04:11] Shahnaz: Yeah, so the jackfruit is significant, not just to me and my family, but to. All Bangladesh is, it is actually the national fruit of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a country. It was only established in 1971, and so I think it carries that. Thing that very recently established countries seem to have where they want a national everything.
So you have a national flower and a national fruit, um, a national bird. And the jackfruit is a national fruit because I feel it's not unique to Bangladesh. It's also eaten across Southeast Asia and in parts of Eastern Africa as well. But. It is very distinctive to the cuisine. And for those who are not familiar with jackfruit in its original form, it's absolutely huge.
It's an it, it's a massive fruit weighing anywhere between, I think about five and 18 kilos. It can be at, at it, at its heaviest. And so it's a fruit that is made for sharing. You wouldn't ever just buy a jackfruit for you and your family. That's just not how it works. So with it comes this idea of communality.
[00:05:15] Lucy: Hmm.
[00:05:16] Shahnaz: Which I find really important and powerful, and it carries a lot of memories as well. So for me, the jackfruit was a thing that we had when we went to my grandparents' house, my grandfather would buy it in from the market, especially there was a big spectacle, a big ceremony about cutting it up and dividing it, and we'd go around to neighbors and take them margarine tubs full of this fruit.
Mm-hmm. So calling the book the Jackfruit Chronicles was. A nod to the uniqueness of this fruit, and it was a decision that I actually had to take really seriously as well. Because, you know, lots has been written about recently about the South Asian diaspora and writing sort of what's in quotes, mango poetry.
So this idea of using fruit as almost like a cliche. So you know, talking about mangoes and pomegranates and so on. Yes, it can be very evocative, but does it descend into cliche somewhere along the line as well? And I felt like jackfruit was something that was authentic enough or unique enough to, to still be relevant.
I think
[00:06:22] Lucy: that, again, seems very unfair, doesn't it? Because it's so, like these stories and these voices have only really been heard in the mainstream in this like very short amount of time. And it seems unfair to call it. Cliche when it's, I dunno, maybe the first chance that people have had to like recognize that their stories have this, like resonance more broadly than just themselves.
So, but yeah. Yeah, I know what you mean. Like the, yeah, the kind of cut fruit thing as well. Like I definitely have read a lot of personal essays on that, on that theme. Yeah, absolutely. But you know, they're important stories.
[00:06:48] Shahnaz: They're important stories and they exist for a reason, you know, like it's not to do anyone down.
It's true, you know, like pomegranates and mangoes and so on, and the ceremony of cut fruit, it resonates with so many people because it's so true. Mm. And so I didn't want to completely sort of abandon that because I do also think that it is a channel, but I wanted to sort of put a, a distinctly Bangladeshi sort of take on that.
[00:07:11] Lucy: Yeah. Makes, um,
[00:07:11] Shahnaz: I make it even more, more specific in a way. So yeah, in a way you can be. More universal, the more specific you are.
[00:07:18] Lucy: I completely agree with that. Which is interesting, isn't it? And it can be quite tricky to like start that thinking process, but it really does. Yeah, it really does work. One thing I find really interesting about the book is that it's, I guess, somewhat unusual in terms of its format or structure and I mean, maybe you don't agree with this, but um, yeah, I'm interested to like hear your thoughts on it.
So it is very much. You know, it's a food book, but it's simultaneously a memoir and a recipe book. But instead of, you know, I, I kind of have like a small amount of beef with getting a narrative memoir where the recipes feel very shoehorned and like you might get a recipe at the end of a chapter because I'm like, am I ever gonna cook from this book?
Like, what is the purpose of the recipe here? Like, what is it bringing to. To the reader. But in this book, and I, I looked up this phrase because it really remi, when I read it, it really reminded me of it. And in a musical, in musical theater, you have non diegetic music that's diegetic. So diegetic music is when the music exists and the narrative of the story and the characters can interact with it and listen to it.
And it like it, it affects them. And the recipes in this book are diegetic because they are very much like. Affecting your characters, your family. Mm-hmm. You know, the story. It's like you're within it and the recipes bring so much because you feel like you can be there eating it with your family, and it's really powerful.
Like, I don't think I've ever really encountered, like, and the way that they're almost not even really separate from mm-hmm. The text. Like, you get a recipe and then it immediately jumps you back into the story.
[00:08:52] Shahnaz: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:53] Lucy: So where did the decision come from to structure the book like that?
[00:08:57] Shahnaz: Well, I absolutely love that.
I mean, I, I've definitely learned something new today, and I'm gonna go away and write that down because that's such a, it's such a helpful way of thinking about it and framing it, and I'm so delighted that's that's the experience that you had. Um, yeah, I mean, I think I've read similar things as well, you know, sort of memoirs where the recipes are in there.
Or there's all and no shade intended. I know there's always a
[00:09:20] Lucy: choice on the part of the writer. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:09:22] Shahnaz: And I do think there is that question of, you know, do you want the narrative flow to be interrupted or do you want it to be user friendly as well? I mean, there's an argument to say that if you have all the recipes in one section and ordered by, you know, starters, main dessert or whatever, then in a way that's actually more user friendly.
So there's always that toss up, right? So arguably the structure that I've chosen. W isn't user friendly in terms of, it's not like a cookbook where you could open it at the right section and gain inspiration for what you want to cook for dinner that night. And to answer your question about how I decided to structure it that way, I think I started writing the narrative first.
And then the recipes kind of came to me. Mm-hmm. You know, so when I was writing the section about my grandparents being pioneers and arriving in the UK and making what felt like traditional recipes, but having to use new ingredients, the recipes almost wrote themselves because there was a handful that I knew that they had cooked and they still made it that way.
So like making. A dry stir fry that we call a bhorta outta tin fish, for example. That was always gonna be in that section because that illustrates that point so beautifully. And I think that's kind of how I saw it. I saw these recipes as almost being illustrations, tastes, you know, um, of, of what it was that I was trying to portray.
So again, when I was talking about. The years of me growing up in West Yorkshire in a small town called Keithley, I thought about what, what was it like being eight or nine or 10 and going to primary school and what did I have for my pack lunches and what were my experiences and encountering sort of traditional English food in the school canteen?
And it, yeah, it just kind of happened naturally, I suppose, because I have a memory. That is almost entirely informed by food and taste, and it's something that my husband finds like hilarious, but also mind boggling at the same time. I can remember holidays based on a meal that we had. I can remember schools cafeterias based on what we ate at any particular time.
So if I'm gonna be writing something that is memoir. Uh, taste is, you know, is gonna be such a big part of that. More so even than photos and that kind of thing.
[00:11:50] Lucy: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that's really helpful to you as a writer, isn't it, as like almost a tool to help you unlock those memories. 'cause it can be really, I must, I can imagine it must be really difficult sitting down and being like, okay, what's.
The history of my life. It can, when you think about it broadly, again, like coming back to that, if you think about it broadly, it's hard to like zero in on specific things, but thinking about really specific, like, what did I have for lunch at school? Or like, you know, you write about a really specific example of, um, a classmate's packed lunch that his mom would bring in, like that kind of thing.
It's those really specific stories that Yeah, bring it to life.
[00:12:20] Shahnaz: Like I say, it's the illustration almost, and what I love about recipes and recipe writing, I mean. I'm not a professional recipe writer. Um, I, I do it more and more for work. But in terms of someone who has been trained in sort of putting together a recipe, if such training even exists, I, that's not me.
For me, it is trial and error. It's inherited, it's instructions that are given over the phone, it's instructions that are scribbled down, it's observation, and then I've tried to take all of these different elements and try and put it. Into a format that is A understandable, B, accurate enough that it does taste the way that it's supposed to taste.
And then finally is that it's also clear. Mm-hmm. So the person who's making it, who has no, I, I have to assume that the person reading this book doesn't necessarily have an understanding of what the food is supposed to taste like. So that's actually a huge amount of responsibility and it's quite a mammoth task, even you're not explaining how to make sort of a very familiar dish.
Mm. I'm having to sort of give some background context, give some idea about what it's supposed to look like, what the texture would be like, cooking times all of these things that, to me feel intuitive. And so, yeah, it does feel like each recipe was a painting almost. You know, I had to structure it, I had to think about it.
I had to think about the ingredients, the way that an artist would think about the colors. I mean, I don't mean that to sound, um, for it to be bigger than it actually is. But yeah, there's a lot of elements that go into it. So. I'm just really glad that it also then flowed with the narrative. Mm.
[00:13:59] Lucy: I think that's so beautiful.
The idea of like a recipe as kind of a visual, almost like a visual element or like a, yeah, a something that's like bigger than the words on the page. 'cause it absolutely is, and I think there's such a power in. Documentation. You know what, I know you're saying like, I don't want it to sound bigger than it is, but I think it is, it's big.
When you think about the kind of recipes that haven't historically been written down, which is often like the recipes that predominantly women make at home. They haven't always been recipes that have been considered whether the of documentation, you know, and I just love that some of the recipes are like the things that your family, like various women in your family would make for their families at home.
And I, I actually think it's so important to. To keep, like, to keep those and to archive them and otherwise they do get lost. And I, you know, you, you always kind of get people being like, oh, well you don't need a recipe for cheese on toast. But I'm like, no, I wanna know how you make it.
[00:14:53] Shahnaz: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And you know, like, like the
[00:14:54] Lucy: tuna jacket potatoes, like, I was like, oh my God, I'm definitely gonna, definitely gonna try this recipe. 'cause I obviously make my own tuna jacket potatoes. But like how does Shahnaz's family make them? Yeah, I love that.
[00:15:04] Shahnaz: And I think it kind of happened naturally in the book as well.
Like when I was putting together these recipes, there are some really elaborate ones that you would use for dinner parties. And then there's a version of my dad's brunch, which is his take on an English fry up, which is absolutely nothing like an English fry up, but for me it's got fat
[00:15:22] Lucy: peas in it. Is that right?
It's Mar is that one? Yes.
[00:15:25] Shahnaz: Yeah, that's the one. It's Marfa, these fried eggs. Toast and butter. I love that. But yeah, and like as an adult, I can look at that and think there's something so sweet and innocent almost about it. You know, this was my dad in a new environment, you know, a country that he'd been in for.
Gosh, like only a couple of years before he had kids. I mean, my sister was actually born in the UK while he was still in Bangladesh, so Wow. Yeah, he hadn't properly moved over. My mom had moved back to the UK and when she was pregnant with my sister, so he kind of had to hit the ground running, and so a way that he did that was, yeah, using these.
It's not that they have tins of marrow fat peas in Bangladesh. Right. But you know, he saw these things and thought, oh, well I kind of know that they like to have this with bread, so I'll put it together with bread. And I've kind of seen that they have eggs with it, so we'll throw that together. And that's kind of like him embracing his environment through the food.
And I think, yeah, that's such a universal thing. We all do that. And yeah, in this climate where everyone is kind of obsessed with authenticity or a correct way of doing things, it really risks negating. What I think is just as powerful, if not more powerful in a way, people claiming and making food and ingredients their own.
[00:16:43] Lucy: Yeah, totally.
[00:16:43] Shahnaz: And kind of throwing this idea of doing it the proper way out of the window because. You also have a right to innovate and make it your own.
[00:16:52] Lucy: Yeah, that's it. And I think it's, uh, I mean, as you know, there's a lot to unpack that I, it really reminds me of, I interviewed, um, the amazing British Palestinian author NS Zeba, um, quite a few months ago now, and she described as the experience of like coming to the UK and living in shared houses and there being people from lots of different backgrounds as this kind of migratory alchemy, which I really love.
Like all of these. Different elements, sort of like mixing, mixing together like somewhat mysteriously and magically. And it's about a power dynamic, isn't it? Because we, there is a lot of conversation about authenticity in food and quite often it comes down to like who is allowed to make a recipe, which is just a really boring conversation.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because anyone is allowed to make a recipe. V It's about like who is profiting from it and who has the power in that situation. That is the real question. That is another thing, another thing that I really wanna ask you about. Mm-hmm. You know, you're talking about your dad's brunch with the Marfa Peas.
There's a little section in the book about how your, your granddad and your dad both kind of adapted British, well, they essentially created a British Bangladeshi cuisine from the recipes they knew and the ingredients they had access to. And you use examples like them using Rice Krispies or even like.
Baby formula, milk powder, which is just like amazing. Such ingenuity in that kind of like creation. Yeah. Do you have any favorites of those kind of like invented, like mashup creative recipes that have stuck in your family today?
[00:18:14] Shahnaz: Oh, well the, the one that you mentioned about the Rice Krispies is a great one.
So that is like a. Spicy, crispy, crunchy snack. So the way that we would have popcorn when we go to the cinema, it's called Gel Marie. It's like a crispy puffed rice. And it's mixed with all kinds of things like nuts and green chili and coriander, and a squeeze of lime and salt. And sometimes you also have chili powder as well.
And it's just delicious. And I genuinely thought that it was made out of Rice Krispies because that's how my grandparents always made it. And then it was only when, I think one time they had the. The proper puffed rice that by that point you could get in the uk. And I realized that, oh actually this is how it's supposed to taste.
And so it was slightly less sweet, um, when you have it the authentic way. But that is one because it is just so accessible as well. I mean, yeah, for anyone who's listening, honestly, if you just wanna try something new and you've got Rice Krispies at home, just take it. You don't even have to wait for the book to look up the recipe.
Just chop up some. Red onion, some green chili, some coriander, a drizzle of mustard oil, if you've got it. Or some pepper, olive oil and some lime juice. And mix it all together. If you've got some peanuts, throw that in as well and you will Thank me.
[00:19:31] Lucy: That sounds amazing. Yeah.
[00:19:33] Shahnaz: I'm
[00:19:33] Lucy: gonna dry this. So as well as the recipes, this is the story of your family as you've described, but it's not just kind of personal recollections.
There's, it's really. Sort of intricately researched and I believe some of the arch archival work you give credit to your sister. Could you tell us a little bit about the kind of research that went into making the book and what it was like to do that?
[00:19:58] Shahnaz: Yeah, absolutely. So I studied history at university.
I did history and English, and there's a part of me that's always kind of wished that I had continued history to a higher level. And so I really wanted, it was really important for me to bring sort of historical rigor. To this piece. And for me, history is not just what is written in the books. Mm-hmm. I really believe in the power of oral testimony and recording oral histories and that kind of thing.
And so my sister Shabnam, um, she was working on a project with another British bang, she academic Dr. TAs Shakur, and he and my sister interviewed Bangladeshi in the UK who had been. Active during the 1971 War, but within the uk. And so their area of research was looking at how the diaspora supported the independence movement in Bangladesh from their base in the uk.
And I learned so much. And again, there were snippets that I had already heard about that I knew conversations that I'd overheard as a child growing up, but to see it written down in sort of this academic format. Rightly or wrongly, there is something about having something written down that makes it feel official and formal.
Yeah. And it feels like it's not lost then. And so yeah, so there was some serious academic research that I was lucky enough to be able to draw on. And with their permission, I shared that in the book and. Other parts of it were sort of interviews that I conducted within the family, so interviews with my grandmother.
And what was really interesting as well is sometimes you just need to ask the questions to find out either that nobody knows the answer, and then somebody needs to then go in and actually find out what that answer is. So. We had a whole conversation about my grandfather Habib in the book about his early years.
Mm. Because I asked my mom and she told me one thing, and then she said, check with your aunties. Then I checked with my auntie and then she said another thing, and then we checked with my grandmother, and ultimately it's my grandmother's version that made it into the book because she's the one that knows the most.
But it kind of made me realize, again, how fragile that thread is. Because at some point when there isn't my grandmother, that the authority will then become my mom as the next EL oldest person in the family. But her information might not be correct. Yeah. It just means that she's the, the person who has, she's the nearest to it.
And so that was quite an emotional thing for me, actually realizing that I really need to get this information down now. Yeah. And even if I hadn't published the book, I'm so glad that I did that, that I did the work and had it. Sort of recorded for.
[00:22:40] Lucy: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:41] Shahnaz: Our family and the generations that come afterwards.
I think that's really powerful.
[00:22:45] Lucy: Yeah, for sure. And and like you say, like, I mean it sounds like such an emotional experience because you know, there, there's this obviously like this context of like an incredibly violent colonial history, but there's also these really specific tragic events like the, there was this senseless murder of your uncle when he was a young boy.
I mean, it obviously that's, that must have been a story that you knew about anyway, but. I imagine like kind of revisiting that and trying to like access that information from the present day must have been like in incredibly affecting.
[00:23:14] Shahnaz: Yeah, absolutely. I think what I realized is how proximate all of this trauma actually is in my family.
I'm not just my family. I mean so many families have. Sadly, similar stories of, you know, um, prejudice, discrimination, violence. I mean, obviously this was an extreme case. So yes, my uncle Ahmed, he was 13 and he was murdered in school by another pupil who was also 13 in a racist attack, and it led to a. Uh, a wider inquiry into racism in Manchester schools at the time.
And so this was in 1986. It was the year before I was born. And as you say, growing up, I, I was familiar with the story. I knew about it, but in the way that children do where they kind of feel like the will started and ended with them, and it's like really hard to remember. You know, it is really hard to realize, I suppose, that anything really happened before you.
And so I knew that this had happened, but. I kind of thought that it was actually like a very long time ago. Mm. And I suppose in writing this, I realized how, how proximate it was. So when I was five years old, it had only been six years. God. Yeah. Since, you know, my parents, you know, had lost their brother.
My grandparents had lost their son. And I think in writing this, I had a renewed understanding of that we were a family in grief, we were grieving. Mm-hmm. For a really long time, and I suppose I grew up with the people around me dealing with that in the ways that they knew best. Yeah. Because it was a very different time then, you know, there weren't conversations about therapy and counseling and all of the things that I suppose now we would at least, you know, know were options, whether people try, you know, take it up or not.
But then it wasn't really even an option.
[00:25:09] Lucy: Yeah.
[00:25:10] Shahnaz: So yes, it was. It was sad and painful. On a human level, you know, just sort of recognizing what my, what my family have dealt with and what they've channeled it and turned it into as well. Yeah, that's remarkable. And so when. Yeah, so you know, my grandmother set up a school in Bangladesh in memory of Ahmed and is named after him, and it's now the district's like best performing high school, which is, you know, she wouldn't accept anything less.
So of course that's, you know, the outcome of it. And within the UK as well. There is a, uh, research archive and library as part of Manchester University, which is also named after him. Oh,
[00:25:50] Lucy: that's amazing. Yeah.
[00:25:51] Shahnaz: So, yeah, so it was really important for me to, to include that because yeah, again, it's a legacy thing, right?
Like I think lots of people are preoc, I dunno if preoccupied is the right word, but I think a conscious that, that we. We hope to have some kind of legacy, if not our own individual ones. But you know, like as a family or as a community, you know, what is our imprint because we all have one. And it did make me much more sort of aware of the importance of that in in finding meaning as well.
[00:26:24] Lucy: Yeah, that's really powerful actually, I think to think about what, what you can leave behind in a very significant way rather than like a kind of, I guess, egocentric way, which I think is how maybe some people approach that question, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, well thank you for talking about that. I know it can't be easy, um, but it is such a powerful story of the book.
I sort of had to come back to it and read it a few times to be like, wait a minute. Um, so yeah, I can't imagine what it was like for your family to go through that.
[00:26:53] Shahnaz: It was something that I really wanted to approach with sensitivity as well, because it's not, I, whenever you're writing memoir, that's not just to do with you and memoir's never really just to do with you.
It's about all the people around you and everything as well. There's a human huge amount of sensitivity and respect as well.
[00:27:09] Lucy: Yeah.
[00:27:10] Shahnaz: And so I didn't ever want to be exploitative and so I had to check that everybody was happy with. The presentation, the depiction and so on. And there was a huge amount of trust as well.
So my grandma just sort of said, I'm so glad that you want to know. Like, I'm so glad that you care enough. And so she kind of almost gave me her, her blessing, like her, her full permission to write, you know, she trusted me that what I would write would be the right thing, if that makes sense. It does. Yeah.
And so. Yeah. When you're given that, I think you take it really seriously.
[00:27:44] Lucy: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And that's kind of a sort of an important lesson, is it that if you come to these things with the right intention, I think there can be a nervousness around them, but actually like to confront it head on and to remind the people that like he's being remembered, he's still cared about.
That is really powerful. Mm-hmm. So, as you mentioned, you grew up in, in Keithley, in Yorkshire. What was that experience like in terms of what you were eating? So any sort of key moments that influenced your relationship with, with food then that has affected how you, how you cook and eat now?
[00:28:22] Shahnaz: Yeah.
Absolutely. Um, Yorkshire Puddings is the obvious one. Um, is the obvious one. And I think it's also 'cause it baffled my dad for a really long time because obviously pudding is sweet. What is this weird batter thing that kind of by itself isn't anything, and yet they're all serving with gravy And yeah. So I kind of feel like we all educated each other on this kind of thing.
And again, like I say in the book, we were really educated by the school canteen in terms of what English food was. So my mom and her siblings attended school in the UK in the seventies, so they really got the whole traditional school dinner experience. And so she would talk about it when we were kids and we're a family that's obsessed with food.
Like, you know, we tell stories, no stories complete without sort of describing what you then also had for lunch and that kind of thing. Yeah, Shepherd's pie, um, Sunda roast, all of that. But again. We are not content with just sort of having it the way that English people have it and the way that it's quote unquote supposed to be.
And so my parents would always have pickle on the side of their sun roast, and by pickle I mean sort of achar, you know? Mm. PTex pickle, the spicy stuff. The same with shepherd's pie as well. So it wouldn't just be mints that was brown with onions and carrots and, and that kind of thing. It was. Kima, so the spiced stuff.
And so for a long time I grew up thinking that that's how it's supposed to taste, because that's all I'd ever had. And at school we didn't have the meat products because they went halal. So we never actually really got to try the traditional way of doing it. So I think I was really quite old before I really.
Some dishes, at least in the way that they were supposed to taste, rather than how we made them.
[00:30:09] Lucy: I imagine they were probably quite bland after having your version, because they're not, there's not an awful lot of, you know, there's some seasoning, but there's not an awful lot of additional flavors in a shepherd's pie.
So if you've had the other version, I imagine it's probably a bit like, oh
[00:30:23] Shahnaz: yeah, it, it was a bit surprising. Yeah, and I think it's also almost like a. A rewiring of your own expectations as well, you know, but you're like, oh, right, okay. So this is just, this is also legitimate. It's just different, and it takes a while for you to accept that,
[00:30:40] Lucy: to adjust.
Yeah. Yeah. Obviously when you were living in Keighley and you write in the book about going to Bangladesh for the first time. And you talk about feeling like it's a parallel existence, which I thought was such an interesting way of putting it. Thinking about like you kind of your friends and your life back home while you're in this very different environment.
What was that like and what did that change, like anything for you in terms of food with like the recipes that you were eating at home, was there anything that you were like, oh, this is how they make it here?
[00:31:11] Shahnaz: Yeah, so the thing that I. I still remember most of all is how different everything smelled. Mm.
And it's because it was all cooked over, um, like a clay oven, like open fire. So it was like Woodburn, everything had this smokier taste. Even the rice tasted just slightly smoky. Um, when we fried aubergine that were mixed in sort of, you know, chili powder and turmeric and salt. And fried and oil. They also tasted just smokier because of the cooking wood.
And it was this kind of feeling of, oh, this is how it's supposed to be. And it's so funny that it was that way around because it could so easily have been like, oh, this tastes weird. This is not like how it is back home. But it was almost like an understanding that there was a missing ingredient. And that ingredient was, that's so interesting.
Yeah, exactly. The way that it was cooked, the fire. Yeah. And actually on subsequent visits. So this was my very first visit. I remember that being the case. And on subsequent visits it just got less and less and less as, um, I guess, you know, economic progress changed within the family home in Bangladesh. So.
People now cook on gas and it's great and it's fast and it's so much better for the women who actually have to do the cooking. Yeah. And so I'm not going to complain about that, but there is something that has been lost in terms of the taste for me and my memory.
[00:32:36] Lucy: Yeah. Um. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's so fascinating as well, isn't it?
Because when you think of, you know, your grandparents and parents who kind of, you know, as you write about, moved back and forth to an extent and then, and then kind of like ended up in England permanently. That must have been such an adjustment for them having experienced like the quote unquote proper way of doing it and then arriving in England and like, that's not how the kitchens here work.
Mm-hmm. So like that kind of shift to a very like indoor sort of sanitized version of cooking, that must have been like such a, an adjustment that like I feel like no one really talks about. It's, yeah, it's very interesting.
[00:33:17] Shahnaz: Yeah. I mean, again, it's not at all the same thing, but the closest thing I can really sort of relate it to is turning up at university and suddenly being given like.
A pretend kitchen that you have to share with a a million other people and you've got like a teeny tiny hot plate and a little fridge, and you don't really have all the ingredients because you are just one person, a student. So you're not gonna have like an entire spice cupboard to make all of this stuff, and you are really just trying to get by and trying to make it as familiar as possible.
When I got to university and I did start trying to cook for myself and trying to cook. Traditional ish tasting things. I think that's the closest that I felt, I suppose, to what it would've been like for, you know, my grandfather when he turned up in Manchester as a, you know, he wasn't married to my grandma at that time.
So that kind of bachelor cooking and tried to figure it out. Yeah, there was like, um, a feeling of, oh, we, we've done this before.
[00:34:16] Lucy: That's nice that it feels like a sense of connection even in a space that felt very unfamiliar.
[00:34:22] Shahnaz: Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
[00:34:24] Lucy: yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you remember what you made that first week at university?
You went to university in Oxford, right?
[00:34:29] Shahnaz: Yeah, that's right. I can't remember exactly what I made. In fact, I don't think I made anything in that first week because what the term that I arrived at was Ramadan. Ah, and so. That in itself was a really emotional thing because oh my, you know, my gosh. You started university, you're away from your parents.
It's the first time away from home. Yeah, that's a lot. It was a lot. It was a lot. And so I joined the Islamic Society. Mm-hmm. And would go along to the communal if there's together, and that was like a lifesaver. But I did include a couple of the recipes of what I made at university in the book, and one was.
Like a one pan prawn curry. Yes. Um, and it's not really a curry. It is sort of prawns with some spices in and some vegetables, but that to me was the taste of home. It was like the closest thing. And the reason why it was prawns, even though it was uni as a university student, that's quite expensive. Yeah.
Um, was because yeah, we didn't have access to halal meat very easily in Central Oxford. And I had vegetarian food all the time, exclusively when I was eating in the dining hall. Mm. And so that was kind of when I wanted a taste of, you know. Protein that wasn't, you know, wasn't dairy or plant-based, then.
Yeah, yeah. That was the easiest thing. Yeah. Yeah. So I just had to sort of have this way up of like cost, but taste.
[00:35:47] Lucy: Yeah.
[00:35:48] Shahnaz: Yeah.
[00:35:49] Lucy: It's the prawns, it's the treat Prawns. Yeah,
[00:35:51] Shahnaz: exactly. The treat prawns.
[00:35:53] Lucy: And yeah. Yeah. You mentioned at the start that this book is the story of your family moving across three continents, and the third continent is obviously where you live now.
Um, and that was you, so you moved to Africa first to Ethiopia for your husband's work, I believe, and you now live in Zimbabwe. Tell me a bit about the kind of the shift that, that met, the, the effect and the shift that that had on your. Cooking at home? Like what was it like when you first arrived in Zimbabwean and you're kind of having to like go through that process again, I suppose like Yeah, with the added, the added layer of a language barrier and Yeah.
Tell me a bit about that experience.
[00:36:28] Shahnaz: Yeah, absolutely. So, well, Ethiopia was our first postings and that was, oh gosh, how many years ago now? Six years ago? Seven. And yeah, we sort of landed in Addis. Heaving, bustling city, loads of traffic, goats walking around in the road outside our house, even though it was the main road.
I mean, it was almost like a cliche, like if I tell people about it, they're like, yeah, yeah, sure. There were goats walking around outside your house. And I'm like, no, really? There were goats. And then sometimes there would be no goats, and then just like a pile of goat hide and you'd be like, oh, okay, I see.
I see where I see where that ended up. So yeah, and then I needed to figure out. How to shop, how to cook ingredients, what was even available or not. And it's actually times like that where Bangladeshi cooking really came into its own for me. Mm-hmm. Because it's got such a heavy reliance on vegetables, which we could access there.
Rice, which is, you know, dry goods can easily access and lentils and so I basically just cooked loads of rice dull and different vegetable. We call it a bsi, which is like a, a light stir fry. And for me, I mean, I've moved around enough times now to know that there's a few things that you need to have under your belt to feel at home in a new place.
And so you need to know where to do your grocery shopping. You need to know where a good pharmacy is. You need to know like if you need to get to the doctor, like who? And you know how to get there. And yeah, so I think once I'd located a good place to be able to buy fresh veg. And then the next thing was trying to find halal meat again.
In Ethiopia and then since we moved to Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, it's actually much easier in many ways. Mm. Um, there isn't the language barrier in the same way. 'cause English is very wide, widely spoken here and there is actually a much smaller Muslim community here, but it's a Muslim community that is. Largely from India and Pakistan, but several generations ago.
Mm. So what I've loved living in Zimbabwe, which I haven't actually experienced anywhere else in my life, even in the uk, is this feeling of, until I open my mouth, people just think I'm from here. Ha. Yeah. So I don't actually have like this, um, assumption that I'm a foreigner when I'm walking around here.
People just think that I am from the Indian subcontinent, but Zimbabwean, yeah. Um, because in the War of Independence for Zimbabwe Indians is kind of the collective term that's used here for anyone from South Asia. But yeah, Indians fought on the side of the black Africans here, right? And so Indians are now considered to be indigenous.
So they share that title. Wow. And that's actually been a really powerful thing for me because even more so than growing up in in Keithley, I sort of feel like here my belonging isn't questioned, even though I've only been here four and a half years and we're leaving soon. So
[00:39:26] Lucy: that's, that is really powerful.
And to, to sort of have that It's 'cause it's the visibility, isn't it? Like you say. Mm-hmm. It's not just, it's, that's like the assumption just from you kind of existing as a person walking around to have that is incredibly powerful.
[00:39:39] Shahnaz: Well, it's the visibility, but I think it's also that political recognition.
Mm. Actually, right. So the fact that in the Constitution, you know, the early years of Zimbabwe, there was that recognition that. You know, Asians or Indians are also considered to be people of Zimbabwe, indigenous people of Zimbabwe because of the symbolism of it. Like, you know, we fought for a country where, you know, segregation was no longer the thing that, the vision that people wanted for this new country.
And I guess the UK's never had to go through that kind of reckoning. It's never been expected. And so,
[00:40:16] Lucy: yeah, I was just thinking about that parallel. 'cause there are many people from different places all over the world actually, who did fight on the side of Britain and there's never been a conversation around that and, and that is really thought provoking.
Yeah, I didn't know that was, that was a sort of a thing that existed in Zimbabwe, so Yeah. Wow.
[00:40:34] Shahnaz: Yeah. Yeah. And yes, so we are preparing for our next move. So we are moving to Rwanda in the next couple of months, so continuing our stay in the African continent. I feel very lucky that we're able to do that.
And yeah, I'm sort of kind of a bit more prepared now going in. I kind of know that there's this period of a wobble where you're trying to figure out where to buy things. And so I already have my list of the things that I travel with. And the two things that I always travel with are my rice cooker. And my spice collection because if I feel at home in a place, then I'm able to make my family feel at home.
And I really do feel like it's almost like the fastest way to get us to all sort of settle into a new place.
[00:41:17] Lucy: That's so lovely. I love that. And it's taken, this is your third move now with it? Yeah. Within that African continent. So yeah, that is. That is amazing. I actually just wanted to, before we end, I actually just really wanted to ask you quickly about the open letter that you put together, because I just felt like it was important to include in this conversation.
'cause it's obviously something that happened recently. So you were part of a small group of. Food people, I guess for want of a better term. Mm-hmm. Who wrote and then circulated an open letter, which called on Kistama to basically, basically just calling on the, um, calling out the Israeli government for using starvation as an act of war and calling out kts in action on that.
Um. I guess I just, yeah, I'm, it was an incredibly, like, it's, it's had over a thousand signatories from people sort of in and around food. Like it's, it's something that obviously, like it's, it feels really hard to kind of go about normal life and like having these conversations, um, about. Like things that are happening, quote unquote as normal.
So, you know what, I guess, what pushed you to write that letter in the end? Why did it feel like such an important thing to do?
[00:42:24] Shahnaz: Yeah, I mean, I, I was sort of looking around for a long time, so I consider myself to be fairly new in the food world. Um, so I'm a novelist. I've written. You know, a novel before this, uh, hashem and Family, and that came out in 2020.
So I would consider myself much more an author who likes to write about food. And so I kept kind of looking around and sort of thinking like, is. Is anybody gonna say anything? Like, is there gonna be a movement? And I think what I realized was lots of people had strong feelings, but I feel like they either did not feel empowered or felt scared about saying something.
I do feel like it's considered to be much more controversial and it shouldn't be considered to be controversial because of, of the fact that it is Palestine and Israel. Yeah. Um, and I do feel like people wouldn't have the same hesitations if it was about another part of the world. Yeah. And it honestly really got to the point where I kind of had to have this feeling for myself.
It felt like the situation was getting more and more desperate in Gaza. Yeah. Once the blockade happened in March and Israel weren't allowing any aid through, I think you saw the desperation of people within Gaza, but I think also the kind of desperation of people looking on Yeah. And feeling more and more powerless.
And I just kind of felt. Yeah, I've got a book coming out in a couple of months and I should be focusing all of my efforts into getting this book out, but how am I honestly, like, how am I gonna post? Like, yeah, come and see me at this place. Come and do this, come and do that, and ignore this thing. And it just didn't sit right with me, and I felt like.
I had to trust that there were good people who were gonna come through, who were gonna support this letter. Yeah. Who would lent to legitimacy with their voices. And I'm really glad that I had that trust actually, because people came through. And so we are now at the position where we're trying to form a slightly more formal coalition, right.
With sort of more formal asks as well. Mm. So we want to keep up the pressure on Ki Dam and the UK government to in turn put pressure on the Israeli government to. Not just allow aid in, but to ensure that it's properly distributed and safely. We're seeing people safely. We're seeing people being shot and killed as they're trying to collect food parcels.
I mean, this is not a human way to act. Yeah. In any context. Yeah. I, I also have my moments where I just think, is this doing anything? Like, yes, this letter was really powerful, but did it achieve anything? And I think in my more positive moments, I have to remember that. I think it actually has, I think it's reminded other people that.
Other people feel the same way. Yeah. I think it's given people permission almost to speak up more and to feel like they're not alone and to make opposing something that is and should be seen as unacceptable. Mm-hmm. It's made it. Legitimate to say that again. Mm-hmm. And I think that's really important.
[00:45:19] Lucy: Well, thank you for your work doing that because I, yeah, I, it's, it's, it is powerful. I agree with you. And I think, obviously I think it can be very easy to feel like it's, it's not doing anything, but it's, it's not nothing which is, you know, that the sort of Yeah. If that's the alternative, that feels unbearable and unacceptable.
So yeah, thank you for being part of that and, um, I'll make sure I share. The, uh, can people still sign the letter or is it kind of
[00:45:45] Shahnaz: Yeah, people can still sign the letter and, um. Our hope is that we can use that as a springboard for sort of this more formalized Yeah. Um, yeah, way of sort of making people feel like they can still have an impact.
So yes, that would be great. Great. Well, I'll make
[00:46:00] Lucy: sure I share that so people, and thank
[00:46:02] Shahnaz: you for asking me about it as well, because I do really appreciate that. I think No, I, it felt like
[00:46:06] Lucy: an important thing to include, like, I know it's obviously not related to the book, but then it's kind of related to everything, so, yeah.
Yes,
[00:46:13] Shahnaz: absolutely. Yeah.
[00:46:23] Lucy: As we mentioned, you can still sign the open letter, which Shahnaz was involved in creating and circulating, calling on Kier to take action over the Israeli government's deliberate and systemic campaign to use starvation as a weapon of war against the Palestinian people of Gaza. The link to that letter is in the show notes for this episode, so you can find it there and sign.
Lecker is hosted and produced by me, Lucy Dearlove. Thanks to Shahnaz Ahsan for being part of this episode. The Jackfruit Chronicles is out now. Shahnaz has been doing various events relating to the book and will be in conversation with the wonderful Olivia Pots in Stockport on the 22nd of July. So if you happen to be listening to this before then, and you're also local, then make sure you go to that.
I am very excited that Lecker is now part of Heritage Radio Network. This is the second episode. Uh, after we announced that I would be a. Kind of partner show and it's so cool to have the support of HRN if you'd like to find other great food podcasts to listen to head over to their website or their social media linked in the show notes, and you'll be able to find lots of great recommendations from other shows there.
Music is by Blue Dot Sessions. This is an independent podcast which is generously supported by listeners. If you enjoy what you hear and you're in a position to spare a few pounds, you can sign up as a paid subscriber to support Leer on substack, Patreon and Apple Podcasts. Links are also in the show notes.
Thanks to any paid subscribers listening here, your support means a lot. Thanks very much for listening. I'll be back soon. I.