Join us as we board the Darjeeling Express with Asma Khan to chart her journey from maligned second daughter of a Rajput royal family who couldn’t cook, to celebrated feeder of Hollywood A-listers in London’s Soho. Along the way – in addition to sampling some of the restaurant’s signature dishes – we contemplate the importance of storytelling to good food; why cooks from South Asia are more attuned to the spiritual aspects of feeding; and the significance of running an all women kitchen.

** 00:50-01:10: A reminder to sign-up to our newsletter Listen To The Migration Menu Podcast – The Migration Menu, and get some great discount offers from eateries featured on the show!

**Starters** (01:10 – 04:55)

James and Luke discuss why the Darjeeling Express is a restaurant with a difference: not only does it run a women-only, all South Asian diaspora kitchen, but none of the women who work there with Asma are formally trained chefs. Asma herself is also a different kind of restaurant patron: unlike the men who dominate the industry, most of whom are trained in what she describes as “stainless steel empires”, she has a PhD in constitutional law, and learned to cook from Bengali aunts who were afraid that if they didn’t share their secret recipes, she’d leave her husband. Since then, she’s been listed in Time magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people, and has been a cheerleader for food justice.

**04.55-05.14: A shout-out from Mike Crawley, co-host of The Anthropology Podcast, to have a listen to one of our sibling shows!

**Mains** (08:24-20:23)

James and Luke join Asma for masala chai between services at her Soho-based restaurant, where she recounts her story from a childhood spent in Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata – the second daughter of a Rajput royal family – to Cambridge and then London in the UK. Food was always an important part of the tale: her mother set up her own catering business, and her father regaled them with stories he made-up about the origins of different dishes. It was, however, her struggles for recognition in the wider extended family – where girls always ate last and ate least – that really informed her approach to business. Starting off with a supper club, run from her own home, the restaurant, she explains, is not just a business – even though it’s Michelin guide listed – but “a battle cry for justice.”

**Dessert** (27:49-37:09)

James and Luke draw out the key takeaways from their interview. Gender politics, of course, was a major theme, leading them to reflect on why women in catering seem so much more likely to take less conventional approaches – from running supper clubs and tiffin services to restaurants with a political message – than their male counterparts. But so, too, was the importance of storytelling, and the power of Asma’s rhetoric to get across a narrative that challenges sexism as well as racism within the industry and beyond. The binary split between the sacred and the profane, so common in Western discourses, has been challenged through many of the interviews for The Migration Menu, and this was no exception: Asma, in common with many South Asian diaspora restaurateurs, and particularly the women, makes no radical distinction between the spiritual and the everyday aspects of food and cooking.

**On the Menu**

Puchkas (wheat shells filled with spiced chickpeas, potatoes and tamarind water)

Channa chaat (chickpeas, fresh herbs, spices, tamarind, yogurt)

Badami Baingan (aubergine with coconut, peanut and tamarind)

Prawn Malaikari (traditional Bengali dish with a coconut milk base)

Tamarind dal

Pulao rice

Paratha

Khoobani Ka Meetha (a pudding of slow-cooked apricots served with cream and finished with pistachios

Masala chai

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Cross the border with us into Scotland as we embark on the first leg of The Migration Menu’s road trip, and listen in to our interview with celebrity chef, author, and TV cook Tony Singh, in front of a live audience at Kalpna Restaurant in Edinburgh. The event was part of the public anthropology festival PeopleFest, and included a Q&A from the audience who packed the restaurant.

** 00:40-00:58: A reminder to sign-up to our newsletter Listen To The Migration Menu Podcast – The Migration Menu, and get some great discount offers from eateries featured on the show!

**Starters** (01:09 –05.23)

James and Luke discuss The Migration Menu’s pioneering role in taking anthropology to public audiences, capturing stories about migration from South Asia through food in ways that challenge public discourse, and promote the value of anthropology. They set the scene for their live interview with Sikh chef Tony Singh – the son of migrants from India and a regular on British TV screens – who, with Cyrus Todiwala, was one half of the Incredible Spice Men on BBC2. He currently runs a super club in Edinburgh.

**05.24-05.40: A shout-out from Mike Crawley, co-host of The Anthropology Podcast, to have a listen to one of our sibling shows!

**Mains** (05:57-22:24)

As a packed restaurant tucks into Kalpna’s brunch buffer, Tony shares his family’s journey from Punjab to Leith, in Edinburgh. There, his Scottish-born Punjabi mother pared the best of Scottish and Punjabi cuisines, and provided the inspiration for Tony’s famous haggis pakora. He talks about racism, getting quality South Asian food on to British menus, and the influence of Empire on what we eat today. The discussion also extends to cultural appropriation, fusion, authenticity, and why narrative is important to the taste of a good dish. And James and Luke end the interview with their time honored question: what does Tony have for breakfast?

**Dessert** (22:36-41.24)

Q&A, followed by James and Luke’s reflections on the discussion.

23.12-33.12: The audience get their chance to ask Tony questions, and learn about square sausage, K-pop, his favorite foods, and what ingredient he couldn’t live without.

33.21-41.24: Apart from a massive bag of pakoras, James & Luke had plenty of other takeaways from the interview, including Tony’s insights on food, empire, the politics of food, and the challenge of defining the boundaries of South Asian cuisine. They also take about the role of celebrity in making a cuisine, and the social aspirations that cookery shows draw upon and shape.

References

Lengyel, Ariane and Gatley, Andy (2016) Celebrity chefs and the construction of taste: from über macho to culinary crusader. In: CHME Annual Research Conference 2016, 4-6 May 2016, Belfast. (Unpublished)

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Join us as we head south of the river to Sohini Banerjee’s Smoke and Lime supper club in Kennington, eat some great food, meet a bunch of interesting people, and ponder questions about authenticity, fusion, identity and gender.

** 00:50-01:08: A reminder to sign-up to our newsletter Listen To The Migration Menu Podcast – The Migration Menu, and get some great discount offers from eateries featured on the show!

**Starters** (01:09 – 08:03)

How do supper clubs work? How are they different to restaurants, and why – in particular – are they growing in popularity among diners from South Asian diasporas? These are some of the questions on James and Luke’s minds enroute to Smoke and Lime supper club, keen to expand their understanding of the South Asian food scene beyond the restaurant space. In addition to supper clubs, they encounter a rich array of services, from Vegetarian Brown Girls’ deliveries of chilled chai to Ajji’s Ghee.

**08.04-08.23: A shout-out from Mike Crawley, co-host of The Anthropology Podcast, to have a listen to one of our sibling shows!

**Mains** (08:24-20:23)

James and Luke join eight other guests for dinner in Sohini’s apartment, capturing some of the Bengali adda – hanging out for informal conversation – as well as the culinary experience. Rijil, Sohini’s husband and co-host of the supper club, takes us, course-by-course, through the menu, rooted in the foodscape of West Bengal, with influences from China, Malaysia, and the couple’s recent trip to Vietnam. One of their favourite London restaurants, SMOKING GOAT | Shoreditch | Thai Bar & Grill, has also made a mark on the menu.

**Dessert** (20:28-27:33)

James and Luke reflect on their supper club experience, consider the ways in which they blur the boundaries between domestic hospitality and business, friendship and networking, and public and private in interesting – and often delightful – ways. A focus on supper clubs also allows them to dig down into the gendered dimensions of the food industry, with women’s labor, in particular, often invisibilised

**On the Menu**

Phuchka (A South Kolkata street food special – served at the kitchen counter)

Chicken liver larb, with herbs and peach

Pumpkin bhorta, pickled mooli

Winter vegetables chochori

Wild seabass with turmeric and galangal

Schezwan prawns and sambal butter

Cardamom pannacotta with cocoa and saffron

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