Andaza: Food, Flavour & Freedom in the Pakistani Kitchen

Cookery Demo, Talk & Tastings

Award-winning food writer Sumayya Usmani's stunning food 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 and Dadi's 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 - Nani Mummy's prawn karahi, Potatoes with curry leaves and turmeric, Mummy's wedding-style chicken korma, Bitter lemon, mustard seed and garlic pullao and Dadi's banana and fennel seed gulgulay doughnut.

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.

Sumayya is the author of the prize-winning, Summers Under the Tamarind Tree and Mountain Berries and Desert Spice.

'Sumayya Usmani is a brilliant storyteller. She transports us with her delicious descriptions of the smells and flavours of the kitchen' Jay Rayner