Indian food writer adds spice to Western palates

UBUD, Indonesia, Oct 5 (Reuters) At one time, only Indians swore by her cookbooks.

But over the years, ''curry queen'' Madhur Jaffrey has transcended cultural boundaries and today has almost every fan of Indian cuisine eating out of her hand.

''In America and England, Indian food has a vast audience.

Otherwise, it was considered an esoteric thing,'' said Jaffrey, whose books and cookery shows are often credited with introducing Indian spices to British supermarkets.

''Today, chapati (Indian bread) flour is available in supermarkets in England and it's not just for Indians,'' she told Reuters at a writers' festival in the Balinese resort town of Ubud where she shared some spicy stories from her life.

Jaffrey's journey into the cooking world began accidentally in the 1950s when she went to drama school in London and found ''the food was just dreadful''. This set her thinking about Indian cuisine and its eclectic spices like asoefetida, cardamom and coriander.

Her mother and other relatives then started mailing her letters with recipes which Jaffrey eventually put together in a cookbook in the 1970s.

It was the first of more than 15 books, dishing out tips not just on Indian kebabs and biryanis but also on other Asian cuisine from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

But Jaffrey really tasted success with her television shows on Indian and eastern cooking, which were among the first to break away from the traditional studio format of cookery programmes and were presented almost like travel shows.

''Food doesn't exist in a vacuum, it exists in a culture. I wanted the circumstances of a recipe, whether it's for a picnic or a religious festival,'' said Jaffrey.

Britain's Good Food magazine recently voted the petite food writer among the world's 20 most influential foodies along with TV legend Delia Smith.

''When I go to villages, I ask farmers' wives and fisherwomen what they're cooking at home,'' she laughed. ''I like to know what people eat for breakfast, in the cinema.'' ACCIDENTAL COOK Jaffrey stumbled into food writing by accident.

She began as an actress, but because there wasn't enough money in acting she took to writing to supplement her income to help raise her three daughters after she moved to New York.

''I started writing to pay for my kids' college in the US I wrote on dance, culture and food,'' Jaffrey told a gathering of foodies and book lovers sipping champagne under a Balinese-style gazebo in Ubud, Bali's cultural capital.

''But somehow food just took off. I was hijacked into this world.'' New York-based Jaffrey, whose first name Madhur means sweet as honey, has acted in several Merchant-Ivory films set in India including ''Heat and Dust'' and ''Cotton Mary'' -- and is still involved with acting, directing and working on screenplays.

She is currently working on a film about three generations of South Asians and mental health, a subject that's often brushed under the carpet in many Asian societies.

This year, she also released her memoirs, ''Climbing the Mango Tree'', a story about growing up in a huge extended family in colonial India told through food memories of picnicking in the Himalayan foothills on meatballs stuffed with raisins and mint and sneaking tastes of exotic street fare.

At the end of the book, Jaffrey has included more than 30 recipes from her childhood.

''I don't think of myself as a master, I'm just passing on what I've learnt,'' said the author and actress, dressed in a crisp white traditional Indian dress.

''And I just want to continue what's I'm doing.'' REUTERS BDP PK RAI0831