What length is Asma Khan willing to go for Food?

Speaking of food and friendship, Asma Khan recalls how, on her trip back home from Cambridge, she told her mother she didn’t want to go back as she “wanted to eat”. Shunali Khullar Shroff probes her further on this fun fact.

Where she came from, explained Asma Khan, a girl not going back to her husband was a “disgrace”. Other members of the family usually wanted to conceal this fact, for the fear that “the other girls might be apprehensive about getting married too.” It was a difficult time, full of uncertainties and a lack of self-belief, but eventually proved to be healthy for Asma Khan’s life and relationships.

She set about cooking with her mother and the chef of the household Haji Sahab, and together they dived into the splendours of Nizami cuisine. To extract the recipes, says Asma Khan facetiously, “I threatened my aunt that I will not go to my husband and no one would marry her daughter.” And so started her journey of learning how to make age-old delicacies—Haleem, Dalchas, BagharaBaigan. “I cook like her, and I have been a bit manipulative with my aunts who cooked well,” winks Asma Khan, “anything for food.”