- Published: 05/07/2012
- ISBN: 9781846274886
- Granta Books
- 352 pages
The Settler’s Cookbook
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
Through the personal story of Yasmin’s family and the food and recipes they’ve shared together, The Settler’s Cookbook tells the history of Indian migration to the UK via East Africa. Her family was part of the mass exodus from India to East Africa during the height of British imperial expansion, fleeing famine and lured by the prospect of prosperity under the empire. In 1972, expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin, they moved to the UK, where Yasmin has made her home with an Englishman. The food she cooks now combines the traditions and tastes of her family’s hybrid history. Here you’ll discover how shepherd’s pie is much enhanced by sprinkling in some chilli, Victoria sponge can be enlivened by saffron and lime, and the addition of ketchup to a curry can be life-changing …
£9.99
This is an unexpected joy of a book. Woven around the people, places and dishes that have shaped Yasmin Alibhai-Brown's life, it follows an emotional and culinary journey from childhood in pre-independence Uganda to London in the 21st century ... Her own migration is intimately bound up with the fate of other East African Asians ... It is a story seldom told, and Alibhai-Brown's account of it is fascinating and touching
Sunday Times
Alibhai-Brown paints a lively picture of a community that stayed trapped in old ways until it was too late to change ... [a] brave book
Guardian
For many of us food is the gateway experience into other cultures and lives. Yasmin's personal story intertwined with the foods which mean so much to her touched me deeply. And made me hungry. You can't ask for more
Gavin Esler
From the Same Author
Exotic England
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
England may be a small country on a small island, but its inhabitants have always had a boundless curiosity about the world beyond their shoreline. From the nation’s modern origins in the Renaissance, travellers have eagerly roamed the globe and been enticed by the diversity and richness of other civilizations. And while this appetite for adventure has often been tainted by aggression or exploitation, the English have also carried within them a capacity to soak up new experiences and ideas and to weave them into every aspect of life back home, from language and literature to customs and culture. Here we trace this golden thread of otherness through five centuries of English history to reveal how it has shaped the buildings, flavoured the food, powered the economy, and created a truly diverse society.
Today, when England is no longer synonymous with Britain and the English ask themselves who they are, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown paints a sumptuous and illuminating portrait of who they have been and brings a fresh, invigorating perspective on what ‘Englishness’ really means.
£9.99
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown on Granta.com
Essays & Memoir | The Online Edition
Brexit Win
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
‘The poor hated the poor, natives hated outsiders, settled migrants hated new incomers, the North hated the South, non-Londoners hated London.’
