Delicious Company with Samin Nosrat
12/7/18 - Our queen of cookbooks, Netflix, and writing is here! Samin Nosrat is the author of Salt Fat Acid Heat, and brings her infectious personality and obvious pleasure in eating to the TV show of the same name. We discuss her time at Chez Panisse, how male chefs take credit for their grandmothers centuries of unpaid kitchen labor, and amazing food writers of color to follow. Plus, you can learn to cook delicious things if you want to! Samin's pro-tips: don't judge yourself by Instagram and focus on mastering a couple of dishes. (As you may have guessed, figuring out your salt, fat, acid, and heat is pretty important to making something delicious.)
Transcript below.
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Spotify.
CREDITS
Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Associate Producer: Destry Maria Sibley
Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed
Merch Director: Caroline Knowles
Editorial Assistant: Laura Bertocci
Ad sales: Midroll
LINKS
Salt Fat Acid Heat (the book) is a wonderful guide to learning how to cook or developing additional mastery.
Salt Fat Acid Heat on Netflix.
Samin recommends:
Priya Krishna in Bon Appetit
Tejal Rao at the New York Times
Nik Sharma’s book Season
A Hungry Society podcast
TRANSCRIPT: Delicious Company with Samin Nosrat
[Ads]
(1:00)
Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend.
Ann: A podcast for long-distance besties everywhere.
Aminatou: I'm Aminatou Sow.
Ann: And I'm Ann Friedman.
Aminatou: Samin Nosrat is on the podcast today.
Ann: Queen of the kitchen, queen of the cookbook shelf, queen of the written word, queen of our hearts.
Aminatou: Queen of Salt Fat Acid Heat.
[Theme Song]
(1:48)
Aminatou: Hi Ann Friedman. Welcome back to America.
Ann: Hi Aminatou Sow. Welcome to the tail end of 2018. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Whew, girl.
Ann: It's that whole thing where the end years before the year really ends because people . . .
Aminatou: Oh yeah, the year ends on the day that you take off for Thanksgiving. Everybody knows this.
Ann: [Laughs] I don't know how to tell you that we're still working and it's after Thanksgiving.
Aminatou: I know. But I'm saying Q4 is not for the faint of heart. It's hard. It's hard work.
Ann: I always have such high ambitions for Q4, like that's going to be where I really analyze how I spent my time and money in the past year and I'm going to be very strategic about how I spend the next year.
Aminatou: Mm-mmm.
Ann: I'm really going to -- yeah, never. It never works out that way.
Aminatou: That's for Q3 of next year.
Ann: Oh my god.
Aminatou: Q3 of next year is when I will analyze everything that's going on right now. Shout-out to be an emotional post-processor. [Laughter] Hey!
Ann: The latest processors, truly, both of us. Anyway what's going on today?
Aminatou: Let me tell you. I am so excited about our guest today. She is somebody that we both dearly love and admire. Samin Nosrat is on the podcast today.
Ann: Ugh! Queen of the kitchen, queen of the cookbook shelf, queen of the written word, queen of our hearts.
Aminatou: Queen of Salt Fat Acid Heat. She's such a babe Ann. Not to, you know, objectify her but I love her brain.
Ann: During the run-up to our fall tour I watched Salt Fat Acid Heat. It is truly a vehicle for joy. At the end of a stressful day watching Samin enjoy food, enjoy being a person who hangs out with other people who enjoy food, being a teacher about principles of food, like every aspect of her Netflix show is truly life-giving and life-affirming. And also this might sound weird. I just love watching her eat.
Aminatou: Uh, it's not weird at all. I love watching her eat. I love watching her pick vegetables. I just really enjoy all of Samin's work products, the entirety of it from the teaching to the cooking, an important thinker and writer, and just like the most -- the cook of the most delicious things. And she makes you feel like you can do it too which is wild.
(4:10)
Ann: Yeah, 100%. And I would also say too that she's someone who really lives Shine Theory in such a great way. The Salt Fat Acid Heat cookbook was a collaboration with the illustrator Wendy McNaughton who we love and who has been on the show.
Aminatou: Love Wendy.
Ann: I really think of Samin as someone who is also a big part of food communities, a big part of writers' communities, as someone who is very quick to champion other people who are doing all kinds of things that are related to -- and sometimes not related -- to the work that she's doing and that's something I also really admire about her.
Aminatou: So I think you will enjoy listening to this. I one thousand percent fan girl most of the time. It's not my best journalism work I will say.
Ann: [Laughs]
Aminatou: Because the whole time it's just like please talk to me more. Ann, she could read the cookbook and I would be into it.
Ann: That's because the cookbook is good.
Aminatou: The cookbook is great. I think you'll love it. Here we go.
[Interview Starts]
Samin: I'm Samin Nosrat. I'm a cook and writer and a wackadoodle. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Hi Samin! Thanks for coming on Call Your Girlfriend.
Samin: Oh, life dream come true.
Aminatou: We have been talking about you forever on this show.
Samin: I hear. So I hear, literally. [Laughter]
Aminatou: I'm so glad that you're here. Well you have a lot happening. You're the author of my favorite cookbook and you have an amazing special on Netflix. Can you tell me a bit more about the cookbook? Like why are you writing a cookbook? How was the process?
Samin: Awful. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Did you love it? Tell me everything. Like how does one wake up and say "I'm going to write a cookbook?"
Samin: It was a slow wake up over 18 years. [Laughs] So when I was in tenth grade I had an English teacher who taught me to love poetry. We kept journals in his class and he was like "You can write." And before that, because I'm an immigrant kid -- child of immigrants -- I was like okay, going to be a doctor. And so I was on the path to be an orthopedic -- pediatric orthopedist.
Aminatou: Yeah, the four immigrant jobs. Doctor, lawyer, engineer . . .
Samin: Yeah. Engineer, lawyer. What's the fourth one?
Aminatou: In my part you can be a banker.
(6:20)
Samin: Oh, I don't know any Iranian bankers.
Aminatou: You can be a banker.
Samin: I always just say three.
Aminatou: Think back in the '80s when banker was cool. I don't think banker is cool anymore.
Samin: Oh. I don't know about that, yeah. Yeah.
Aminatou: Okay, so the three immigrant jobs.
Samin: Ours were engineer, doctor, and lawyer. So I was firmly on the doctor path. And I was then derailed by Thomas Dorman who I believe now looking back was the first feminist I ever met.
Aminatou: Wow.
Samin: Yeah, he was also our cross country coach and he gave me my first subscription to The New Yorker. He was like "You can write." And so by the time I finished eleventh grade I was like I'm going to be an English major. I want to be a writer. So I went to college in Berkeley and I studied English to be a writer and then I -- sort of like a series of serendipitous events brought me to Chez Panisse Restaurant, Alice Waters' incredible institution that's almost 50 years ago now.
Aminatou: Wow, love you Alice Waters.
Samin: Yeah. And she was shading me on my Instagram yesterday. [Laughs] I posted a picture.
Aminatou: Alice Waters shade?
Samin: I posted a picture of some really beautiful lettuces and she was like "But are they local and organic?" [Laughter]
Aminatou: Like this is not romaine. It does not have salmonella in it. Be happy Alice.
Samin: It was so funny. And I just -- I came into this restaurant. I asked for a job as a busser and pretty immediately I was completely overwhelmed with just sensory delights really. And also as an overachieving immigrant child who had only known that the only way to strive for acceptance was to be the best at anything I felt like I had found my people because everyone who worked there was just excellent. The buses, the dishwashers, the servers all had other lives. They were not only these incredible professional servers at a world class restaurant but there was also a woman who rode in the female Tour de France. There was like an incredible, you know, guy who ran a bed who toured all over the country and played on The Tonight Show. There was an amazing Harvard-trained architect who just tended bar for fun. There were all of these incredible people and it really -- for the first time I'm like I'm amongst my people, like crazy overachievers.
(8:38)
Aminatou: I love that, but hold on, I want to ask you more about how . . . so you asked for a job to be a busser at Chez Panisse? Did you go eat at the restaurant and it was amazing and you were like "I must work here?"
Samin: Yeah, so I grew up in San Diego and my mom was an amazing cook and it was really important for her to cook Iranian food for me and my brothers to sort of immerse us in our culture and get us to know -- introduce us to our culture. So I mostly ate amazing home-cooked food in my childhood and then I also had some pizza, some Chinese food, a lot of Mexican food, but never -- we were never sort of geared towards fancy restaurants. So when I moved to Berkeley and people were like "There's an amazing restaurant here, a famous restaurant," I was like what's a famous restaurant? It just didn't register at all. I didn't understand. So it went kind of in one ear and out the other.
And then my sophomore year I fell in love and my boyfriend was from the Bay Area and he'd always wanted to eat at Chez Panisse so we saved up $220 over the course of seven months. We had this little box and we'd bet each other and then whoever lost the bet would put the money in the box and laundry quarters or whatever. And we went to eat there and it really -- at that time it was consistently being called the best restaurant in the country. It had been open for 28 years and it was just -- it was this incredible, beautiful temple of sensory delights. And you go in and it feels like you're in the most beautiful home of one of your friends. But like warm copper on the walls and beautiful flower arrangements and the food was great but it was not necessarily better than like . . . I grew up eating great food. So it was not that the food was so amazing but just I felt so cared for in this way.
(10:33)
And I think in a lot of ways when you pay to go out to eat at a fancy white tablecloth restaurant you're paying for all of that attention and that felt really good. And I remember I was 19. I was wearing a black tank top and my denim skirt and we just were like what is this? And the dessert was chocolate souffle. So when the woman brought it to us she said "Oh, have you ever had souffle before?" and I said no. And she was like "Would you like me to show you how to eat it?" and I said yeah. So she said you poke a hole in it with your spoon and you pour in this raspberry sauce and that way every bite has sauce. So I did it and she said "How is it?" I was like "It's good, but you know what would make it even better?"
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Samin: Because it didn't even occur to me that that was totally the rudest thing of all time to suggest to everybody. I said "Oh, I would love a glass of cold milk," because you know, warm brownie, cold milk. Warm chocolate chip -- it's like a classic thing, warm chocolatey thing, cold milk. And she was like "You want milk?" [Laughs] And she laughed and I said yeah. So she brought me a glass of milk and she brought us each a glass of dessert wine to sort of teach us the refined accompaniment. And what I didn't know then and it didn't occur to me until years later was that in fine dining it's considered babies only drink milk after 10 a.m. And when you go to Europe and you order a café latte at 4 p.m. they know you're American because only Americans -- that's for breakfast unless you're American. [Laughs] So it was very uncouth.
(12:00)
So I was just so enchanted by this and I always worked throughout college so I wrote a letter to the restaurant asking for a job. And when I brought it in they said "Oh, you have to bring that to the floor manager." And so they brought me over to the floor manager's office and when she opened the door it was the souffle lady. And so we kind of instantly recognized each other and I think, you know, in retrospect she was probably really -- as many restaurant people are -- was desperate. Probably someone had just quit or something because she was like "Can you start tomorrow?" [Laughs] And so I started bussing tables the next day and then pretty immediately, within I think three weeks, I was begging them to teach me how to cook because you're always walking through the kitchen and the cooks are just . . . again I was so young and I didn't come from a fancy world. And so this was really enchanting and inspiring and it just made me want to be part of it. And the cooks there, it's really the rare restaurant that exists for its cooks so they're kind of at the top of this respect pyramid and they were all -- honestly to me in that moment they would wear their white coats and I'd walk by and they'd smile. And it was like ding, like their teeth would shimmer. It was like a cartoon. [Laughter] And I just wanted to know what they knew and I wanted to -- yeah, I wanted to learn, you know, to be like them.
And at the same time I was studying English. I was getting ready to graduate and apply for MFA programs in poetry which are $90,000 and I didn't have $90,000. And being a poet doesn't prepare you for any financial stability, so I was like maybe I need a skill. So I begged them and I was really persistent and eventually they broke down and allowed me to have an internship.
(13:45)
So I started coming into the meetings, the menu meetings, which began at 2 p.m. and every day the menu there changes and sometimes it's French food or Italian food or Moroccan food or, I don't know, your grandma's fried chicken from the south. And yet somehow nobody ever looked at a recipe. Every day they were assigned new things and they'd go make a beautiful dinner for 100 people but no one ever was like "Let me consult how many cups of flour" or whatever. It was all by the senses. And I didn't understand how I knew nothing and they seemed to know not only everything but anything. How to make anything. And I couldn't tell the difference between parsley and cilantro. They would send me to get parsley and I'd come back with cilantro. Eventually I learned -- like the trick for me before I knew which was which, I would just put one of each in my pocket.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Samin: So if they were like -- I'd pull the other one out. Over time I saw this pattern that no matter what we were cooking they were always referring to these four elements, to salt, fat, acid, and heat to guide them and we always salted the meat the night before cooking it. We always, for butter on the pastry side, they always kept it cold so it would remain in chunks in the pastry dough and make flakey dough. But on the savory side we'd always heat the pan and heat our oil before we put food in so you'd get a crispy, crispy edge. Or we'd always -- every single thing, there's so much tasting. And even right before you serve it everyone gathers around and tastes one bowl of soup before the night begins or one plate of meat or one plate of whatever and you're always talking about how to make it just right and now to adjust it. And the words we always were using were salt, fat, and acid.
So, you know, things needed a little squeeze of lime or a little goat cheese to perk it up with the acid. And heat was maybe to me the most overwhelming one and that one really clicked for me when one day we ran out of stove space and they told me to build a fire in the fireplace and cook my soup over a fire. And I was like I don't understand, like how? Do not compute, you know? How can I -- a stove, you can turn it up and down but a fire is just burning. How do I control it? And I realized eventually that it doesn't matter if you're cooking over a fire or a stove or in an oven, it's what's happening in the pot that you have to pay attention to.
(16:00)
And so I kind of had this light bulb moment and I went to the chef and I was like "Oh, I see this pattern. Salt, fat, acid, heat." And he was like "Yeah, duh, we all know that." And by now I'd been cooking for like a year-and-a-half so I felt really betrayed. I was like "Why didn't anyone tell me?" and he's like "Oh, cooks just know that." And I said it's not in any of the books. The books have recipes but you don't use recipes. And he just was like this is how we cook. And so at that point I was like I'm going to write a book about this one day. And that became the framework that I filed everything that I learned into and then eventually the language that I taught younger cooks how to cook with and then I started teaching cooking classes. And eventually, you know, I never lost the dream to write and by now I'd taken some classes with Michael Pollan at the Journalism School at Berkeley and he really encouraged me to write. And I met this incredible community of journalists, of young -- like I have a journalism peer group now because of that. So they were really supportive and he just was like this is your book, go make it.
And I was terrified because I knew it wouldn't be a book that had pretty pictures. I didn't -- you know, beautiful, glossy food photos, because this was about ideas more than it was about how to make the perfect, I don't know, spinach salad or something. So pretty immediately I knew I wanted to have illustrations both because I didn't want you to feel bound to one version of a dish and also because I wanted to teach you ideas. And by now I'd been obsessed with the work of Wendy McNaughton, the incredible illustrator, so I wrote a letter begging her to do it. [Laughs] And I still have the email and the subject line was "You might think I'm stalking you." [Laughs] And she said yes.
(17:45)
And so we had this incredible collaboration and it turned out she didn't know anything about cooking and so along the way I taught her how to cook and we made this book together which was a really long and hard process. But also I'm so happy it's done and I'm so proud.
Aminatou: First of all I could listen to you talk all day. I think it's very wild that you don't have a podcast. Somebody should fix that. I don't know if you remember this but the first time that you cooked for me was at this like . . . we were at an Oscar party and you made a Caesar salad and grilled chicken and there were potatoes. It was like three . . .
Samin: Super simple.
Aminatou: Super simple, like three things. To this day it is still the best chicken I've ever had. It's the best Caesar salad I've ever had and the best potatoes I've ever had. And that was for me the day I fell in love with you because I grew up sometimes going to fancy restaurants, like my dad had a fancy job so I have been in fine dining. We've traveled a lot. And I like to eat but I've never been impressed by restaurant culture or cooking culture, especially now because it's so macho and it's like this whole thing.
And the thing that I was so struck by with you is how just everything was unfussy but it was like the best that it could be which as far as I'm concerned it's like give her the Pulitzer of food. This is the thing. I think they call those James Beard Awards. I don't know. But I just remember watching you cook. I think that there is something so loving about that, like Ann and I talk about your cookbook and it's also a book that I love seeing in people's homes all the time. And the thing that I've noticed is you know some cookbooks are definitely -- you know, they're like status items, like I always see people with [0:19:36] books and I'm like you don't even know how to make soup. You think that you're going to make a recipe from here, you know? There are all these cookbooks people have to be seen or they do to challenge themselves. And the thing that I always love when I see your cookbook in somebody's house, they have stains. They're in the kitchen. And it's every level of cook.
(20:00)
And the way that you are able to teach people as you go I think is incredibly generous and that is also the thing that ultimately it changes families and it changes people and it teaches people a skill. It's not pretentious. It's not like machismo culture or whatever. And you were also able to do that on the TV show which was so great. It has both the educational component of here's how you pick your vegetables which I learned a lot from -- which P.S. the secret to knowing what the difference between parsley and cilantro is, one of them smells like Italian food and one of them smells like Mexican food okay? [Laughs] Because I still can't tell. I still can't tell when I pick them up. I'm like oh, these leaves look the same. And then I just smell them.
Samin: It's totally true but it was confusing for me because in Iranian food we use so many herbs and I only knew the Iranian names of all the herbs. So to me I associated them all with Iranian food. [Laughs] It was just one big mess. But it's true, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right, that's a good way. Italian food or Mexican food, yeah.
Aminatou: Okay, well I actually have a real question for you now. One of the things, like it definitely comes across in the book a lot but in the TV show it just hits you in so many ways if you're paying attention is that one of the things that I love about your work is that you talk about the pleasures of eating and the pleasure of food. It feels transgressive because of the world that we live in. And I'm just wondering if you can unpack that a little or talk about it more, because yeah, I was like we watched your show while we were on tour, we talked about it, and the whole time I'm like I'm so hungry. And also just watching a woman of color talk about eating food is so hot. I was like this is -- we're so excited here.
(21:54)
Samin: It's so funny because it didn't . . . there have been many a think piece written about this. [Laughs] It didn't occur to me. What occurred to me when I was doing -- when we were filming -- was here I am, a person that's not stick thin, eating and not taking . . . and not ashamed about eating, and taking a lot of joy in it and doing it on camera. And it crossed my mind, I was like oh, am I going to receive criticism? Am I going to get negative feedback because of the way I look and that I'm doing this? And then I sort of had that thought and I had to put it aside and was like I really like ice cream, you know? [Laughs]
And I was like what am I going to do? This is who I am and it's my job to do this and I really love this. And also to me I think there's a lot about me. I am an obsessive person who has spent a lot of time in the food world watching -- observing a lot going on. I have observed so much of the machismo and so much of the elitism that is part of, you know, the messaging of good cooking. I had to make a decision really early on that my message actually wouldn't be about local and organic even though that's something that I subscribe to and practice in my own kitchen and when I cook for people and my own shopping, not only because I believe in it ethically but also because it often tastes better. Usually it does taste better.
I've watched that message for a long time kind of . . . I watched Alice Waters stumble over that message and it get in her way. You know, there is so much misogyny that she is subject to period but also some of my favorite stories about her involved sharing this thing that she loves so much with everyone. And I know deep down inside that she's not an elitist. I know that for her it's that she wants everyone to taste the delicious thing and that is for everyone. But I also understand and I pay a lot of attention to policy and structures of oppression. And I understand that until larger changes are made that those are going to come off as elitist messages.
(24:10)
So for me I believe -- like I'm going to start one second sort of even more elementary and more rudimentary which is I just want you to cook. I just want you to cook anything. [Laughs] And even if you don't want to cook then at least know what makes food taste good so that when you order your next burrito you can think about oh, when I'm adding salsa and sour cream that's acid and fat and salt and that's why it turns a bean rice burrito which could be bland or plain or just really dry in your mouth into something creamy and tangy and salty and fresh and delicious.
And so you already innately know how to do that. I just want to give you the language to be able to do that and make better decisions when you're eating and when you're cooking ultimately so that you can create better relationships in your life and be happier and maybe pass that on down a chain reaction to the next people.
And so there are a lot of careful choices that I've made along the way about my voice, about my message, about what it is that I want to put into the world. And I think because I've been watching and doing this for so long a lot of it's just natural now, you know? And also I am really silly and I do make a lot of mistakes and I do -- you know, that was another amazing thing, I think one of the most healing things that's happened, I've spent a lot of time in therapy talking about this, is the executives at Netflix who bought my show, they didn't buy it in spite of me being brown and not skinny and silly and making a mess when I cook. They bought it because I am that way.
(25:45)
And so every step of the way when anything in the production process threatened to make me -- you know, to tidy me up a little bit or to make me change something or maybe should you be wearing that? They always stepped in and were like "No, this is not what we're here to . . . we're here to capture who you are exactly as you are in all your whole, flawed glory." You know? And that is not a message I've received a lot of in my life, and to have this huge corporation not only telling me that but betting on it, honestly maybe I shouldn't live for that outside whatever praise and affirmation. But it certainly has helped big time.
And so I know I'm not perfect. I know I'm not everything. But it feels really good and to me I hope if I can do that and people can see that it's fun and delicious and not maybe as hard then maybe they'll want to do it. And all those little kids, all those little Samins out there, maybe one of them will be like "Oh, I can do that too one day."
Aminatou: First of all this is me holding a sign going "You are perfect to me!"
Samin: [Laughs]
Aminatou: I want so many little Samins cooking.
[Music and Ads]
(30:02)
Aminatou: You know the other thing that is happening right now that kind of is mind-blowing, and I don't know if you're feeling this but I'm feeling this very acutely as an immigrant, is just how much our food has finally crossed into the mainstream and it both makes me happy, like it makes me happy that everyone's making za'atar. It makes me happy that, you know, you can find African spices everywhere, that people know their way around injera. But at the same time it really bums me out, you know? I remember that feeling of being a kid who would fight my mom about the lunch box or be really embarrassed about some of the smells that were coming out of our kitchen or having to explain that to other kids who were not brown or immigrants. And so it's been an interesting struggle and I wonder if you feel some of that.
Samin: I definitely do. I definitely feel some pride and pleasure and that people are having, you know, interests and get to share these things. But rather than being bummed I'm actually really angry about a lot of it. I'm really angry not only on my own behalf as an Iranian-American but for Mexicans and for, you know, people from all countries that are currently being vilified. And I'm like wait a minute, you don't get our food without . . . our food comes . . . we have . . . it's a package deal. [Laughs] You get us and our food. And so that's one part of it, like I have a lot of rage about that actually.
And then I also have a lot of anger about appropriation, and I think, you know, I grew up eating this Persian . . . Persian cooking is one of the most labor-intensive and time-consuming cuisines that there is in the world. My grandma always used to joke that it was invented to keep women in the kitchen.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
(32:00)
Samin: And certainly it was how my mom spent the bulk of her time and that is not lost on me. We often drove two hours to go to our favorite Iranian restaurants in Orange County from San Diego when I was growing up and there were never any white people in there, you know? And now there's an amazing actually Persian restaurant in Brooklyn, so fresh, so good. And I went in there actually maybe a couple months ago. There had been already a series of articles written about it and about the proprietor. She came over to my table and I was like I've never seen so many white people eating Iranian food, you know? [Laughs] And that one actually I feel good about because it's an Iranian lady making it and she's charging a lot of money and she's making her money. But there are also a lot of hipster restaurants making tahdig, our crispy rice, and charging a lot of money for a little side dish of it when, you know, you could go two miles over to Westwood in L.A. to the strip of Iranian restaurants and eat the stuff made by the actual people. And maybe you don't get the fancy subway tiles in the bathroom or whatever, but I don't know. The idea that the money and the credit aren't going to the people is really what's upsetting to me.
And I think also cultural appropriation is a really complicated discussion in general, and specifically in food. And to me as I think about it -- I spent a lot of time thinking about this -- I think we as a community, as a culture, don't have a sophisticated enough vocabulary yet to discuss these issues. So a lot of the time the term cultural appropriation gets slapped on something that maybe isn't strictly appropriation and we sort of have this black-and-white good/bad thinking about how a person shouldn't ever have the ability to cook something that's not from their own heritage.
(33:50)
And I don't believe that at all but I do think credit and money and power are really important and when you're taking something from people who have historically been oppressed or colonized or only have had things taken from them, that is a shameful thing that we need to be really careful about.
Aminatou: Ah, there's a lot. I'm glad that you mentioned the vocabulary because you're right, in that appropriation conversation a lot of people just don't realize that most of the food I would say that you eat from my part of the world colonialism had a lot to do with.
Samin: Yeah.
Aminatou: And so that in itself is, you know, the cuisine has changed. Or whenever I read where crops are from every single African crop is from South America. I'm like what did we eat before we had boats? The whole thing is weird. But the thing that I think about a lot specifically is about gender and cooking because you're right, like I think about my mom. The bulk of my mom's time was spent in the kitchen. African food takes a long time to make. All of the time -- even today, like you see it -- women cook all the time. And to see male chefs be celebrated for things that their moms and grandmas taught them is . . . makes me want to flip the table a lot of times.
And even the language around it, like I forget who was that one that he got Me Tooed and literally his nickname was like the bad boy of pastry. I'm like I don't need food from somebody who calls himself the bad boy of pastry. It is just very frustrating, like male chefs get celebrated for both their character and also for just things that women have literally been doing for millennia that they kind of have to to feed their families. As somebody not in the food world I wonder how that conversation is going and if it is changing, because when I turn my TV on it feels like it is not changing. When I read about restaurants it feels like it's not changing. As an insider what do you think?
(35:50)
Samin: [Laughs] I have like a fireball of rage in my chest right now. [Laughter] I mean so I've always thought and said that if I had -- like if I were to go back and do another career I would go back and do a PhD in gender studies and write about gender in the kitchen basically because to me this is . . . you nailed it, right? For 10,000 years basically humans have been cooking. That's essentially when we switched from hunter-gatherers to farms, to agriculture. And for 10,000 years in most societies -- I think there are some societies where it wasn't women who were always cooking -- but in most societies men hunted and women cooked or men brought the food and women cooked.
So for 10,000 years [Laughs] women have been turning what's available into things that are delicious and nutritious and feed their families. They've been spending the bulk of their time in the kitchen doing this work that for many years, until modern kitchens were invented, was actually toxic, dangerous work. Like before there was ventilation in buildings you would get black lung and die.
And so all of the sort of grandma cooking, the nana cooking, the peasant cooking that now you go to Midtown and pay $40 for a pasta, that comes from traditions where people had nothing else to eat and women were forced to make the most out of what was available to them.
And about 250 years ago, maybe 300 if you want to round up, restaurants were invented. Professional cooking with money attached and glory and attention and critical fame, all that kind of stuff. And that became a man's space and the first professional cooks were men and this became a space where women were not welcome.
(37:45)
So for the bulk of human history it's been women's work and the minute that there was any opportunity for outside glory and money it was suddenly a space not open to women. And so that's not lost on me at all and these kitchens were setup in the military model. Like they have military names. You know, the way that traditional French kitchens are setup. Let's not even talk about the fact that restaurant cuisine is only really -- I'm sorry, I'm so upset right now. [Laughs] I'm so worked up. But also, I mean this is also only in terms of western restaurant culture so -- which I came up in a very western kitchen which I believe and I was sort of taught you weren't a real cook until you understood French cuisine and all of these western traditions and that other countries' traditions and ways of doing things really had less or no value. So that's something that I'm still sort of processing a lot of rage about but that's a separate conversation.
But yeah, this idea that the only attention, money, etc. was for men, like I'm mind-boggled by that. I'm mind-boggled that we have allowed this to happen -- whatever, that this has happened. And I don't know that it's changing. I know that it's trying to but it's a really intense system. To me all bad things go back to capitalism and so a big part of this, a big part of why an oppressive kitchen structure is allowed to go on is because restaurants are really -- have really narrow margins just as businesses. It's a terrible business to be in. Like a really successful famous restaurant will have a maximum of 10% margin.
Aminatou: Wow.
Samin: But even that's a really good one, and so usually you're between 2 and 5 percent. And many restaurants are failing and often they're like -- so yeah, that's its own whole other situation. So in order to make those narrow margins you have to squeeze everything out of everything. You have to stretch all of your ingredients. You have to use every bit of your chicken bones for chicken stock and that's why restaurants are so efficient. But they're also really oppressive. They make people work really long hours and don't get paid overtime.
(40:05)
And when there's a whole -- that pressure is coming from the outside to this business, then from every powerful person or powerful part of the business it's then imposed on every less-powerful person until it gets down to the dishwasher or the prep cook or the busser who's an immigrant and needs this job. You know, or a woman who can't say no because she needs the three jobs to go home and feed her kids. So there are people who can't necessarily say anything about it or do anything about it and then this whole thing continues because it rests on the backs of really oppressed people.
And so I don't know. You know, there might be some surface changes and certainly I'm really glad and proud that I can have this show that has brought, you know, a whole new level of discussion and attention to it in certain ways. But also I don't know what -- it's a puzzle that I don't know that there's an answer to unless we address a lot bigger issues, you know? And it makes me really sad. Really, really sad. I don't see a way through or around it.
Aminatou: I'm going to talk about something that doesn't make me sad which is all the work you do. What are really common misconceptions that you think civilians have in the kitchen or about cooking in general?
Samin: Ooh, that's a good one. I think people probably think that it has to be really complicated and hard to make something delicious. I think for me a big motivation to write the book and teach people how to cook, which teaching came way before writing, was I would go over to a friend's house or we'd rent a weekend house at the beach or whatever and buy whatever was at the grocery store and everyone would contribute their thing and I'd make roasted cauliflower.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
(41:55)
Samin: The people would be like -- they're like "I hate cauliflower" or whatever. Then we'd sit down to eat and they're like what is this? [Laughs] You know? They're like "What did you do to this?" I said "There's literally nothing. There's salt, olive oil, cauliflower." And they're like "But I can't do this." I said "No, no, you can do this. You probably just putting too much cauliflower on your pan or not using enough salt or your oven is the wrong temperature but anyone can do this." So I think people think that good food has to be really complicated and that's a whole other discussion of I think again this goes back to vocabularies and understanding. But I think food, especially with Instagram and food TV and celebrity chef culture which has really come about in the last 20 years, like since I started cooking, I think we get confused as humans about the difference between what we're cooking at home and what so-and-so's doing on their Instagram or in their restaurant. And that somehow we hold ourselves up to that standard.
It's kind of the difference between clothes and fashion, you know? Is like cooking and cuisine or something like that. And even restaurants comprise of a huge spectrum and fulfill a lot of different roles in modern life. And so a chef who's using all the crazy tools and making the foams and playing the food puns, that's a creative expression. That's an art. And that's something totally different than the work-a-day bowl of spaghetti and meatballs that you just want to go and sit down and eat with your friends and feel cared for at the table.
And so to compare them and to put them on the same sort of best-of list to me is a mistake. And to extend that to then compare ourselves to either of those, to somebody whose profession it is to make food, it's not fair. We're not setup for that. So I think we have to learn as regular humans to not constantly compare ourselves to this other stuff and to just loosen up and learn how to make a couple good things.
(43:55)
And this really is something. I believe that my work is sort of the next chapter of Alice's work. It is I honestly believe that if you have never made a chicken and you roast a chicken and you're like "Wow, that was really good. That was super good." And you bought yourself a Safeway chicken or whatever. You're like "Why are those people -- why is she always talking about organic stuff? Or why is that thing at the farmer's market? Maybe next time I'll buy the one more expensive thing." And then you're like ooh, that tastes even more chickeny, you know? Or strawberries. Like why organic strawberries or heirloom strawberries rather than the ones in the clamshell with the bodega? Well those ones are bred to last for three weeks and they look nice but they don't taste like anything. So then you taste the delicate farmer's market strawberry and your mind explodes because it tastes almost like artificial flavor of strawberry and you've never understood that before. So the next time you're like "I want that." So I think by empowering people and by teaching them that they can have it, sure, maybe some people can't afford the thing but maybe then some other people will be motivated to buy the next thing. And that is how we ultimately support small local economies and create this demand for this stuff.
But it's not by telling people that that's the only way or that you're no good if you're not buying the fancy eight dollar a pound beans or whatever. And so again I didn't give you any super duper tips on cooking but there's a whole show about that. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Store-bought is fine as someone says all the time.
Samin: There's a really good Instagram account called Store Bought is Fine.
Aminatou: There's an Instagram account called Store Bought is Fine? Okay, I will look into it. Thank you Ina. So what are you doing next? What's the next book? What is the next season of the TV show? Can I just say if anybody at Netflix is listening to this four episodes is not enough. Give people a full-season order, okay? We want Gray's Anatomy 21 episode style.
Samin: [Laughs]
Aminatou: Because it's just not enough. It was enough that I was like I need more of this and then, you know, then they offer you the next . . . I was like what am I going to do with four episodes? Is this a British crime TV show? I don't have time for this. So I'm wondering what do you have next and also how you think about your work at scale really. Because you're making things but also you're teaching people things. And so where is this going next? The Samin empire.
(46:25)
Samin: Samin? [Laughter] I definitely want to make more something. I'm not sure if it'll be more of this show or a different show but I really enjoyed having a different format for storytelling and I feel like I am good at it. It felt like a skill that I strangely had inside of me. That's really fun and I look forward to figuring out what the right show is. I think we had some thoughts before the show came out about what the next one could be but the reception, partly I think because of Anthony Bourdain's passing, partly because there haven't really been any female travel show hosts, it's even rarer to have someone who looks like me be a host of anything. I think because of that some thoughts are crossing our mind that hadn't before about maybe we should sort of reconsider doing more travel. I don't know what.
But I have had -- my brain is scrambled eggs right now so I need to have a little calm down time to figure out. And trust me, the idea of scaling and figuring that out, that's something I'm trying to wrap my mind around. I've actually been talking to some women entrepreneurs to figure out how do you -- you know, I'm not quite radical enough to totally reject capitalism so if I'm going to exist within it then how do I create a business that's not going to like wipe me out emotionally and energetically and also not rape the world and the environment and support the people who work for me and also allow us to do fun, beautiful, magical things that inspire people?
(47:55)
And I don't think it's impossible; I just think I need to learn a little bit more about business or find the right business people to work with. And I mean I think where it's ultimately heading probably -- again none of this is fully thought out but I think I do want to eventually have a production company so I can both make more shows -- you know, be in more shows but also give other people voices and put other people's stories on the screen. And then I definitely want to write more. But all those things take time, and I also know just because of who I am and decisions I've made, and also I work with the New York Times and because I work at the New York Times I can't have sponsor -- I can't have brand sponsorships.
And so that's the one source of income I'm never going to have. And then there's like I already decided a long time ago I'm never going to be a person who puts my face on pots and pans and sells those. There's already so many wonderful pots and pans in the world.
Aminatou: Giada!
Samin: [Laughs] So if I'm not going to have that source of income then what it feels like is all the income is contingent on me and I'm the product. But then that's really limiting because what can just one person do? So I know I have -- it's a priority for me to figure out how do I lift a bunch of people up so that I'm not the only brown person in cooking that everyone's looking at, you know? And that I don't want -- it's going to get lonely. It already is pretty lonely and I'm already doing a bunch of behind-the-scenes ultimatums. Like if you don't diversify this panel I'm not coming, or if you don't do this I'm not doing this. And I'm trying to figure out how do I really make that part of my business plan and bring -- like make an inclusive workspace.
But I don't know. I'm still new at a lot of this and I'm wary of taking too big of a bite of too many different things. So I need to have a little calm time to figure out what makes the most sense to do next, but probably -- in my heart I think it'll probably be more TV stuff next, yeah.
Aminatou: Who are the other brown people in cooking that we should be following across all of the platforms?
Samin: Okay, there's a wackadoodle, young, amazing writer named Priya Krishna who's writing for Bon Appetit and the New York Times and the New Yorker and she wrote this amazing piece earlier this year about the butter chicken lady. It was about this woman who wrote the Indian Instant Pot cookbook in the New Yorker, you have to read that, Priya Krishana. Also Tejal Rao who is my colleague at the times, she writes a column for the magazine and she's also the new west coast food critic for all of California and the entire west coast. She is just a magical, magical writer and has a wonderful palate, she's so great. I love Nik Sharma whose book Season just came out and he just has a really beautiful story and just a great relationship with spices. I love Korsha Wilson who has a podcast called Hungry Society and I think she's a really thoughtful interviewer. I don't know, there are just . . . my god I could go on for like 45 more minutes but that's probably good for now. [Laughs] Yeah.
Aminatou: This makes me really happy Samin. I want more Samin all the time but I really appreciated what you're also saying about you being the product. It's not sustainable. And this is another way that hetero-patriarchy and capitalism are a scam is that you think that you're a unique snowflake but really being the only means that you become a token very fast and it's not cool. But I just -- we love you here at Call Your Girlfriend. I want to see you do more things all the time at your own pace and also I just hope that everybody listening to this is also so inspired to ask for the things they want for. I loved you going through that. You know, through your career arc and just seeing . . . you said a lot of things about yourself but I think that one thing, you know, I hope you know this about yourself, is that you are somebody who you ask for what you want and you do the best fucking job at it and it is so, so, so inspiring to see. So thank you for coming on CYG today.
(52:05)
Samin: I'm crying. Thank you for having me. [Laughter] Life dream come true.
[Interview Ends]
Ann: Ugh, Samin!
Aminatou: The queen. The queen of everything. Give her 26 seasons and many movies. It's all I want.
Ann: 100%.
Aminatou: Can I tell you one thing I failed at?
Ann: Tell me.
Aminatou: I forgot to ask her what her favorite snack is. [Laughs]
Ann: What? Okay, sorry, what?
Aminatou: I know. I was so in love and smitten and also I was just, you know -- it's not every day you meet your sheroes, okay? So I forgot. But I'm going to call her right now and ask her to remedy that. I'll fix it.
Ann: Okay. Also though I feel like asking a -- someone who's an expert about food to name their favorite snack is like when people ask me about my favorite book. Because my answer is always like for what, you know? Like I don't have a favorite book for everything.
Aminatou: Totally.
Ann: I'm like hmm, your favorite snack for what?
Aminatou: Right.
Ann: Anyway we'll see how she answers.
Aminatou: Okay, we'll see.
Ann: See you on the Internet and in the kitchen.
Aminatou: Yeah. You can find us many places on the Internet, on our website callyourgirlfriend.com, you can download the show anywhere you listen to your favs, or on Apple Podcasts where we would love it if you left us a review. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. We're on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at @callyrgf. You can even leave us a short and sweet voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music is composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs, our logos are by Kenesha Sneed, our associate producer is Destry Maria Sibley. This podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.