Andaza is the sort of book that pulls you in from the start, a beautiful piece of writing that’s as much about family and relationships and learning who you are as it is about food and recipes.
Summayya Usmani has followed her first two cookbooks, Summers under the Tamarind Tree and Mountain Berries and Desert Spice, with a deeply personal memoir, that weaves recipes around memories and stories of the people and events that shaped her, from early years at sea, as she and her mother travelled with her father, who captained merchant ships, to feeling oddly out of place living back on the land in England for a year, and her life in Karachi, where she learned to cook, love and survive loss.
It starts with a tale of a lost toy and the tray of sugary, caramelised fudge her mother cooked to comfort her, then, later, learning to cooking – by feel, not from written recipes – from her mother and two grandmothers, and making big decisions about the direction of her life. Food is at the heart of it all, and alongside the stories of shopping, tasting, cooking and slowly gaining confidence in the kitchen she shares beautiful recipes, from meals treasured by her family, to street-food favourites.
The title of the book reflects a way of cooking by feel, not measurements: “Both of my grandmothers, and my mother, cooked without recipes, recollecting and recreating meals using their senses. I grew up around this way of cooking called andaza, which translates as ‘estimation’, but really encompasses what I like to think of as the art of sensory cooking”, she writes. The book is a beautiful insight into how she, too, became someone who cooks intuitively.
Source: Murdoch Books
SBS spoke to Usmani about the new book, the joy of sharing food and recipes, and the comfort of fudge.
You start the book with a moving story about one of your earliest food memories: your mother cooking "sticky, impossible" cardamom fudge in a cabin on a ship at sea, to console you after the loss of a treasured toy. And you say later in the book that you have, ever since, turned to sweets for consolation. Is this fudge still a kind of 'mother's hug' for you?
Yes, it is - there was something so simple about the act of making me something to forget the loss that even though I don't have a sweet tooth I do reach for that fudge every time I feel out of sorts. There is a deep soulful connection that my mother created for me in a place I was so far away from normalcy, she created home and comfort and it’s as easy as one bite and I'm here again - comforted, consoled and content.
This a wonderfully honest, layered, story-rich book. Was it sometimes overwhelming, diving back into all the memories of the ups and downs of life and the much-loved people who have helped make you the kind of cook you are, and the person you are?
Saffron black cardamom fudge Source: Murdoch Books / Alicia Taylor
I can't tell you how many times I broke down in tears while writing it, re-reading the chapters or simply trying to reach back into memory. I guess in many ways I romanticised so many images of the loved ones I wrote about for years in my heart but to put it down into words was beyond moving. It brought my experiences and my lost relationships to the forefront. I probably felt more than I did at the time I was in those relationships with loved ones, now lost. Looking back into your life with nostalgia and reflection is a powerful force - not to be taken lightly.
It's lovely to read stories about how you learnt to cook - like going to the markets with your grandmother to buy prawns and then learning to make with her - and then having those recipes, as well. Is there a huge joy in being able to share recipes that clearly mean so much to you?
Absolutely - the joy is in the sharing but more so in the stories that connect the recipes. No recipe really means much to me unless I have a personal connection to it. This is even true of recipes that aren't my own. I need to either feel a pull towards making them (thereby associating them to discovery) or I need to feel they take me to a place I long for. For me, food isn't just about the cooking or the eating of it but rather the ability to create a holistic and involved experience. So, as I share the recipes that mean so much to me, I am sharing with the world a piece of my humble life. A little insight into another world - maybe in some ways conjuring the readers own connections to food in a more layered way.
When you are talking about the meaning of andaza - to cook by estimation, rather than with recipes - you write about each of us having a different 'flavour in our hands'. So even the recipes you share in the book will be different for everyone, and that's a good thing, yes?
Prawn karahi Source: Murdoch Books / Alicia Taylor
Yes for sure - no two people can replicate a recipe - that is the beauty of cooking, of sharing recipes and letting them take the form of who cooks them. This is why I have no problems sharing cooking secrets and recipes because I know no one can make them like me and I can't make them like anyone else. One's soul and energy travels through their fingertips and into the food - how they interpret the method, how long they think is long enough to wait for a step to cook, is personal too and it adds flavour differently. The recipes are guides only, it's the magic of cooking - and that is a good thing.
Find the recipe for Usmani's bitter lemon pullao, inspired by her grandmother's preserved lemons, .
Bitter lemon, mustard seed and garlic pullao Source: Murdoch Books / Alicia Taylor
The feels like it embodies the spirit of the book in a way - a combination of the way your two grandmothers and your mother made them, and able to be enjoyed in many different ways. Do you feel, when you cook, that there's always a little bit of each of them in the kitchen with you?
In everything I do in the kitchen, there is a little of all the women in my family in my cooking and my interpretation of how to cook in my kitchen. Each time I cook shami kebabs I feel I cook them a little of a mix of my mother, my Nani Mummy and my Dadi - but then I add something extra, I add my andaza and the flavour of my hands.
Recipe images from by Sumayya Usmani, published by Murdoch Books (RRP $45.00). Photography by Alicia Taylor.
Family shami kebabs Source: Murdoch Books / Alicia Taylor
