PLEASE NOTE: This is a minimally-edited transcript that originates from a program that uses AI.
Anita Rao 0:00
The only time my mom cooked so called American food when I was growing up was when my dad was away on business trips. So the vast majority of the time we ate Indian cuisine. Our plates were filled with white basmati rice, scoops of dal veggies or chole and some kind of curry, chicken, lamb, fish or egg in order to fully absorb the richness of each taste, my dad instructed that we eat with our hands. He always said that unlike forks and knives, the hand has a special scent that transforms the taste of food.
Through years of cooking for myself, since I have learned how to make a variety of cuisines, but I approach cooking in a utilitarian way, emphasizing ease and speed, which means if I make an Indian curry, the recipe is probably from an internet blogger, not my mom, but in the past few years, I've started to reckon with what it means to stay connected to cultural identity as an adult, and in search of what things I need to prioritize, I've been thinking a lot about food. If I learned how to cook the meals that I grew up eating, would that help me feel more consistently connected to my heritage? Would making those recipes and knowing where they come from be enough to ground me? This is embodied. I'm Anita Rao. Many multicultural folks throughout history have searched for cultural connection through food, especially when other routes, like religion, language or a robust familial network are less available. One person in particular whose story I was drawn to is Raj Tawney. He's a fellow mixed race kid, and as I read his memoir, colorful palette, I found myself surprised by the many parallels in our experiences growing up in the 90s and 2000s he has taken an approach to interrogating and documenting his food heritage in a way that I haven't, and I am so curious to know more about his take on finding connections to culture through food. Raj, welcome to embodied.
Raj Tawney 2:21
Thank you, Anita, for having me. I'm so excited.
Anita Rao 2:24
So so much of the experience of being an immigrant, a mixed race person, a multicultural person in America, is that balance of trying to stay connected to where our families have come from, while also building our own blended identities. And I'd love to get a sense of what this was like for you in your early life, like tell me about your family heritage and the mix of cultures you were born into.
Raj Tawney 2:46
Well, my dad came here from India in 1976 from Mumbai. He came here as a student, and my mom was from the Bronx, and her mother is Puerto Rican, and her father is Italian American.
Anita Rao 2:58
So you have this beautiful collection of cultures that you were born into, but from a young age, you really had this sense of kind of feeling like a misfit. You talk in your own writing about how even going into your first day of kindergarten, you were like, Okay, I know this world isn't gonna really accept me or digest me for who I am. So how did that feeling of being an outsider come to you at such a young age?
Raj Tawney 3:23
Yeah, well, it was pointed out to me. It's funny, when you're a kid, you don't know that you're different in this world until people start telling you you're different. So whether it was my dark curly hair, my bushy eyebrows, my ol skin, my foreign sounding name, you know, my brown skinned father with a funny accent, my mother, who didn't look like a standard white American suburbanite, and my brother also didn't look like anyone else. So we were both misfits already before we even asked to be part of the local culture. So it was really tough going through school and being kind of always pointed out and treated as this outsider. I mean, kids are already looking for a reason to bully and pick on other kids. So I had 10 steps further back than any other kid trying to gain acceptance.
Anita Rao 4:09
You really yearned for belonging, though it seems like you had this kind of keen sense of like the way that you wanted to feel, and that the way that you felt at school and with your friends wasn't exactly the way you wanted to feel, and you often turned to food and cooking in search of belonging. Can you tell me, maybe, like, the earliest time you remember that being a link for you, where you found that belonging you were craving through food in the kitchen.
Raj Tawney 4:37
Yeah. Well, I mean, when you're surrounded by American food, what you're eating inside your house is so different than the outside world. And I realized that I was there was something special going on in my household, because, you know, why was my mother cooking Chana Masala one night, and why was the next night she was cooking Roscoe doles, and then on a Sunday night, we'd have meatballs and sweet. Eddie, it was very special upbringing that made me realize, wait a minute, we're not like everybody else, and maybe that's a good thing. So I learned early on that food was this attachment to my identity because I didn't have much else to go by. My parents weren't really strict about teaching us their cultures. You know, it was a little more loosey goosey, and maybe sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.
Anita Rao 5:23
Tell me more about that. What do you mean? Loosey goosey, like, what were the pathways that weren't necessarily as available or as instructive for you in terms of cultural connection?
Raj Tawney 5:34
My dad was really tied to his Indian American community in New York. He would go to a lot of Indian parties and pujas and temporal ceremonies, but he only brought us once in a while. I always wondered if there was this sense of embarrassment he had for having kids and a wife who weren't Indian descent, maybe, maybe not. It's still a question I'm always trying to ask myself and my mom, she grew up Roman Catholic, but she didn't enforce her religion on us, neither did my dad, you know, but that left us, you know, without some sort of a community as well, because we didn't really grow up being that accepted by any of the three cultures that were in my life. You know, we'd go visit family on weekends, but there was always a sense that my brother and I felt that we were outsiders among every single culture.
Anita Rao 6:24
Did you have access to language like, did your mom speak Spanish at home, or did your dad speak Hindi at home? Was that a point of connection for you?
Raj Tawney 6:33
My dad spoke Hindi, but he never taught my brother and me, and I still don't know why, to this day, same,
Anita Rao 6:39
same, yeah.
Raj Tawney 6:42
I don't know what it is. Maybe they just didn't care enough to want to teach us. Maybe they thought it was too complicated. My grandma spoke Spanish, but she was always embarrassed by her Spanish, because, as they called it, broken Spanish, which was like the neighborhood slang Spanish of the Bronx. So she was always slightly embarrassed to speak it and Italian, there were some words, but of course, my mother never learned Italian fluently, and she also had that broken Spanish knowledge, but never used it. So there were, you know, I just tried my best to master English as best as I could. While all these languages were floating around my household, it was tough.
Anita Rao 7:19
You note your mom and your grandmother both as people who spend a lot of time in the kitchen, but I'm curious as a little kid, were you actually folded into the process of cooking, or were you mostly watching like, how did you form these really deep food memories?
Raj Tawney 7:34
I was a curious kid, and I used to ask a lot of questions early on about my mother and my grandmother's journeys, but they didn't always want to open up. But when I started asking about food, that's when they felt a little more safe to be a little vulnerable. And I used to ask to cook with them all the time, and they'd welcome me as well. So when I was a kid, you know, they let me peel garlic or roll meatballs or eventually chop onions. It's when I started cooking with them in the kitchen alongside them, that they'd tell me a lot of these stories about where these dishes arrived from, like the first time my mother attempted to make chicken curry for my dad. She used, she used Coco Lopez, which when Puerto Rican culture, that's like how you make pina coladas. So she tried to use that as a milk base, and it came out awful and it was an embarrassment, but she worked so many years to perfect chicken curry. So this chicken curry was very meaningful to her, because it was her way of gaining acceptance in his community, or at least her feeling of pride that she had a right to be there.
Anita Rao 8:37
There's so much in your mom's and grandmother's stories of a tension between where they came from and also their desire to kind of become students and champions of their husbands cuisines really out of love, but also out of a desire to belong. And this is a story that's really well told through two particular dishes. So could you tell me the story of your nanny's meatballs? That's the name that you call your mom's mom, your nanny?
Raj Tawney 9:11
Yeah, those meatballs were very important to her, because when she was marrying her husband in 1957 she was trying to gain acceptance into his Italian American culture, and they were making really derogatory comments like, I hope their babies don't turn out dark these ransom uncles saying this. But my grandma didn't let that bother her. You know, she had this inner strength that no one can tell her otherwise. So it was important to her to make the best meatballs in the entire neighborhood and gain acceptance and respect through them. And she did, apparently, and they've become legendary in our family, and I've always heard about these meatballs, but it wasn't until I started cooking alongside her that she'd open up and tell me why these meatballs were so important, and I realized it was because she was 10. Taking on the identity of becoming an Italian American, which means that she was trying to ascend in society that was really important to her, because she grew up poor, and being Puerto Rican was very tough in America. So those meatballs were a way of gaining respect.
Anita Rao 10:18
It seems like she had this innate desire to perfect it, but there was also this expectation from her mother in law, like you, you better learn how to make these meatballs. So I'm curious about, like, your thoughts on kind of the pressure that is put on women and on matriarchs in these cultural blending contexts to be the cultural translators for their family.
Raj Tawney 10:43
My grandma and my mom both had a lot of pressure from the older generations, especially because they're not of the culture. Not only that, but I should point out that they were both very self empowered people. You know, my grandma, she worked in a department store folding clothes in order to help her eight siblings and her parents through the Depression, and eventually became the breadwinner in her family. She became a bank manager, started as a teller, and then my mom, also, who didn't go to college right away, she worked as an assistant in a travel agency in the 70s, and she was always so fascinated about the world. So she had already been to India before she met my dad, there was already this deep curiosity and need to climb the ladder. And you know, it just was innate inside of them. Nobody was telling them that they weren't on a mission to prove anything.
Anita Rao 11:34
Coming up. We're going to talk about the dish that raj's Mom perfected to gain acceptance from the Indian community. We'll also hear more about raj's Search for cultural connection, whether at the Indian buffet or a teenage house party you're listening to embodied from North Carolina public radio, a broadcast service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We'll be right back. This is Embodied. I'm Anita Rao today we're talking about food, how what we cook and what we eat connects us to our cultural identities, and whether or not food is enough to make us feel like we really belong. Digging into this with us is writer Raj Tani. Raj grew up in an Italian Indian and Puerto Rican family. His memoir, colorful palette, explores his journey to make sense of his mixed American experience through food. We heard the story of his Puerto Rican grandmother, Elsie, who he calls Nani, and her meatball recipe that won over her husband's Italian American family, and history repeated itself with raj's mom, Loretta. Loretta worked to master a recipe for Chana Masala, an Indian chickpea dish. She'd bring it to parties hosted by raj's Dad's Indian friends. And as a kid, Raj had a front row seat to observe the results of his mom's efforts and where her desires to bridge the cultural divide, met the reality of the community that she was trying to connect to.
Raj Tawney 13:06
Well, Indian housewives, or Indian women in particular, they're very much not accepting of outsiders, and I think that's still true to this day by things I've heard from friends. So when my mom would bring her dishes, you know, they'd always criticize her as they're not going to eat her food, they're not going to like it. They just refused to want to accept that she was making an effort. But then sometimes she'd put the food on the table and not tell anybody that it was hers. When she saw them eating it and really enjoying it, she kind of had this personal satisfaction. And also she took classes to learn Hindi. She took these night classes after work just to teach herself Hindi in order to further gain acceptance. And also just because she was fascinated by Indian culture and loved it. So when the wives were talking smack about her, she knew, and I think once or twice, she called them out on it and really embarrassed them, because I think she just had enough of that. So it was a personal victory for her. And you know, she reflects on it now when I talk about it with her, and she doesn't think much of it, but I always think, man, that's so badass, so cool of you to do that. Who does that?
Anita Rao 14:21
You use this phrase in your work, where you kind of talk about how food is important to understand your complex Americanness, because it did give you these links to your family history. We talked about the importance of the meatballs and the chana masala, but it was also a way for you to kind of Forge who you were as someone interpreting these as an American kid growing up in Long Island, and when you got into your teenage years, you started craving foods that you hadn't grown up eating like that, maybe some of your peers did. I'm curious about the foods that helped you explore your American cultural identity.
Raj Tawney 14:57
Well, the foods that helped me explore that were pretty much. Garbage and junk food and fast food, and you know things that you probably shouldn't be eating on a weekly basis, but you know when you're a teenager and you see other kids eating it, of course you want to eat it too. It doesn't mean I didn't eat the food that my mom and grandma made, or I helped them make, but it was less often when you're a teenager.
Anita Rao 15:18
But was there a specific fast food that comes to mind.
Raj Tawney 15:22
I think Taco Bell, we've really loved. And it's funny, because Indians have this relationship with Taco Bell. They seem to think it's the closest thing to Indian food. They love going to Taco Bell. I don't know if you've experienced
Anita Rao 15:33
it's fun. My family loved going to Arby's. I feel like it was because it was, like, almost the farthest thing from Indian food was, like a roast beef sandwich and curly fries, like that was our go to but I love, I love the Taco Bell reference. I totally saw that in other families.
Raj Tawney 15:47
Oh, really, yeah, well, it's funny you say Arby's, because, you know, I had grown up eating beef every now and then. And one time, I was hanging out with my Indian American friend, I think, at an Applebee's, and I was eating a burger, and he looks at me and he says, you know, you're Indian, right? And I said, Oh, and then I pretty much haven't eaten beef since then, for the past 10 or 15 horrible, the guilt, yeah, um, but you know, one place that we really loved going to as a family was the local Indian buffets on Long Island, because, because they were casual, and also it was a way to watch and observe other people who weren't Indian go to these restaurants and sample food that is otherwise sometimes very scary for people and intimidating, you know. So when I would go with my mom and grandma my brother, if I was craving Taco Bell that day and I didn't want Indian food, or I wanted to pretend I was at Taco Bell. I'd take a piece of naan and I'd start kind of making a taco shape out of it, and put, like, chicken tikka and chole and chaat and all this stuff. And I'd kind of eat it like a taco, which I wrote about in the book. And it's, it's probably pretty disgusting, you know, it's fallen over my hands and stuff, but I still like to do it, but my wife gets mad at me. She thinks I'm a slob.
Anita Rao 17:05
Well, I love that image, because it's kind of like this combination of you being defiant, saying, fine, if I'm gonna be at this Indian buffet, then I'm gonna make food the way I want it, like if I were at Taco Bell. But also, clearly, there's love there, because you're not just eating plain non you know, you're putting the chicken curry in, you're putting the chaat on, like there's a way that you're kind of forging this mix through that Indian buffet taco.
Raj Tawney 17:31
Yeah, absolutely. I love food in general. And I think the best part about growing up with all of this food is that sometimes, you know, there'd be multiple dishes at a family gathering, or a holiday gathering, or even just on a random night, my mom would throw a few random dishes together. And what I loved is taking all of these different flavors, putting them on one spoonful, and shoving them into my mouth and creating this new flavor. And everybody would be like, Oh, God, it's disgusting. Why are you doing that? But I loved it because it was part of who I was. You know, it was that wasn't like my American identity. It was who I was. It was like, this is the this is the concoction of who I am. So I might as well enjoy it the way I see fit.
Anita Rao 18:11
There's a story from your adolescence that I think really highlights this, bringing all of these pieces of yourself together. You were getting really into music. You started a band, and your parents let you host a concert in your backyard, and you are up there. Your mom and grandmother are determined to feed the attendees. Your mom made pakoras and chutney. Your grandma made chicken cutlets, like set up this party for us. I really wish I could have attended. It seems amazing.
Raj Tawney 18:42
Yeah, well when I was expressing myself through music in high school, and we had formed bands, and I was performing at all the school talent shows, you know, I was influenced by a lot of aggressive music, like Rage Against the Machine and NAS and Big Pun. So I was doing music like that in high school, and, you know, we had this idea of like, let's we couldn't curse on stage. We couldn't be as wild as we wanted to. So let's do it on the back deck of my house and invite a bunch of people. So I asked my parents for permission, and they reluctantly said, Yeah, my dad loves to like party, so he was all in and, you know, my mom and grandma, you know, they all had to be there because everybody loves my family, you know, because they're such characters. So they had to cook, of course. So all of these wild teenagers were having a great time, but they were also eating my mom and grandma's food. To watch these stupid teenagers appreciate their food the way I always appreciated it. It gave me a new perspective on how I should approach them as people, I had an adolescent perspective for so long, and then as an adult, you realize these are just people trying to make the best life for themselves, and the way they want to nurture and take care of people is through food, and that's the power. In the beauty of it. Food acts as this connectivity, because you don't just want to nourish people, you want them to enjoy it, you know, even if they're stupid kids.
Anita Rao 20:12
Yeah, and there is like, that desire of wanting to share with other people, like, I feel like, you know, it's kind of a stereotype of, like the Indian parents, you know, forcing all of their kids friends To eat food or take home leftovers. But it really is like, it feels like an important extension of how you share your culture to like, provide a sense of abundance and provide this sense of access. Like this food is here for you whenever you feel ready to take it?
Raj Tawney 20:42
Yeah. I mean, that's, that's absolutely right. I think that's the feeling you get when you walk inside somebody's household and they're cooking for you that they don't just want you to enjoy the meal. They're saying, I want you to live you know, I want you to experience this. So that's why I love eating at family's houses, not only my own, but I love eating at friends and or, you know, whoever I'm visiting at the time, and they cook a meal for me, I think that's what, 10 times better than going out to a restaurant.
Anita Rao 21:09
I want to talk about another part of your story that has a lot of important food themes, which is your relationship with your now wife, Michelle, you all met in your mid 20s. You were working in the communications realm, and food became a huge part of your courting and how the two of you got to know each other. So talk to me about what you learned about Michelle through food.
Raj Tawney 21:36
Well, I learned that she is the product of her parents, Jim and Susan, who are both open minded people. You know, they come from Queens, and they were raised to have an open mind toward food and to love it and appreciate all cultures. So they instilled that in her. So on our first stage, she took me to a place in Flushing Queens, which is a largely Asian population, and I tried shabu, shabu with her for the first time, which was something that she always loved, that's a hot pot with all these raw ingredients, and you kind of, you know, mix it in, and then you eat it, either like a soup base, or you take it out of the pot and, you know, eat it with chopsticks. And at that time, I was really unfamiliar with it, but I gave it a shot. And she later told me that she was testing me, and her mother would say, Oh, that was horrible. Why would you do that to that poor boy? But she wanted to see if I was open minded. And here I am thinking, I'm the most open minded person in the world. And meanwhile, you know, she was testing me, and I love that about her. I respected her so much that she was, she wanted to see, you know, if I was who I said I was, and I was so nervous that I shook her hand at the end. Yeah, I'm really lame.
Anita Rao 22:48
Well, so I mean, she clearly has a love for food and is adventurous and is interested in understanding where food comes from. But I'm curious if there's ever been times where it feels hard to kind of communicate the complexity of your cultural identity with her and how you go about doing that through food and through other means?
Raj Tawney 23:16
Well, I think Michelle is really responsible for bringing this kind of cultural pride out of me. I think when I was in my 20s, there was a sense of shame, and I just wanted to assimilate into being like an All American person. But she was the one who said, you know, these are the best parts about you. Why are you trying to push them down? This is who you are. So she showed me that my identity was really my strength. It wasn't something wasn't a disability, it wasn't something I should be shy about. It's something that is a superpower, really. And my owe that to her. You know, I feel like I know myself more because of her.
Anita Rao 23:58
I love that. And I think there's there's so much in this being a mixed kid and a multicultural person, where there are things that you just grew up absorbing, like having access to food at the dinner table, and those things just being a given. And then once you're out on your own and you have to figure it out for yourself, I think the role a partner can play in helping support that is so important, even just asking the question of, like, Why do you make chole this way? Like having the ability to reflect on that and push you to ask new questions. I'm curious about kind of how the process of writing this book and collecting recipes from your mom got you to ask new and different questions about the significance of these recipes.
Raj Tawney 24:45
Well, writing the book was emotionally draining, to be honest, because I had to revisit parts of my life that I, you know, hadn't been in my mind for so long. But every time I would write a chapter, I would always come back to food, and that's why. Food was so valuable to me. And you know, my mom helped me with the recipes in the book. My grandma had passed in 2018 so I only had some recipes from her, but my mom gave me the rest, and she would tell them to me verbatim. You know, there were no exact measurements in these recipes. Everything was like spoken word poetry. It was like a dash here, you know, Nix this did. It was like, it was really cool the way it came out. And when the publisher asked me, Do you want us to put exact measurements in, I said, No, no, that's exactly the opposite of what I want, because it's like a family heirloom, and it's perfect the way it is. It's perfectly imperfect, just like my family, just like me, I guess, just like all of us. You know, it's beautiful. The messiness is beautiful. So writing about, I don't even remember your question.
Anita Rao 25:51
Well, I mean, I want to ask you about that, because I totally hear that. But I think that makes it hard for me sometimes to make my mom's recipes, because I'm looking and I'm like, uh, or like, if I take the time to call her and ask for something, and she says, like, a bit of turmeric and some ginger, and I'm like, I don't have time to maybe mess this up and not have dinner tonight. And it's like the slow build of obstacles that make me turn to a random internet bloggers curry versus my mom. So like, how do you actually navigate that? Like the practical piece?
Raj Tawney 26:24
Well, I think I observed so much in the kitchen that when my mom says a pinch or a dash, or, you know, or a small spoonful, I mean, I knew exactly what she meant. And now that the book's been out for a little while, people have sent me photos trying the recipes and they come out exactly the way we hope they would. So I don't know what that says about exact measurements, but I think recipes that have lived and survived for this long have for a reason.
Anita Rao 26:56
Do you think there's something that people can do if they don't have the ability to observe, like, if they are really far from family, or if they, yeah, if they don't have that direct connection to, like, get in the kitchen and observe, like, what are the other pathways?
Raj Tawney 27:12
Well, I think that's where cookbooks come in. And cookbooks are a really useful tool, and they've lasted these many decades, for centuries, for a reason at this point. So I'm all for cookbooks. And then I do think the internet does play a good role in watching people make food, you know. And I don't know if people want to do like my mom did. Words you could actually go to a local restaurant and ask to observe the cooks in the kitchen and write down notes. That's what she did.
Anita Rao 27:38
So your mom, just like, walked into the kitchen and asked people, can I watch you cook?
Raj Tawney 27:45
Yeah, she went to the host or the waiter or someone, and she said, Can I walk in the back room and just stand there and watch them cook? And she did. And she took pages and pages of notes, you know, because that was what the late 70s, early 80s. It was either that or that one cookbook she had, which was Major joffrey's book. And I guess that was her way of observing people that was like YouTube before YouTube or food network before. Food Network is actually watching people cook in front of you.
Anita Rao 28:11
One thing I'm curious about. You're someone who thinks a lot about food. You've spent this time collecting these recipes directly from the source, from your mom. How do you think about this question around like, authenticity when it comes to food, like, what is an authentic Indian curry dish? What is an authentic Puerto Rican meal? How do you grapple with that question of authenticity?
Raj Tawney 28:37
I don't think I'm the right person to ask about authenticity, because people would probably argue that my version of authenticity to a culture is not correct, because when you're asked, well, when you're mixed, the food changes over time, you know, because of all of the outside influences that you have. So I would argue that my mom's chole is probably different than the way some people make the chole because of maybe the ingredients have changed, or maybe because her palate is different than other Indian people that she made it a certain way. And in the book, there's a recipe where it says Loretta and elsie's Chana masawa, because then that was the only dish my Puerto Rican grandmother, the only Indian dish that she learned to make, so it became her own, and the exact recipe would change a little bit, just ever so slightly. So I don't think I'm the authority on authentic anything. I think I'm just a person who loves food and who loves his family, who's trying to figure it out along the way. And whatever we have, whatever this mess we have, I love it the way it is. It's it's imperfect, but that's exactly how I want it to be.
Anita Rao 29:52
So you're not in search of, you know, authentic Italian meatballs. You're in search of elsie's Meatballs. That are maybe not capital pay authentic, but they're ones that have kind of evolved over time.
Raj Tawney 30:05
You know, I don't even know what authentic means anymore. And yeah, living a life not committed to any one culture, but learning to respect all of it, I think that's what being American is, that it evolves over time, that the food from our old countries morphs and changes into our own. And I think that's what my writing is. It's really it's a love letter to the people who took these cuisines, who learned them, who who loved the cultures, but slowly changed into their own version of it, just like our family is being mixed. You know, we're our own version. We are not like anybody else. And that's, I think, the cool thing about being mixed, rather than something that I was once ashamed of, is that I don't want to be like anybody else. I don't want the food to taste like anybody else's. Yes, of course, for the most part, it tastes like the authentic, real thing, but maybe there's a slight hint of something else, and that's because of the people who made it.
Anita Rao 31:06
Raj's reframe on the importance of so called authentic food really resonates with me and makes me wonder if I've gotten too caught up looking for that in the past, and if leaning more into what feels authentic to my family's story would better serve my desire for connection. I'm gonna get a few final words of advice from Raj just ahead, and then call up the one person who can best help me understand my relationship to food and culture. That's the primary chef in the Rao family, my mom, Sheila. We'll be right back.
This is Embodied. I am Anita Rao, for those of us who feel like cultural misfits from multi racial, multicultural or immigrant families, is food the key to belonging? That's the question we're exploring today with Raj. Tani Raj is a writer and the author of the memoir colorful palette. He's brought us through moments of his upbringing as a person of Puerto Rican, Italian and Indian heritage when he felt particularly isolated and confused about identity, but also moments of joy and connection that he traces back to the kitchen as an awkward kid, he often found belonging through food and as an adult, while that awkwardness persists, his response to it has changed.
Raj Tawney 32:41
I think I'm still a misfit. I still have many moments of feeling like an outsider, but I also love it that way. I certainly have a sense of pride, but I also have this awkwardness that I'm always gonna have because I just always feel like I'm this outsider. But I like that, and I like befriending outsiders. Just last week, I spoke at Queensborough Community College, down the street from where my parents started their marriage, and I spoke to 275 students who were reading this book, and these were all immigrant students and children of immigrants from all over the world. And this it seemed to really affect them when they had me signing the copies, I was looking and they underlined all these words, and they wrote notes in the margin, and they put stickers on it, and it seemed to really mean something to them. It really affected me, because it showed me that you think you're supposed to take this path to becoming American and do all the right things in your life and ascend and then you're American. But that's not the way a lot of us feel. So I feel like I'm writing for a lot of people who feel like they're living on the sidelines, you know, they're living in the margins, and I want to speak to them, you know? I think, I think writing the book has been this really emotional experience, but watching people interpret the book and making it their own, and then sharing their own personal experiences with me has been the most rewarding part.
Anita Rao 34:11
I want to ask you, mixed kid to mixed kid. Like, I mean, how would you help me kind of answer this question of how to figure out the role that food can play in making me feel more connected to my Indianness. Like, do you? Yeah? Do you have advice for me?
Raj Tawney 34:31
Oh, go hit the Indian buffet and just get messy. Just throw a bunch of dishes on your plate. Make a taco out of the naan bread. Yeah, just go be part of it. You want to really know, like, about Indian culture. Go to your local, little family owned Indian restaurant and and you'll see that food is so meaningful to them, you know, and that they're really cooking it in the back. And they want you to like it. They want you to come back. That's the best way to feel connected, you know. Every time I eat Indian food or any food from my cultures, I feel like home. I feel like it's part of me.
Anita Rao 35:09
Well, food is an important way of finding home and exploring. I think you're putting it so well when you talk about food as a way to play with identity as well, and like at the buffet, you can play, you can find the balance of the things that might feel more familiar and the things that might feel more distant. You know, we've talked a lot about the role that food can play, but in moments when you're feeling like a misfit and you're wanting a way to feel connected, and food isn't doing it. Are there other things that you have tried to do to find a way in and try to find a way to kind of feel closer to where you came from?
Raj Tawney 35:50
I think learning about the people who came before you is crucial to understanding yourself, whether you want to know about their journeys, or whether it's difficult to hear about what they had gone through, I think the more you learn about those people who raised you, and for better or for worse, you know everything that they had gone through to make you and make you who you are, it makes you connected to This past and these cultures, every time I think about what it means to be American, there's so many answers to that question, and I'm still asking that to myself every day, because it changes, you know, but I think the more I've learned about my own family and everything that they had to go through gives me a sense of identity and purpose, and I do it for them. You know, I'm writing it for them in a way to better understand myself. And I don't think I have all the answers, to be honest with you, think I'm still searching for those answers.
Anita Rao 36:55
Well, I so appreciate you going on this journey with me and your book and your writing. Raj Tawney, thank you so much for the conversation.
Raj Tawney 37:05
Thank you, Anita. I really appreciate you having me.
Anita Rao 37:14
After talking to Raj, I found myself thinking a little differently about the question of, when is food enough to connect us more deeply with our cultural heritage. In his story, I see that what makes those recipes and meals so transformative is that he spent a lot of time in the kitchen with the people making them, gathering and documenting the recipes alongside the stories of the chefs. So I realized that I needed to start a conversation with the main chef in my family, my mom, Sheila, like rajas family matriarchs, she became an essential cultural translator, helping my siblings and I get to know our Indian heritage through cuisine. I know some about her cooking journey, but definitely not enough. So I gave her a call. Hey, Mom, are you there?
Sheila Rao 38:01
I'm here, Anita.
Anita Rao 38:03
How's your day going?
Sheila Rao 38:04
It's going well. Thank you.
Anita Rao 38:06
My mom and dad met in 1981 at a hospital dance in England. He was furthering his medical education with plans to move back to India, and she was a midwife who had never traveled outside the UK. They fell in love, got married, and food quickly became an important part of their relationship.
Sheila Rao 38:26
I liked him right away. I thought he was super cute, really quirky. Had his own fashion sense, bell bottoms, sweater vests and a big tie, and I knew that food was important to him. I mean, he was at that time, he was still a resident, and he was eating a lot of hospital food, which is kind of yucky, especially British hospital food. So when he wasn't working, connecting with food, which was from home, I think, was important to him. I knew that because we'd order food from one of two restaurants that were available. And you know, he was still young. Then he was only 25 so he wanted things which would connect him with his sense of home and identity. Food gave him comfort and made him feel comfortable.
Anita Rao 39:11
So were you ordering from like a local Indian place?
Sheila Rao 39:13
Yes, Grange town, tandoori.
Anita Rao 39:16
Had you had Indian food before that?
Sheila Rao 39:18
I had not. It wasn't even particularly healthy food, but it was what was available, like chicken curries, which were a little bit oily, and tandoori naans.
Anita Rao 39:28
So what was it like for you to eat that food for the first time? Kind of with him knowing that it was food he was so familiar with, but food that was so new to you?
Sheila Rao 39:37
It was okay. I mean, it was totally alien food to me, I'd not eaten any spicy food at all, but luckily for me, I have a pretty robust gut, so never bothered me. I enjoyed it.
Anita Rao 39:49
So when did you cook your first Indian meal? Is there a specific memory or moment that comes to mind?
Sheila Rao 39:57
Very much so because we'd been married. For two days. And so I was feeling very lovely in my new, new married accommodation. And Dad said she don't think we should invite all my chiefs for supper. And I'm like, Oh, really, I don't know how to make anything. I'm like, totally panicked. I'm like, I can't do this. Help. You know, this is this is not okay. Give me some time. But he was like, no, no, no, I think we should definitely invite them. How about next week? Let's fix a date. Our next door neighbor was a very nice Indian lady, and her mom happened to be here from Kerala. And he said, Why don't you just go ask her auntie if she can teach you something? And I'm like, Oh, that's a good idea. So literally, went knocked on the door, and I'm like, help gonna have these four people over next week, and you have to give me, like, a quick primer and teach me how to make and I said two things. I thought that was doable. What did you learn? She taught me a kerala chicken curry with potato. I remember the ingredients, coconut milk, garam masala, tomatoes. Then she taught me real easy green beans, and then I made rice and yogurt. It all went off fabulously. And I'm like, hoof and that was it. That was my like baptism into how to do Indian cooking.
Anita Rao 41:17
So you really became an incredible Indian chef. As your marriage evolved, you all moved to the US, you continued to primarily cook Indian food, and I am so lucky that you fill my freezer today with stuff every month or so that you have made. But I don't cook a lot of Indian food for myself, and I have been thinking a lot about this question of why that is and whether cooking more Indian food would make me feel more connected to my Indian identity and Indian culture, and I wanted to get into that with you. I'm curious if you ever wished that we were more into cooking Indian food so that we would have that as part of kind of our repertoire when we grew up, because you spent so much time kind of providing that food for us.
Sheila Rao 42:07
I did not teach you how to cook because I was just, you know, my approach was, I'm going to make a good meal. It's very important that, as a family, we gather around and we eat together. Meal planning didn't exist in those days. You know, Dad was never there. He never helped. So I felt comfortable making Indian food, so it was a default, and it was easy for me, so that's what I would do. And you know, I didn't teach you guys, which was actually a mistake, but I just didn't. I don't know why I didn't, but I think, yes, we should definitely share recipes, and I should cook with you, and I think you should maybe just choose things that you you know, dishes that you like and that you're interested in learning how to make. And either I can teach you, or, you know, you can follow a recipe, but you know, my passion for cooking, it was something I was good at, and I think the more you practice, the more you do it, the easier it becomes.
Anita Rao 42:57
Well, how? I mean, you have an intuition around cooking, and around cooking Indian food that I think is so impressive, like you can taste something and immediately, you know, like, oh, a little bit more lemon, or I added too much turmeric, or Whoops, I forgot the cumin. But how do you actually develop that intuition? How do you think that I could develop that intuition?
Sheila Rao 43:20
I think it starts with just a confidence and saying, you know, I'm putting in my best effort. You know, I want to do this. It's gonna be good. I was, you know, I'm very passionate about cooking, so I would ask people who I admired, who I thought were good cooks, you know, tell me your secret. How did you do that? What did you do? I think that's key, you know, asking for help and taking tips from friends. And I think another thing that is super important is whatever you're cooking, however simple it is, invite other people. It doesn't have to be fancy, but sharing a meal with other people, I think it's just such a way of caring. And it's a simple thing that we can do, and I think it's really hard, and, like, everybody's busy and running pillar to post, and I'm proud that we always, I've, at least, I've always took the time, and I've had the luxury of being able to do that. And I think, you know, you can do it. You have a lot of confidence. And I believe in you, you totally can do it. And I mean, I love my pressure cookers, like they're like my children, you know.
Anita Rao 44:19
Well, you've said to me before that you want to be buried with all of your pressure cookers and
Sheila Rao 44:24
teapots,
Anita Rao 44:24
Yeah, and your teapot and your teapots
Sheila Rao 44:26
and your teapots, because it's a spiritual experience, you know, just really getting into the zone and making a good meal.
Anita Rao 44:33
I mean, I think it is. And I think, like, you know, for me, you know that I'm so story oriented. And I think for me, you know, hearing the story of how you learn to cook that first meal by walking to your neighbor's house, that helps me feel a deeper connection and helps me feel a stronger desire to make something because I know the story behind it. Do you feel like there are more stories that you. Around food, or that dad knows that you guys could share?
Sheila Rao 45:03
Yes, I think we do. And I think what I need to do is start writing a recipe book. I mean, I have the recipes in my head, and I have some of them typed off, but I think that is a really important way of of sharing and encouraging you all to to cook like, you know, some people have an innate interest, and I think maybe you have to just cultivate it, and sort of think, okay, I really want to try to make this one dish. And don't be discouraged if it doesn't taste good the first time, because you have to try a few times. It's not always and for me, I never frustration never happens. If frustration happens with everything but cooking, I never get frustrated. You might say to me, Oh, well, could you, like, write an essay? I'm like, Okay, I'll make dinner for 100 people, but I'm not gonna write an essay.
Anita Rao 45:47
Well, I can help you. I can definitely help you with the cookbook piece. I feel like our skill sets are a good compliment there. But do you think so? Okay, if you're gonna, let's propose this idea. So if you are gonna make this cookbook of these recipes, what british recipes would you include? We've been talking a lot about how you've become such a good Indian chef, but are there British foods that you would like us to learn how to cook or learn more about?
Sheila Rao 46:14
I'm definitely proud of my British heritage. I would not say that British food per se is caught on Blur, but you know, I mean, we ate pretty basic food, bacon sandwiches, scones, Yorkshire pudding. I do wish I could make a good Yorkshire pudding. I cannot do that. Roast beef gravy, you know, those things. But beyond that, I don't think British cuisine is the greatest, so I would have to really think a little bit more.
Anita Rao 46:39
Do you miss having British food. Or, like, do you miss having that kind of closeness to your British identity through food? Or do you do get that another way?
Sheila Rao 46:49
Um, I think I get it another way. I don't. I mean, if I just think of a bacon sandwiches, I just think of my mom, you know. So yes, I do have connections with certain things. And like, toast with like, 15 layers of butter, same thing. I just think of my mom. And you know, you cannot go past a good British cup of tea. No way.
Anita Rao 47:07
How many cups of British tea do you think you drink a day?
Sheila Rao 47:11
Probably five, five. Give
Anita Rao 47:13
five cups of caffeinated tea?
Sheila Rao 47:17
Absolutely. That's breakfast. Then mid morning, one after lunch, mid afternoon, and then one more in the evening, or maybe six.
Anita Rao 47:27
Okay, so we have a plan to make a cookbook. We have a plan for me to spend more time with you in the kitchen. Is there anything you want to add to to that list?
Sheila Rao 47:39
Yeah, always take the time to enjoy foods that give you joy. You know, a food that you and John enjoy together. Establish some traditions, maybe Christmas time we have a British breakfast, yeah, or, you know, tea and scones. But you know, you think of like two or three Indian dishes that you would like to make, and I will help you do it. And then you you will feel that sense of accomplishment.
Anita Rao 48:02
Well, thank you so much, mom. I look forward to getting in the kitchen with you and learning more and thank you for the conversation.
Sheila Rao 48:10
You're so welcome.
Anita Rao 48:13
After talking with my mom, I feel solid about our plan and also grateful that she is around to cook with the Sheila recipes up first on my list are a divine lamb and spinach curry she makes and Bindi masala, the only version of okra I actually enjoy. If my mom and I ever do make that cookbook, I will certainly share the details with y'all.
That's it for our show today. You can find out more about everyone featured in this episode at our website, embodied w u n c.org, you can also stay up to date by following us on Instagram and tick tock. Our handle is at embodied W U N C. Today's episode is produced by Kaia Finlay and edited by Amanda Magnus. Nina Scott is our intern and Jenni Lawson is our technical director. This program is recorded at the American Tobacco Historic District. North Carolina Public Radio is a broadcast service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I'm Anita Rao.