Cooking the Books with Gilly Smith

This week, Gilly's at the home of award-winning recipe writer, author and YouTuber, one of Bake Off’s most celebrated winners and mother of 2, Chetna Makan to talk about her new book, Chetna’s Indian Feasts.

But in this first episode of a special series this summer, we’re talking about food through the prism of matrescence, the raw ingredients which make up the heady mix of motherhood and provide the recipe for life. Like adolescence, matrescence shows us a picture of process, and with it an implicit understanding of what that means. Just as adolescents are always adults in training, so matrescents are mothers in training, and that never stops.

The word was coined by anthropologist Dana Raphael in 1973 to describe the experience of half the global population but which is barely known, barely discussed, barely acknowledged. On the contrary, we’re supposed to know it all the minute we give birth. It’s estimated that perinatal mental health problems alone cost the NHS and social services around £1.2 billion annually. Imagine the impact on families and wider society of way post natal mental health issues – the massive lows that come with the roller coaster of emotions of motherhood – at all ages and stages.

The aim of this Cooking the Books series is to introduce the word into the national conversation. Chetna is the first of four writers, mothers, matrescents who have much to say on the subject throughout the whole of August. For more information and where to get help, click here.

Check Gilly's Substack each week for Extra Bites from each guest.

And if you'd like support with your own matrescence, click here for information

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This week, we’re off to the jungles of Colombia and... London with Modern Medicine Woman, Frankie Paz

Her book Plant Feasts is about how to live in the concrete jungle or the madness of modern life with the wisdom of the ancients. It’s about slowing down and finding how to live – how to really live by connecting with friends, family and nature – even if, like her, you live in a city.

Click here for Gilly's Substack to get Extra Bites of Frankie's wisdom for life.

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This week, Gilly is with vegan queen, retreat chef and recipe consultant, Bettina Campolucci Bordi whose new book Celebrate is about flavours from around the world, influenced by her own peripatetic childhood and Skandi/Bulgarian parentage. But more, it’s all about wellness and conscious cooking, dressed up for a great big party.

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This week, Gilly is with New York food writer, Sharon Wee whose book Growing up in a Nonya Kitchen tells the story of Peranakan cuisine, a largely unknown type of cookery from Singapore, Malaysia and Malacca which was part of a craft culture binding Chinese women, including Sharon’s mother, into the fabric of a very particular lifestyle.

Sharon’s book which first came out in 2012 in Singapore has become much better known as the subject of plagiarism in an astonishing story that has gripped the food community over the last few months. She’s not allowed to talk about it for legal reasons, and Gilly is much more interested in a food culture that was part of her early childhood in Penang, so here's the story of the nonyas and the babas and a little known cuisine.

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If you'd like to get online access, ckbk has a 50% Black Friday offer on annual subscriptions, giving unlimited online access to more than 500 cookbooks including Growing up in a Nonya Kitchen: https://app.ckbk.com/subscribe

You can access the book online, and pre-order a print copy, here: https://app.ckbk.com/book/9814346365/growing-up-in-a-nonya-kitchen

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