A mother-daughter book celebrates the diversity of American food

Written by Allie Ginwala

Indian-Ish is one of the most interesting cookbook releases of 2019. The author, food writer Priya Krishna, teamed up with her mother Ritu, to share unique recipes from their family. Ritu, an executive at a software company, taught herself how to cook after moving from India to the United States. She created one-of-a-kind recipes that fuse together traditional Indian flavors with staple American dishes. The title is filled with accessible and easy-to-make dishes that have been selected and presented to quell the conception that Indian food is difficult to prepare. In fact, it’s a delicious dinner to have on any given week night, as Priya advocates in the interview below.

Congrats on Indian-Ish! It feels like an homage to the diversity of “American” food. Was that part of your goal?
Yeah for sure. American food is not [just] like all of the books by white ladies in front of their stoves that we see. American cooking is so much more than that.

Is seems that dispelling stereotypes and assumptions non-Indian folks make about Indian food and cooking is a big part of this project. Was that on your mind?
Yes. People think Indian food is heavy, difficult to make. It’s none of those things. So I wanted this book to show that Indian food, the Indian food I grew up with, is healthy and vibrant and not the super heavy stuff that you might have encountered in restaurants. 

Do you feel like you’ve always been fighting that battle against these assumptions about what Indian food is?
Yeah I regularly encounter food magazines that call for this 20-ingredient soup recipe that’s Italian but this five-ingredient Indian recipe seems too complicated. Like there is just a block against these recipes.

Do you feel responsible for being an advocate in this way?
Definitely. And it’s not just me, there’s so many amazing South Asian American writers and authors who are all sort of taking on the task of normalizing our food in America.

How do you think your upbringing influenced you as a food writer?
I just grew up with it being an everyday part of life, we were forced to eat dinner as a family every night together. I remember being obsessed with reading restaurant menus. I just never figured it was something I could do full-time.

Have you always aspired to write your own cookbook?
No, I was approached to write it by an editor. I think writing the cookbook was less driven by me wanting to become a career cookbook author and more of me wanting to normalize the dishes that I grew up eating.

Tell me what it was like to create this cookbook with your mom? What was the process like? 
It was great. My mother is incredible and she writes great recipes, but of course it was frustrating at times like when you’re testing a recipe and my mom is trying to sneak in a teaspoon of cardamom that wasn’t in the recipe, it’s out of negotiation. [But] She is an essential factor. I can’t, I am not a chef, I am not a genius at recipes, she is. So it was really about me taking her recipes and packaging them. 

How did you choose which dishes to put in? 
I sat down and created a Google Docs and shared it with my family members and was like, what are mom’s greatest [dishes] and we tried them and the ones that sort of felt like they fit with the ethos of bright, vibrant, easy, week night were the ones that made it in. 

Having your family represented throughout the pages of Indian-ish seemed very important. Was this a group effort?
I would say that is certainly true, the book was very much a group effort like my dad was doing the dishes, my sister was helping recipe test, my mom was writing recipes, everyone had a part. 

Was that the case growing up with your family dinners every night too? Everyone had a role?
Yeah, I set the table, my sister cleared the table, my dad did the dishes and the chopping and my mom cooked. 

Is there a recipe you really enjoyed putting together and presenting for the book?
Learning how to make aloo parathas was definitely a challenge, but it was exciting to note that it’s not as hard as you think it is. It’s challenging and it takes sort of getting everything just right but it’s not as hard as I thought.

Could you suggest a recipe or two that would be great to make for winter?
The sweet-and-sour butternut squash is really amazing and also khichdi which is a rice and lentil stew that you can make in an instant pot or regular stock pot. It’s just so comforting. 

What do you hope folks will come away with or learn after reading your cookbook?
I hope that Indian food is something you can make on a random Tuesday night.

What piece of advice would you give to young women trying to establish their voice as a writer?
I would say if you’re trying to be a writer, like the way that I got my job was sending a lot of well-worded cold emails to people expressing genuine interest and not being afraid to follow up. I feel like people are so willing to accept no as their final answer and to not try again and I think people get discouraged too easily. But I think not to get discouraged. People are busy, they forget to check all of their emails, especially if it’s from an unknown entity. You just have to be persistent and keep following up and if they reject your idea the first time around, keep pitching because eventually they’ll accept one. 

Is there something you learned or know now that you wish you’d known earlier in your life and career?
That’s a good question. Just like how to advocate for myself in the workplace. I’m so happy for the Me Too movement because when you’re young you don’t know what’s normal in the workplace and what’s not normal. What I’ve learned is if your gut tells you that a situation is not normal or this coworker is not behaving in a normal way, your gut is probably right. Trust your gut. 

What do you do for fun in your spare time?
I am very big into hiking and running. My best friend Kate and I run together a lot. I watch a lot of TV and musicals, I love going out to see musicals. My partner does these big baking projects on the weekends so I love watching him bake. And I just really like going home to Dallas to hang out with my family, it’s such a privilege to be able to go home so frequently and to have parents who are always willing to come pick you up from the airport. I just love going home to Dallas and sitting in front of the fireplace with my parents and drinking chai. It’s really nice. 

What is next for you? What stories are you excited about telling next?
I just wrote a story I’m really jazzed about, about the Kurdish refugees in Nashville. Nashville is the biggest population of Kurds outside of Iraq and how they are all obsessed with the Tennessee Titans and throw these massive tailgates with biryani with hotdogs. That was such a life affirming, happy story for me to report amidst everything happening in the news.