British Indian foodie's cookbook Flavours Without Borders launches in UK

Kolkata-born Radhika Howarth, behind the UK-based influencer brand Radikal Kitchen, has drawn upon her own diverse upbringing and influences for a journey through the history of ingredients and their fusion over time into myriad flavours.

Her new book, which is also available in India through Amazon, traverses across the subcontinent and South Africa to the Mediterranean and beyond.

This book is an extension of my upbringing and my heritage, being half Punjabi, quarter Mangalorean and quarter Bengali, says Howarth in an interview with PTI.

I grew up in an extended family where I had one aunt married to a Kashmiri Punjabi, another married to a Tamilian, one to a Muslim, and one aunt was half-Armenian. So, I've just grown up with these beautiful, diverse flavours all around me,” she notes.

“Once I came to London, I was then exposed to a global world of flavours but somewhere I knew it was all interconnected. In India itself, if you look at the diversity, flavours have no boundaries, she adds.

As a passion project with Meze Publishing, Howarth visualised her first cookbook as a culinary adventure around the globe, drawing upon the history of the trade routes and immigration to tap into the culinary osmosis that our modern-day cuisines embody.

I wanted to show the beauty and the diversity in how we can take one dish, cook it in different cuisines, but show the connection between these creations. Hence, the idea came to me of taking one ingredient and cooking it in three different cuisines, and this trio tells a story of the culinary history that binds the three dishes together, she explains.

The cooking enthusiast, who has featured on several television shows, spent months cooking up a storm in her kitchen as she crafted each of the recipes, surrounded by charts all around her tracking the spice routes that lay at the heart of the connections she was keen to spotlight.

Her Oxford University student nephew was her partner in crime through the course of this research, with her German-Spanish husband a willing food taster in the background. Watching over it all was Howarth's mother, who is credited in her book as the inspiration behind her deep dive into the world of spices and ingredients.

My mother, my mother's background, my mother's way of cooking and my relationship with my mother has really influenced and shaped me, and this book is a product of our bond,” she said.

“As a single parent who was working as a busy teacher, she would ensure my sister and I had fresh meals every day. Every time she would be cooking in the kitchen, I would be watching her create this symphony of spices using her masala dabba (spice box) with all the core spices, she recalls.

Also, the sheer variety she created daily from Punjabi rajma chawal one day to Bengali macher jhol the next, followed by South Indian sambar So my exposure to the diversity and mix and match of flavours came at a very early age, which was further intensified during visits to my aunts cooking up their own varieties. And, thinking back, it was from my nani (grandmother) that picked up the nuances of balancing sweet and sour in her magic pickles, she shares.

The food consultant's concept of Radikal Kitchen of marrying the flavours of the East and West was born out of a desire to spread the word that fusion is not always confusion and it is this message that resonates through the recipes in the book from her Tandoori Patatas Bravas to Tomato Tadka Burrata Salad.

Food is a huge part of all cultures. Food brings people together, and food and music have no boundaries. So, I think when I was doing the books, I really wanted to emphasise that message that at the end of the day, flavours have no borders, she adds.