Asma Khan: ‘Food is deeply political. Who eats and who doesn’t? Who owns the land?’
The Darjeeling Express restaurateur and UN World Food Programme advocate discusses kitchen bullying, Marxism and how to balance spices properly
T he elite in India are obsessed with MasterChef Australia, says Asma Khan, by way of explaining a decline in traditional home cooking. A naan the size of a surfboard is delivered to our table; she shows me how the bread has been “stabbed” in the back, to stop it bubbling up like the ones you find in your local tandoori. “No one in India eats naan at home,” she says. “You need a tandoor. Your bloody house would catch fire. People’s idea of what we eat is so warped.”
Though known internationally for her Indian restaurant Darjeeling Express, in Soho (Hollywood celebrities regularly seem to drop in and take selfies), Khan prefers Afghan food to any other, which is why we meet at Watan in Tooting, a vast and fragrant eating house on the high street. Afghan food is free from the tyranny of the chilli and the “addition of tomatoes to everything”, says Khan, who is on a mission to reeducate taste buds about the huge spectrum of “Asian food”. She is on other missions besides: Khan is a UN World Food Programme advocate, and was chosen as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2024 for her innovations in food and social progress.
“Food is deeply political,” she says. “Why are our famous chefs afraid to link the two? Food means who eats and who doesn’t. Where has the water come from? Who owns the land?
