It all began with Nana's Spice
The one year anniversary of my substack newsletter
Hello everyone! Welcome to another issue of Yesterday’s Curry. As I began to plan my content for the next few weeks, I was surprised to discover my newsletter is now one year old - where has the time gone! Before I delve into what to expect from my weekly newsletter going forward, I wanted to first recap where it all started, particularly for those of you who are new here.
I began this newsletter last March without a clear direction in mind but knowing I wanted to use this space to learn more about my Goan heritage and share my findings with whoever was interested in reading them. Open to see where it would lead and not plan too far ahead, I’ve met so many people in the Goan community through the articles I have written on this platform, and long may that continue.
My interest in cooking came later in life; and despite growing up in a household where my Mum and Grandma cooked exotic dishes influenced by their Goan and Kenyan upbringing, I was a very spice averse child. Fast forward a couple of decades, and quite without rhyme or reason, I began to gravitate towards the kitchen while I was working from home as a freelance illustrator. Approaching my 30th birthday and desperate to make a change, I signed up for a year long cooking diploma at the prestigious Leiths School of Food & Wine and the rest, as they’d say, is history.
In March 2020, half way through completing my chef training, the pandemic hit and months loomed with nothing to do, except watch Parks and Recreation and wait for school to reopen. I began making the dishes which my Grandma had cooked for us while she was alive, but with only a handful actually written down, I eventually hit a wall. Every recipe in our house is based around my Grandma’s secret spice blend, a Goan garam masala of sorts which lends a unique undertone to any ingredient it touches. With a handwritten scribble as my starting point, I began to make batches of her spice and experimented with making curries, samosas, potato chops and bhajis.
Unable to find any modern, accessible Goan cookbooks, I started reading blogs and watching youtube videos in order to learn more about Goan food. Growing up, I could tell that the Goan food I ate at family functions tasted nothing like the food in Indian restaurants or the Indian food I ate at my friends houses. However, it was only during the lockdown while on my own cooking journey, that I started to understand the distinctive Portuguese influence which defines the Goan Catholic cuisine I remember from those church hall discos and Christmas gatherings. The spicy, sour flavours which my younger palate couldn’t tolerate was now exciting and delicious, and I set out on a mission to learn more about it, and share it with people who had no knowledge of Goan cuisine.
Finding Traditional Goan Foodies was a real turning point for me. It was the first facebook community I found in early 2020 which allowed me to connect with Goans from all around the world, discover recipes, and share my own creations to a warm and encouraging audience. For those wanting to try traditional Goan recipes from home cooks, it is a resource I would highly recommend. A year on, my newsletter was born, and my reach within the Goan community has grown significantly since then, leading to thousands of you now reading these posts, which I hugely appreciate. After taking a short break to work on my spice business, I want to focus on my food writing again, and broaden the scope of what I am sharing. I would also like to encourage anyone in either the Goan community or wider Indian diaspora to submit topics for future newsletters. I love sharing articles about people, and it’s not always easy to find that organically! Submit a topic for my newsletter here.
Preamble out of the way, the following is a brief overview of what to expect from Yesterday’s Curry weekly newsletter going forward:
My newsletter will now feature 2 recipe posts a month, ranging from regional dishes and curries from the Indian subcontinent, Goan dishes (both traditional and not), quick recipes which use spice to bring out flavour, or my own recipes based on multiple influences. All recipes will be heavily illustrated, as seen in my samosa newsletter
Being the founder of a spice business (www.yesterdayscurry.com) means that I spend a large portion of my time in the kitchen experimenting with spices and making my own carefully curated blends to use in dishes. The past two years of working closely with spices has given me a thorough understanding of their flavour complexes, nuances and how to balance them in cooking.
I want to explore this further in my newsletter and particularly for those unfamiliar or lacking confidence with spices, I will share simple recipes to encourage you to use more spices in your everyday cooking.
Connecting with my Goan heritage was the starting point of this writing project, and I have only scratched the surface of what I want to learn about and subsequently share. The future of Yesterday’s Curry newsletter will explore more Goan traditions, recipes, culture and history, as well as feature articles about members of the Goan diaspora who are doing exciting things in food, for e.g. as seen in my Goan Bread Newsletter.
In a similar vein to my pickle newsletter of last April, I will continue to write long-form essays about topics I find interesting in the culinary world. Focusing on the Indian subcontinent, I welcome submissions from anyone who would like to suggest a topic for an essay. I’d love to shine a light on local businesses, regional cooking traditions, culture, history and fascinating people with an interesting story, such as My Day with Mervyn.
Illustration is a passion of mine, and was my job before I became a chef. When I began my food writing, I started to illustrate all of my recipes and received a high demand to keep it going. As a result, I wrote 2 illustrated ebooks; one on Goan bread and the other on Indian pickles (available here) and created a samosa folding diagram, a venn diagram to make the perfect vindalho, all of which can be found on my instagram.
A massive thank you to everyone who is still reading Yesterday’s Curry since its launch and for all of the new readers who have joined along the way. I hope you enjoy the new newsletter as it comes out. Next week will be my first recipe post; I hope to see you then!
Always a treat to read!! Thanks for sharing Emma!! ♥️