Madhur Jaffrey, a life through food

Sheila Dillon meets Madhur Jaffrey, Indian cooking legend, who's just returned from the sub-continent on her latest adventures into its vast food culture.

This year the actress, broadcaster and food writer turns eighty. She left Delhi sixty years ago to pursue a career in the west, but still remains the world's most influential and respected exponents of Indian cuisine.

With her BBC television series and more than fifteen books she's managed to convey the rich history and flavours of authentic Indian regional cooking. Now, as India becomes one of the most important economies in the world, and a nation increasingly interested in western tastes and modern brands, Sheila meets Madhur to reflect on her early food life in Delhi and to ask her about a rapidly changing India.

This is a life story of exquisite family meals in the 1930's that mixed British and Indian traditions, of school lunches where food would be shared between friends from very different food backgrounds and where watching a mushroom dish, "devoured by greedy men" was one of the images that led her to leave India.

The programme also includes a fascinating encounter between Madhur and a British food tradition, chips with curry sauce.

Producer: Dan Saladino.