Story details

Chillies, cardamoms, garlic, ginger, turmeric are all part of my ethnicity. The reason I say this is that you cannot cook an Asian meal without using these ingredients. So my kids may eat fish and chips, they may like their pizzas, but I've got to have these products in the home no matter what. Because every time I'm making a curry, what I've got at home, is all these masalas mixed - put them into the blender, mix them all up, put them in the jar. When I'm making my chicken curry, and so forth, a spoonful of that goes in, to give it that Asian taste.

And it's strange, it's really strange, because living in a British community, having been through the British system of school blah blah blah, the rest of it, and obviously the kids think they're British - just a different colour from everybody else - you have to hold on to these things that are just uniquely Asian.

So when my Mum used to talk about masalas, like "Yes, whatever" - it was just a normal day to day thing, having masalas in the home, going out to buy masalas. But it isn't any more - you've got to stop yourself and say, yeah OK. A prime example of this is a week ago, beginning of Ramadan, I went to do all my cooking, got all my fruit, and got my meat and everything, and came home and - Oh goodness, I've forgotten the masalas. I can't cook a curry without my masalas! So I had to go especially back to the shops, pick up a bag of mixed masalas, the garlic, cardamon and the rest of it, and blend it all and put it in a jar, ready to use during Ramadan.