Madhur Jaffrey

Madhur Jaffrey (born August 13, 1933, Delhi, India) is an Indian-born actress, chef, and writer who parlayed movie stardom into culinary fame, both in her native country and abroad. As an author, Jaffrey is best known for expanding Americans’ knowledge of Indian cuisine with her first cookbook, An Invitation to Indian Cooking (1973). Her many cookbooks and cooking shows that followed have been praised for making Indian cuisine accessible and approachable while highlighting its diversity. Known as the “godmother of Indian cooking,” Jaffrey in 2023 became the first Indian chef and the first South Asian to win the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award.

Early life

Madhur (who translates her name as “sweet as honey” from Sanskrit) Bahadur was one of six children born to Lala Raj Bans Bahadur, a manager of a ghee factory, and Kashmiran Bahadur (née Rani), a homemaker. She was raised in an affluent home with many members of her extended family, including her grandparents. Madhur Bahadur first acted in a school play at age five, and she continued performing in such productions throughout primary school and high school. By the time she was studying English, history, and philosophy at the University of Delhi in the early 1950s, she had joined a repertory company. She later married the company’s founder, actor Saeed Jaffrey, and the couple had three daughters. They divorced in 1966, and she married American violinist Sanford Allen in 1969.

Acting career

In 1955 Jaffrey moved to England to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, for which she earned multiple scholarships. During this time she wrote to her mother asking for traditional family recipes. Dissatisfied with British food and the availability of Indian restaurants, Jaffrey learned to cook the dishes she missed from home on a student’s budget. She later said that, when she moved abroad, she did not know how to make even simple things, such as tea or rice, as she had rarely spent time in the kitchen. By using what she called “taste memory,” she eventually mastered her family recipes and progressed to creating her own.

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Jaffrey moved to New York City in 1957 to further pursue acting. Her fame—both in the kitchen and on the stage—grew, but she was disappointed by the lack of variety in the roles she was offered, and she was angered by the typecasting she experienced as a woman of color. In 1965 she appeared in the Merchant and Ivory film Shakespeare Wallah, turning in a performance that she cited decades later as an exemplar of her career. The performance earned her the Silver Bear for best actress at the 1965 Berlin International Film Festival.

An Invitation to Indian Cooking

Looking for a way to support herself and her children after her divorce, Jaffrey supplemented her acting career with writing, including an article published in the mid-1960s in Holiday Magazine about the food of her childhood in India. Film producer Ismail Merchant brought her to the attention of New York Times food writer Craig Claiborne, who profiled her—“Indian Actress Is a Star in the Kitchen, Too”—in 1966. In 1973 Jaffrey published her first cookbook, An Invitation to Indian Cooking, with editor Judith Jones, whose other clients included influential cookbook authors Julia Child and Edna Lewis. Each of these authors’ works was unique in its time, delving into the culture behind the food and traditional techniques instead of just writing concise how-to guides. Jaffrey’s cookbook earned praise for presenting complex recipes simply, urging readers to substitute when necessary, as she used to substitute local pumpernickel bread for chapatis while living in London. Her first cookbook focused primarily on the food of Delhi, along with a few Bengali and Punjabi dishes that she knew from her extended family, with recipes rooted in her personal experiences.

Jaffrey maintained careers in both acting and cooking. Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery, the United Kingdom’s first mainstream TV series about Indian food, premiered on the BBC in 1982. Other cooking shows include Far Eastern Cookery (1989) and Madhur Jaffrey’s Curry Nation (2013). In addition, Jaffrey continued acting, performing in such films as Salim-Javed’s Saagar (1985), Six Degrees of Separation (1993), Louis Malle’s Vanya on 42nd Street (1994), and Wolf (1994). She appeared on a variety of television programs, including Law & Order: Criminal Intent, New Girl, and the first season of Padma Lakshmi’s Taste the Nation (2020).

Publications and awards

Jaffrey’s cookbooks have sold millions of copies. An Invitation to Indian Cooking was inducted into the James Beard Foundation’s Cookbook Hall of Fame in 2006, and a 50th-anniversary edition was released in 2023. Among Jaffrey’s dozens of cookbooks, notable ones include Madhur Jaffrey’s Ultimate Curry Bible (2003), Madhur Jaffrey’s Flavors of India: Classics and New Discoveries (1995), and Vegetarian India: A Journey Through the Best of Indian Home Cooking (2015). She also wrote Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India (2005) and a 1985 children’s book, Seasons of Splendour: Tales, Myths and Legends of India.

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In 2004 Jaffrey was made an honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her contributions to drama and Indian culture and cuisine. She was awarded the Padma Bhushan, one of India’s highest civilian honors, in 2022. Jaffrey is the recipient of eight James Beard Awards, including a 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award.