Asma Khan: Stop Calling it Curry | What Now? with Trevor Noah
This week, famed chef and author Asma Khan joins Trevor and Eugene for a conversation that shreds traditional fine-dining elitism to pieces.
The trio discusses Asma’s upbringing in India, the frustration of over-complicated modern technology, and how she discovered her passion for cooking through pure homesickness after moving to England.
Between tales of hitting cheating childhood friends with cricket bats and surviving Cambridge’s soul-crushingly bad food, Asma gets real about how food is truly about identity, storytelling, and dismantling imperialist garbage.
What’s one meal that instantly takes you back to a memory?
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00:00 – Trevor’s hilarious cooking confession
02:00 – Trevor vs. his “smart” stove
09:40 – Meet Asma Khan
15:30 – Growing up feeling unwanted
23:30 – Childhood, resilience & survival
42:30 – Cricket, courage & confidence
55:00 – How food became her identity
1:06:00 – Food, colonialism & injustice
1:19:00 – Why cooking is about people
1:27:00 – Why Michelin culture is broken
1:40:00 – There is no such thing as “curry”
1:55:00 – The toxic culture inside professional kitchens
2:07:00 – The legacy Asma Khan wants to leave
33 Comments
I've never tried her food but I do believe it's delicious, just like her food stories absolutely delicious. I enjoyed every mouthful sorry earful 😅
Requesting Asma, please open your restaurant in Toronto Canada 🇨🇦.
Not down town area very crowded, but in the suburbs with open space and parking. 😊❤
I absolutely love this episode. Food is powerful
Zena – Warrior Princess. You are Zena ❤. Wow, my generation was so much ‘freer’, in a sense, than those which came after us. I’m proud of my generation … such inner strength. My generation was analog into digital. This generation is purely digital.
Also too. Instagram was originally for photographers migrating from G+. It has become, I don’t really know what it is now. 😅
What a great interview! Thank you.
Trevor continues to be the poster child for my debates with men that intelligence in a man is sexy. Just a great interview/discussion/keke.
If I ever visit the UK, I certainly plan to visit Amsa’s establishment.
That drowning story reminds me of comedian Saddiq story of his broken leg.. African mothers all over the world are truly the same.
I’m thoroughly enjoying this segment!!!!
Its sad but its the truth… by Asam Khan
We dont say "Grace" anymore but rather take our phones to take a photo to show the world what we eating
Food is nourishment. Food is bonding. Food is history. Food is power. Food is joy. Food is bliss.
Thank you for exposing the underbelly of some of the hospitality industry. I worked for one of those terrors. I hope to make it to your restaurant one day to witness the women singing in your open kitchen!
(31:24) oye pero in the soviet union they used to throw us into the water as babies and there was no Mr. Vos that came, no laughing mother, and we did in fact have to save ourselves.
Mothers did not laugh and childrens was traumatized lol
There's a reason the term "Comfort Food" exists – it reminds us of cherished memories. It makes us feel warm and fuzzy, and nostalgic.
So many cultures cook with generations gathering in the kitchen to prepare a meal or a feast. The main ingredient is LOVE 💗
I cherish my childhood memory of baking Swiss Christmas cookies with my Mom. All it takes now is the scent of vanilla or cinnamon to take me right back to those special, magical moments 🥰
There's a beautiful film on Netflix called "Nonnas" with Vince Vaughn and Susan Sarandon, and it's based on a true story.
After losing his beloved mother, a man risks everything to honor her by opening an Italian restaurant with actual grandmothers as the chefs.
Such a beautiful conversation
This was amazing!
I didn’t want it to end
As a South Asian it’s so good to hear someone speak so honestly and confidently about what’s what!
Please bring Asma back again
She’s amazing
Have you ever heard of the Soul Food Scholar. He has a similar passion to share the history of African American cuisine and its global influences. Adrian Miller "drops knowledge like hot biscuits!" He would be a great guest!
"And the dandelion does not stop growing just because it is told it is a weed. The dandelion does not care what others see. It says, 'One day, they'll be making wishes upon me.'" -Anthony B. Atkinson
Asma is my kind of person especially as a woman of color. ❤❤❤ I love the company of people that stir my soul, share my values and energize my desires especially when it comes to injustices. I felt like I was a fly on the wall with the three of you. Remember trotter is trotter. Eh?! I love the expressions as they are a separate source of laughter 🤣🤣🤣. Eugene I feel your pain as we dont need AI powered stove and refrigerator
What a wonderful woman you are, Asma 💕 By sharing your food's stories, you elevate your meals and culinary creations far beyond any Michelin Star 🥰
A great conversation, so grateful for being able to hear this 🙏. Thank you, Trevor!
To even possess the skills to articulate your feeling makes you "other" and keeps me on the outside of community where I am. I really admire the people that can make some thing of their story.
(1:07:21) interesting about the poppy seed!!! In my village, we added bulgar wheat to dishes so that it would multiply and we could feed more stomachs. Oftentimes my mami and I make those dishes without bulgar wheat now because we find them more flavorful and we are less poor, but in some dishes it's irreplaceable tbh. Funny how dat happens
What an incredible interview! I have never heard of her, but now I will never forget her. The pure joy on her face of being kind made me emotional because she meant it and will fight for everyone. Thank you for introducing us to her, absolutely magical.
Everyone loves my food. I've learnt a few things from this interview.
The blood thicker than water is not true, I can relate to that too.
…ans I love Asma's boldness.
Asma, I too played cricket and soccer with the guys in the street. I wasn't the only girl either. We enjoyed ourselves. We were excluded from national sport during the apartheid years and this was our fun.
…and yes, you're not going to find edible flowers in my kitchen too. Spice is flavourful and colourful and unmatched.
I like when Asma says when Chefs on shows carry on like they own the condiments or ingredients they use 🤣
My mother and sister mocked me openly. I also cannot find photos when I was a baby, there were really none of me, except on my nanny's lap with father xmas when I was 11 months old. I have a photo or two where it is believed that the baby my mother carried, face not shown was me. I did confront all of this when I was around 40. I didn't hold back in everything I wanted to say. I too left home at 21yrs old.
"because we make it look effortless, people think it's valueless"
Brilliant. Just brilliant
I also get taken absck when white people ask me if I can cook curry. I have to explain that we have different foods we don't call curry.
…but now I'm so accustomed to saying, I made a lamb curry, I made fish curry, I made chicken curry, when it's me who was supposed to make them understand about our dishes.
I think when South Africans look at Indians, they think curry, samoosas and roti.
We have soooooo many exquisite dishes and can cook a different meal 365 days of the year.
They really do not know or understand our cooking methods, art of our cooking and cuisine. Our love and labour for the outcome of the finished dish. It's truly articulate.
I love Asma's sincerity, honesty, boldness and the beautiful flower she's become a blooming success, who rose above challenges which in many ways shaped who she has become as a person, and believing in herself.
I hope her sister is alive, for telling Asma the warrior she is, that in many ways boosted her confidence and importance as a person.
Curry is a style of cooking. At least from South Indian perspective. It means taking something like vegetables and cooking them in pan with spices. That's why in south India we got bhindi curry, aloo curry, karela curry, beetroot curry, etc.
Love your podcast. 100% agree about the expat/immigrant point (totally decided by old white men in my opinion)
Don't press anything 😂
What ms Khan shared about society sensing she was the "unbroken one". And that this was something undesirable.
That really spoke to me, you know? Society fears the fearless among us.
That is what I honestly was looking for in a partner. The unbroken. The undiminished.
Uncaged by society.
This revelation I am hearing now is what made me realize at this moment that what she said is what was missing with all the women I was with.
They had been broken by society.
And what was sad is many people do not even realize they had been broken.
And have NO desire to fix themselves.
I realized this about my own life some years ago and I have since then, tried my best to "uninstall" the bad apps that came "pre installed" in my life.
One by one, I continously re examine if this was a good thing or a bad thing or just societal programming.
It's an ongoing thing and I hope to be returned to my original factory settings as an "unbroken" person in the future.
What a treasure to be listening to her tell that story.
She vocalized something I had felt most of my adult life.
So THANK YOU FOR HAVING MS KHAN AS A GUEST.
I hope many others will take her story and then grow into being people with undimmed light as well.