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S2:EP7: South Asian Heritage Month take over with Rinku Dutt, co-founder of Raastawala
29 Plays9 months ago
To celebrate South Asian Heritage Month we’re joined by Rinku Dutt from Raastawala for this special Dive In episode. Hosted by Dive In co-chairs Alice Sinclar and Charlotte Rouse, we delve into the role that South Asian culture has played in shaping Britain’s identity, and the impact it has had on clothing, music language, and of course - food and beverage.
Rinku takes us through her journey of connecting with her Bengali roots, from growing up in the UK to living in India as an adult. We also speak about the variance in food across India, and the importance of championing regional cuisines rather than national.
So settle in and listen, we hope you enjoy this special South Asian Heritage Month episode!
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Transcript
Introduction to FYI Podcast and Daibin
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to our special South Asian Heritage Month episode of FYI, the Backstory podcast, hosted today by Daibin, Backstory's EDNI employee resource group. I'm Alison Clare, joined by Charlotte Rouse, and we're the co-chairs of Daibin. Daibin was created in 2022 by a group of like-minded people who were focused on making Backstory the most inclusive company in hospitality. We've come together to do better, be ambitious, courageous and innovative in integrating diversity, equality, inclusion and belonging in every aspect of our business.
Understanding South Asian Heritage Month
00:00:36
Speaker
South Asian Heritage Month runs from the 18th of July to 17th of August every year, and it celebrates the diverse heritage and cultures that continue to link the UK to South Asia. One in every 20 people in the UK is from South Asian descent, including countries such as India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. This has made a significant cultural impact on our towns and cities, from clothing, music, language and of course food and beverage.
Introducing Rinku Dutt and Rastawala
00:01:00
Speaker
Today we are thrilled to speak to Rinku Dutt, owner and founder of Rastawala. a business that brings the flavours of kolkata to Londoners. Winku is not only a successful business owner, but she's also written recipes that feature in the likes of Leon Cookbooks as well as publishing her own book in 2022 called Kolkata, Recipes from the Heart of Bengal.
00:01:19
Speaker
We are also excited to announce that Rinku will become our first partner to be joining Fuel Icons. Fuel experiences a new program that works with the hottest talent within our portfolio to educate, inspire and train Baxter story chefs, sharing their specialist knowledge and training to authentically replicate dishes from around the world. Hi Rinku, we're so pleased to have you here with us today. Just to get started, could you give us a little bit about you and your story so far? Hello. Well, thank you so much for having me on this podcast. I'm super excited to be with you and sharing my story and starting this journey. So as you know, I'm Rinkhu Dutt. I'm a London-based food author and the founder of Russellana, which is a Northeast Indian street food business.
00:02:07
Speaker
So I've been in the food industry now for 10 years, a decade, we've celebrated it a decade anniversary which which feels quite surreal actually just just to know that we've like kind of made it through for 10 years now and it's been amazing but before that I was in banking so after graduation I went into banking and I was in wealth management for eight years doing a lot of amazing stuff. I had my own portfolio of really high wealth clients and I loved the job a lot and it was yeah it was great it was great i really enjoyed it but it came to a point where i got i had an opportunity basically to join the fashion industry in India so i'm like one of my friends my bestest friends now he's a fashion designer and he's based in India in Kolkata and we became friends he used to travel to the UK a lot while i was in banking
00:02:58
Speaker
And it was at that point where he was moving from a small business to a medium business, and he he needed someone to do relationship management of his clients while he looked after the creative side. So he goes to me, you know what, Rinku, you've got this amazing job in banking, but why don't you take a year's sabbatical? like It all like manifested over over a few years. He was like, why don't you take a year's sabbatical and then come help me, help me set up my business, because you've obviously got these interchangeable skills. And I was like, you know what, why not? I don't have anything to lose. So I took a year sabbatical from Barclays, moved to India, obviously let my parents know, I was like, you know what, this is what I'm doing. And they're like, what? You'll take your year out of banking? And I'm like, yes, it is fine. It's fine. I'm going to come back. Everything's fine. So we did that. We took moved to India and then that one year turned into three years because I just enjoyed it. I loved it so much. It was in high end fashion. I just saw so
00:03:54
Speaker
I mean I'll tell you a little bit more about like my my upbringing and stuff as well but when I moved to India in 2000 and I think it was 17 with Debarun it was I saw Kolkata in a different light a completely different way to how we saw it from as we were going when we were children and that's where I fell in love with there and I basically resigned. So I resigned from Barclays. I said, you know what, I'm just having such a good time in India and just making so many amazing contacts, learning so much about our culture side of of life that I've never seen before. And then resigned, stayed in India for three years.
00:04:33
Speaker
had the best time of my life. And then it was at that point, I was like, okay, you don't have to be a bit more serious now. I need to see what I'm doing. i'm And then I thought, okay, you know, I do need to move back.
Rinku's Journey and Cultural Heritage
00:04:44
Speaker
I met my husband at that point. And so I moved back to the UK, but I moved to Canterbury. And it was there where I realized, you know, I didn't fancy a commute back to London every day into banking. And we thought, okay, what can we do? We're in Canterbury, Kent, and we've always loved ah cooking food and stuff like that. And it was at that point where we were like, you know what, why don't we start something? We don't have to do something really full on. Why don't we start something very occasional? So we started doing farmer's markets and that's where WrestleMania started. And it would be my dad would take the coach every week from London.
00:05:20
Speaker
to Canterbury, and the three of us would set up our folding tables, would make out, would do our prep in the kitchen and stuff, and then we would just like to do you simple farmer's markets. And that's where Restylane started. So it all kind of really started with that time that you went back to Colcutta. Absolutely, absolutely. And that's what I was saying. So ever since we were children, so I'm a second generation Bengali, which means that my parents came to this country back in the late 60s, 70s. They came as students, they met, fell in love, had a love marriage, and then they built their own life basically from scratch that they had no one here.
00:05:59
Speaker
and that so they already built their life and like you know started working and things like that as well and then it was for them like when we came into the scene ever since we were young it was always about the community it was working but always like the weekends and everything was was always about cooking inviting people around just having these social connections social interactions with everyone and My sister and myself, we both, we we grew up in a very culturally rich household, which meant that from a very young age, our parents put us into dance, Indian dancing, classical dancing, music, and then yeah during the weekday, weekends and stuff, the house would be full of cooking, people would be randomly evenings,
00:06:46
Speaker
And it would be learning all our traditional dishes and stuff. And when we were young, we thought, OK, you know what, this is just a social aspect for for them because they just love it so much because they worked so hard as well. Like now when I think about me working full time and even trying to replicate what they did in their social life, I'd go crazy. Like they had they had kids. But yet that every Friday, every Friday would be cooking. Friday evenings would be cooking. Saturday mornings would be cooking. And Saturday from like six o'clock, we'd have guests in the house till like two, three o'clock in the morning and like people eating, dancing, singing. It was amazing. And when we're young, we thought, OK, you know what, this is just what the norm is.
00:07:27
Speaker
But it's now where I realized that it's like for them, it was really important for them to be able to have those connections with people in their own community to be able to hang on to, you know, the memories and also their culture. And hence why I'm in a position now being a second generation that I'm able to now pass that on to my children. And i I've got a wealth of knowledge in terms of the dishes, like the food, the cuisine, my knowledge. Of course, it's a little bit more because of my time in India. But everything that they've done now has been embedded into me, which now I'm able to now tell the story and pass on to my family, but also to a wider audience, because I have the tools and I have like pathways like yourselves to be able to tell these stories.
00:08:15
Speaker
So, yeah, I feel very, very privileged in that kind of a way to be able to share it, which is great. We're very lucky that we're going to be able to share your recipes, not by telegram, but it's going to be a lot more accessible than that. But what an incredible yeah journey that everyone went through to kind of get those secret recipes. Absolutely. Why do you think it's important to celebrate South Asian culture in the UK? So South Asian population in the UK, it I did a little bit of research and I realised that it is is the second largest, it's a massive population within the UK and South Asia, it comprises of eight different countries and there is so much to offer, it such a vast it's such a vast area but also there's the communities over here, there's so many different communities but there's so much to offer and
00:09:13
Speaker
Without knowing it, the country, the lifestyle, the country, the cuisines, everything, there's so much integration of it and it's so great to be able to learn a little bit more history, a little bit more culture about where, say the food, the culture, the things come from, like now we see ah just detracting from food. But we see, you know, a lot of young kids, they come and they like when they're dressing up, they put bindis on or they put men on and things like that. So, yes, we're doing it because unknowingly people are infusing. They're putting a lot of cultures together. But this opportunity, the South Asian Heritage Month or the South Asian, the culture, it's just going that one step further or a couple of sets further to find out, you know, what what is the relevance of a bindi? Why do people put a bindi? Where did it come from?
Exploring South Asian Cuisine in the UK
00:09:59
Speaker
What is the relevance of Mendi or Henna? Where has it come from? So it just gives that opportunity to be able to showcase it a little bit more, to have to gain a little bit more knowledge. So I think it's great. I think it's great to be able to celebrate it. Kind of attached to that, do you think that there are any inequalities or inaccuracies in the way that South Asian food or culture is represented in the yeah UK? but I do, I do you definitely think that there there's different several areas so within South Asia so what's happened is when Indian restaurants, I'm just talking generically now, it's rice and curry or rice curry is a very generic
00:10:45
Speaker
name for a lot of different dishes that are cooked within South Asian cultures and South Asian cuisines. And what's happened is when Indian restaurants are opened in the UK, this is a little bit more, ah a bit more history, but in 1905, so there's one thing which I wanted to say is that I'm Bengali, I'm a second generation Bengali, but my parents are from West Bengal, which is part of India. Then there's East Bengal, which is Bangladesh. So before, after 1905, that's where the partition took place, East Bengal and West Bengal was just one big, it was just Bengal. But what happened is when they when people came to, the immigrants came to the UK, a lot of Bangladeshis from East Bengal came and they set up Indian restaurants.
00:11:35
Speaker
so Indian restaurants now if you find out your local Indian restaurant they actually it might be run by Bangladeshis which are actually East Bengal cuisines so I think what's happened is and that's that's just known as an Indian restaurant but it's not it doesn't represent South Asian it doesn't represent Indian food separately and also Indian food you can't just say Indian food because it's regional. Every region has its own dishes, its own recipes. We cook, I'm just saying, an example of a chickpea dish in Kolkata. We have Gugni, we call it Gugni, but the same dish is called a chana in Punjab. Exactly the same ingredients are used, exactly very similar spices are used, but they taste completely different. So cuisines are very regional.
00:12:24
Speaker
So in the inequalities, it more it's I think now we're at a stage where we can use these tools to educate people because it's it's not an ignorance, but it people just don't know any better because that's what they've been presented with and that's what they feel is right. ah or is the correct thing. But it's now, now, even that's one of the main reasons why I can restaurant as well is because the kind of food that I was presenting in restaurant was authentic Kolkata street food. It wasn't food that you were readily available to find in different restaurants and because it just wasn't the street food type of thing. So I just realized that it was very generic.
00:13:04
Speaker
It wasn't very specific. So now I think, and the awareness of Kolkata, the book and everything as well, the reason why is because I want to make it more accessible. i want to read I want people to be able to be aware that it's not very, do and not every curry is just like piece of meat with a massive gravy and rice, that's not how like asia South Asian people eat, there's so many different wide varieties. So I think inequality is in that way because we do have a mis- there's a so slight misconception, misunderstanding, and now we have a platform to be able to explain it, to go through it. One other and inequality, which I don't know if it's an an inequality as such, but
00:13:44
Speaker
In South Asia most of the cooking, home cooking, is done at home and it's done by the women in the house. If you ask them for a recipe nowhere to be found. Everything is done with the measure of the eye. It's called Andaj. You don't understand the amount of blood and sweat I went through to try and find out recipes. Oh my goodness, it was crazy. But it's like now, so going back generations, the recipes that were all all done were all done by the eye, were done by practice. And that's how women learnt, the mother learnt, the daughters learnt, the daughter-in-laws learnt. But now we're at a stage where
00:14:22
Speaker
a lot of the kitchens are dominated by males, so the inequality so there's there's obviously inequalities in the kitchen and that's something that I'm quite passionate about being able to move forward, being able to because it it is a very labour intensive, hard industry to be working in. i have there's obviously inequalities there but also the recipe side of things now we're in a place where we can measure up everything we can write everything by so it's a lot more accessible as well so I'm able to say you know what let's cook this dal because I've got all the ingredients I've got all the measurements written down to the tea so what I make at home you can make at home in your kitchen
00:15:01
Speaker
And it'll taste exactly the same because we've got I've got that written down. So those tools are empowering us to make things a little bit more equal equal ah across all platforms. So that's my saying, the equality side of things. and Yeah, that's a ah really interesting point as well about the flattening almost of one culture and into one area. You know, Indian food, like you said, is not represented by a curry. it's It's got so many different regional cuisine types, but then within that, you know, you've got differences across different regions as well. So I think that's yeah an amazing point to make.
00:15:42
Speaker
And your kati roll, I have to say, and I shouldn't really say this being the head of Ops for Fuel, but it's one of my absolute favourite dishes that we offer. It's so delicious. I'm hearing that. Thank you so much. thank that And just kind of on the back of that, talking about kind of food from Kolkata and your your book that you've wrote, how many recipes actually are in that? Because that's all food from that region. so it's 70 recipes 70 recipes and it goes so there's food where we have everyday cooking and then you have food where you have a little bit more decadent a little bit more luxurious ones that you'd feast on or you'd you'd make during weddings during certain festivals the other one thing which i do have to let you know as well which i'm
00:16:31
Speaker
like you know I mean like you know I'm quite proud of as well but it's like basically you know Indian food or whenever we sit down and we have a meal usually whenever we make loads of dishes we put them all on the table but and then your people will come take a plate you'll put some rice and you put the dal you put the things whereas in Bengali cooking there is an order to eat your food so basically I remember this very very clearly when we were when we used to be young we used to have an order of setting the table, you'd have the rice, then you'd have like something called a bito, which is palate cleanser. So if you think about it, there's a lot of Ayurvedic history that goes back to it as to why we have the order of food. So
Creating a Cookbook and Sharing Recipes
00:17:13
Speaker
you've got the rice, you've got basically a corilla or a mean leaf or something like that. So you'd have that with a bit of rice, then you'd have a dal, a vegetable,
00:17:22
Speaker
then you have your fish dish because it's lighter and then you have the meat and you have a chutney which is acts as a digestive so the order in which you take food it definitely means you consume a lot more rice because you're taking rice with every dish hence why you'll see in Kolkata a lot of men have pot bellies because right Rice consumption is massive, but the order of food is really important. I know I've derailed, don't know, why were you talking about this again? Sorry. We were just talking about the diversity of recipes in your book and kind of and how how much that shows about the region, the div diversity in the cuisine type.
00:18:03
Speaker
Yes, so the the reason why I said that is because the food, what what what I've done is I basically covered everything, so from vegan dishes to veg dishes to starters, little snacks, street foods as well. So street foods, people from all walks of life in India have street foods and it's something about three between three o'clock to five in the afternoon. Kolkata, the streets are buzzing because people either coming up from school, going back to work and it's full. So there's a whole chapter on the street because there's so many different varieties and so many different ah influences of different cuisines like there's the Indo-Chinese, there's the police influences like the Momos, they're all from Nepal. so
00:18:47
Speaker
There's so many different influences in street food, there's a massive part in that. So there's a whole chapter on that. There's a chapter on feasts. So if you're looking to make something to entertain, you've got that there. Drinks, sweets, Bengalis are hot on sweets. So am I. I love my sweet dishes. so there's a after dedicated to that as well. So yeah, 70 amazing recipes, all accessible. so with And that's the main thing. One of the main things about my book was that it's got ingredients that you can readily find in supermarkets. It's not something that you have to go to some niche shop somewhere like remotely in in London for. It's something that everyone can find readily that you can make in your kitchen with with minimal ingredients.
00:19:31
Speaker
ah We're so excited to share some of these recipes with BaxterStory. Do you have any advice or ideas on how BaxterStory employees can celebrate South Asian Heritage Month at
Advice and Quickfire Questions with Rinku
00:19:43
Speaker
their locations? Yeah, so I think about this one of the main things because like I said, South Asia covers so many different countries. So I think it's amazing to be able to offer cuisines like say if you do decide to do a lunch spread. What I would recommend is if say you're choosing to do Indian food, choose one region.
00:20:04
Speaker
So if it either it be Punjab, it be Gujarat or Bengal, like Kolkata, choose one region, do a little bit of research about the food that's from that region and maybe do one menu that goes around just for that region. So it all ties, it all marries in well together and it just, it's as authentic as possible. So it'd be something that someone would have as a meal from that region itself. Yeah so that's one thing I would definitely recommend doing so it choose a specific region as opposed to saying okay you know what I want to cook Indian food today because I know that that's it's easily done but it that those little things can definitely be changed with a little bit of more research in as well so. I love that and it just adds to the authenticity doesn't it of of you know where that if educating our customers where that food is from
00:20:52
Speaker
telling a story. That's brilliant. So we're going to do a bit of a quick fire around here. So, you know, just first thing that comes into your head. So favourite South Asian food. Favourite South Asian food. Biryani. Favourite city or place in South Asia. Come on. We don't even have to say that one. Let's try a recipe book and it can't be a self promotion. Let's try. Asian book, which one would it be?
00:21:25
Speaker
la ah the asian ahdada dadahh There's Dina Begum. She does a ah but ah book on Bangladeshi cuisine. So it's interesting for me, because obviously hers is East Bengal, mine's West Bengal. So it's interesting because we can just compare the different types. so Although there's very similar recipes, but the types of ways cooked is different as well. So I think I would say that. And what's the most tried recipe in your book? It has to be my dad's legendary chicken biryani.
Achievements and Inspirations
00:21:58
Speaker
yeah What has been your greatest achievement to date? book. Definitely my book and also I got three stars in one of my chutneys from the Great Taste Awards as well so that's been there and I think also soldering through 10 years of Rastawana is that it's been um quite a journey, ups and downs definitely during the most challenging times but that has been quite a big achievement to be still standing after 10 years. It's a huge achievement. I think the industry has faced so many challenges with the cost of living crisis. And, you know, we've seen so many fantastic brands and businesses, unfortunately closed due to the situation. So surviving 10 years and being stronger than ever is a real achievement.
00:22:46
Speaker
um So finally, what's South Asian icons do you look up to and why? So there's one lady who definitely stands out is Asma Khan. She's in the food industry as most of you know as well. She's basically making waves in the food industry and promoting equality in the kitchen, female, the like like female. Female chefs and stuff like that, I admire her. we started When I started doing supper clubs as well, I worked with her. She's obviously written a book a line in my book, so ah a good friend of mine as well, but I admire her. She's an icon for me. Another lady is Malala Yousafzai. She is obviously advocating education, equal equal education for girls as well in Pakistan. That's something
00:23:30
Speaker
which I'm quite passionate about as well because education within South Asia, it's in the rural areas.
Podcast Conclusion and Rinku’s Work
00:23:38
Speaker
It's one of those, it's a really sad thing as well where basically girls that deemed not to have, don't don't need to have education because obviously they're not some, like they're not in the in terms of equality. So I think the work that she's doing is great as well. So two two women that I admire would be those two. Amazing. Thank you so much, Rinku, and thank you for sharing your insights and story with us today. Rinku's Feel Icons content can be found on the library where you'll be able to find authentic kolkata recipes, videos, marketing content, and general information to recreate dishes by Rinku at your site. Thank you for listening to FYI The Backstory Podcast.