Chef Tia Anasuya’s book traces the personal histories of 15 home cooks

“Food stirs the soul like not much else does,” says professional chef Tia Anasuya, who has recently released her first book, Adukkala, A Family Food Odyssey, published by Thayil Ink. Edited by her mother, Sheba Thayil, the 280-page coffee table book, contains the personal histories of 15 women from Tia’s family, including her grandmother, through the food they cooked. “Working with my mother made me respect the work of an editor so much more than I already did,” says Tia, the co-founder of Askew, a Bengaluru-based company that offers F&B consultation, gourmet cookies and catering services. “Without them, authors wouldn’t get very far.”

The idea for the book germinated from her foray into cooking Malayali food back in 2020, just before the pandemic. “My grandmother, who was in Coimbatore at that time, had a fall,” remembers Tia, who took the first flight out of Bengaluru, with her mother, when she heard the news. Then lockdown was announced, and they ended up getting stuck in Coimbatore for nearly three months. This meant that Tia had to start cooking for the family. “I was trained in French cuisine, but didn’t really pay attention to the food that raised me,” she says. “That was when I started rediscovering my roots.”

Conversations with family

As she cooked, day after day, her grandmother, Ammu George, who was very particular about her food, would offer her tips on how to do it better. “She was telling me things that I hadn’t learnt as a professional chef,” says Tia, pointing out that most homemakers run their kitchens seamlessly, doing everything from prepping the food to washing the dishes. “I realised how much goes into home cooking, and it is half of what goes into professional kitchens. Home is where the real food happens.”

Conversations with her grandmother as she recovered also had Tia unearthing facets of her grandmother’s life that she was not aware of. “I knew her as a warm, sweet grandmother, but I did not know how fierce she was,” she says, pointing out that being married to the veteran journalist TJS George was not always easy, but she simply took it in her stride. “Without her, there would be no family,” says Tia. “She was the backbone no one talked about.”

In fact, like her grandmother, all the women featured in this book surprised her with their resilience and the extraordinary lives they had led. “I know them as relatives. I never knew them as women, human beings,” she adds.

When she started talking to these women, often over long-distance phone calls since they lived all across the world, from the family’s ancestral home in Mamalassery to Boston, her perspective shifted. “They had such interesting personalities and stories,” says Tia, who has devoted a chapter to every woman, detailing her back story and food memories. “I wanted to spotlight these women and give them the credit they so desperately deserve.”

In addition to these personal histories, the book also contains their signature recipes, food that means something to them. Think kanji, prawn curry, red fish curry and chammanthi podi — unpretentious, delicious dishes that conjure memories of home and belonging. “I wanted it to be about family, food, what Kerala stood for as a State, and its women,” says Tia. “I just thought it would be a beautiful thing to put out in the world.”

At home in the kitchen

Tia first meandered into a kitchen at the age of five or six “a natural gravitation” and simply chose to stay there. “I still remember my grandmother giving me a bread knife to cut beans when I was five,” she says, with a laugh. “I was livid. I mean, how can you cut anything with a bread knife?”

She cooked her way through high school, often sneaking into the kitchen at night to make pasta, her comfort food even today. “I knew I loved cooking from the IX grade, and wanted to do something centred around food,” says Tia, who went on to do a bachelor’s degree in Hotel Management from the MS Ramaiah College of Hotel Management, Bengaluru, chasing that up with a cuisine diploma from Le Cordon Bleu Paris. She spent the next seven to eight years, working with brands such as Olive Beach, Gaggan, the Westin Dubai and AA Hospitality, among others. “The culinary world was brutal, but it made me who I am,” she says.

Though she appreciates the art of fine dining and what goes into creating the experience, it is not where she sees herself in the culinary landscape. “I chase soul. Flavour is queen for me,” says Tia, who is currently working on expanding her brand, Askew. “We want to do more of the food we love,” she says.

Adukkala, A Family Food Odyssey is available on Amazon and at bookstores