Madhur Jaffrey

Madhur Jaffrey CBE (Hindi: मधुर जाफ़री madhur jāfrī; born 13 August 1933) is an Indian actress and food writer who introduced the Western world to the many cuisines of India.

Biography

Personal life

She was born Madhur Bahadur in Delhi, British India, and was educated at Miranda House (of the University of Delhi). After college, she worked for All India Radio.^[1] She then attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), from which she graduated with honors in 1957.^[2] She then met and married Indian actor Saeed Jaffrey and moved to New York City. She and Saeed divorced in 1965. They have three daughters, Meera, Zia and Sakina Jaffrey. In 1969, she married Sanford Allen, a violinist with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.^[3] She is the aunt of the British journalists Rohit Jaggi and his sister the literary critic Maya Jaggi (their mother Lalit being one of Madhur's older sisters).

Merchant Ivory films

Madhur Jaffrey is said to have been responsible for introducing James Ivory and Ismail Merchant.^[4] She appeared in a number of their earlier films: Shakespeare Wallah (1965) (a role for which she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 15th Berlin International Film Festival),^[5] The Guru (1969), Autobiography of a Princess (1976), Heat and Dust (1983), directed by Ivory, and The Perfect Murder (1988). She starred as the title character in their film Cotton Mary (1999) and co-directed it with Merchant.

Other films and TV

She has appeared in Six Degrees of Separation (1993), Vanya on 42nd Street (1994) and Prime (2005). She starred in and produced ABCD (1999) and guest-starred in the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Name" as a psychiatrist, and the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "The Healer" as a lecturer. In 1985, she was in the Hindi film Saagar where she played the role of Rishi Kapoor's grandmother. In 1999, she appeared with daughter Sakina Jaffrey in the film Chutney Popcorn. In 2003, she played Roshan Seth's wife in Cosmopolitan, a film broadcast on PBS. She also starred alongside Deborah Kerr in the 1985 made-for-TV movie The Assam Garden.

Theatre

In 1962, she appeared in A Tenth of an Inch Makes the Difference by Rolf Forsberg.^[6] In 1969, she appeared in The Guide, based on the novel by R. K. Narayan,^[7] and in 1970, she appeared in Conduct Unbecoming, written by Barry England.^[8] In 1993, she appeared in Two Rooms by Lee Blessing.^[9] In 1999, she appeared in Last Dance at Dum Dum by Ayub Khan-Din.^[10] In 2004, Jaffrey appeared in Bombay Dreams on Broadway, where she played the main character's grandmother (Shanti).^[11] In 2005, she appeared in India Awakening by Anne Marie Cummings.

Cooking

Jaffrey is the noted author of cookbooks of Indian, Asian, and world vegetarian cuisines, many of which have become bestsellers and several of which have won James Beard Foundation awards. She has presented several cookery series on television, including Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery in 1982, Madhur Jaffrey's Far Eastern Cookery in 1989 and Madhur Jaffrey's Flavours of India in 1995.^[12] She lives in Manhattan and has a home in upstate New York. As a result of the success of her cookbooks and TV, Jaffrey also developed a line of mass-marketed cooking sauces.

Ironically, she did not cook at all as a child growing up in Delhi. She had almost never been in the kitchen and almost failed cooking at school.^[13] It was only after she went to London at the age of 19 to study at RADA that she learned how to cook, using recipes of familiar dishes that were provided in correspondence from her mother.^[14] In the 1960s, after her award-winning performance in Shakespeare Wallah, she became known as the "actress who could cook" and was hired by the BBC to present a show on Indian cooking.^[15] After an article about her and her cooking appeared in the New York Times in 1966, she received a book contract that produced An Invitation to Indian Cooking, her first book.^[16] The recipes in that book came from her mother, although she adapted them for the American kitchen.^[17] During the 1970s, she taught classes in Indian cooking, both at the James A. Beard School of Cooking and in her Manhattan apartment. In 1986, the restaurant Dawat opened in Manhattan using recipes provided by her.^[18]

Awards

• Best Actress Award from the Berlin Film Festival in 1965 for her performance in Shakespeare Wallah^[5]
• Taraknath Das Foundation Award presented by the Taraknath Das Foundation of the Southern Asian Institute of Columbia University in 1993^[19]
• Named to Who's Who of Food and Beverage in America by the James Beard Foundation in 1995.^[20]
• Muse Award presented by New York Women in Film & Television in 2000.^[21]
• Honorary CBE awarded on 11 October 2004 "in recognition of her services to cultural relations between the United Kingdom, India and the United States, through her achievements in film, television and cookery".^[22]

Books

Cookery Books

• An Invitation to Indian Cooking (1973) (James Beard Foundation Awards Cookbook Hall of Fame winner) — ISBN 978-0-224-01152-5
• Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East Vegetarian Cooking (1981) (James Beard Foundation Awards winner) — ISBN 978-0-394-40271-0
• Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking (1973) — ISBN 978-0-8120-6548-0
• Eastern Vegetarian Cooking (1983) — ISBN 978-0-09-977720-5
• A Taste of India (1988) — ISBN 978-1-86205-098-3
• Madhur Jaffrey's Cookbook: Easy East/West Menus for Family and Friends (1989) — ISBN 978-0-330-30635-5
• Indian Cooking (1989) — ISBN 978-0-600-56363-1
• A Taste of the Far East (1993) (James Beard Foundation Awards Cookbook of the Year winner) — ISBN 978-0-517-59548-0
• Madhur Jaffrey's Spice Kitchen (1993) — ISBN 978-0-517-59698-2
• Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Recipes (1994) — ISBN 978-1-85793-397-0
• Entertaining With Madhur Jaffrey (1994) — ISBN 978-1-85793-369-7
• Madhur Jaffrey's Flavors Of India: Classics and New Discoveries (1995) — ISBN 978-0-517-70012-9
• Cookbook Food for Family and Friends (1995) — ISBN 978-1-85813-154-2
• Madhur Jaffrey's Quick & Easy Indian Cooking (1996) — ISBN 978-0-8118-5901-1
• The Madhur Jaffrey Cookbook: Over 650 Indian, Vegetarian and Eastern Recipes (1996) — ISBN 978-1-85501-268-4
• Madhur Jaffrey's Illustrated Indian Cookery (1996) — ISBN 978-0-563-38303-1
• Madhur Jaffrey Cooks Curries (1996) — ISBN 978-0-563-38794-7
• Madhur Jaffrey's Complete Vegetarian Cookbook (1998) — ISBN 978-0-09-186364-7
• Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian (1999) (James Beard Foundation Awards winner) — ISBN 978-0-517-59632-6
• The Essential Madhur Jaffrey (1999) — ISBN 978-0-09-187174-1
• Madhur Jaffrey's Step-by-Step Cooking (2001) (James Beard Foundation Awards winner) — ISBN 978-0-06-621402-3
• Foolproof Indian Cooking: Step by Step to Everyone's Favorite Indian Recipes (2002) — ISBN 978-1-55366-258-7
• Madhur Jaffrey Indian Cooking (2003) — ISBN 978-0-09-188408-6
• From Curries to Kebabs: Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail (2003) (James Beard Foundation Awards winner) — ISBN 978-0-609-60704-6
• Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible (2003) — ISBN 978-0-09-187415-5
• Simple Indian Cookery (2005) — ISBN 978-0-563-52183-9
• At Home with Madhur Jaffrey: Simple Delectable Dishes from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka (2010) — ISBN 978-0-307-26824-2
• Curry Easy (2010) — ISBN 978-0-09-192314-3
• My Kitchen Table: 100 Essential Curries (2011) — ISBN 978-0-09-194052-2

Other Books

• Seasons of Splendour: Tales, Myths, and Legends of India (1995) — ISBN 978-0-689-31141-3
• Market Days: From Market to Market Around the World (1995) — ISBN 978-0-8167-3504-4
• Robi Dobi: The Marvelous Adventures of an Indian Elephant (1997) — ISBN 978-0-8037-2193-7
• Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India (2006) — ISBN 978-1-4000-4295-1

References

External links

• Madhur Jaffrey's website
• Madhur Jaffrey on the My Kitchen Table website
• Madhur Jaffrey at the Internet Movie Database
• Madhur Jaffrey at the Internet Broadway Database
• Madhur Jaffrey at the Museum of Broadcast Communications
• Meet Chef Madhur Jaffrey at AhitoZiti.com
• James Beard Foundation Awards
• gremolata.com, 'Madhur Jaffrey Interview', February 2007.