On March 29, the James Beard Foundation announced that famous cookbook author, television chef, teacher and actress Madhur Jaffrey is the 2023 honoree of its Lifetime Achievement Award. According to the foundation, the award recognises individuals “whose lifetime body of work has had a positive and long-lasting impact on the way we eat, cook, and/or think about food in America.” Jaffrey is the first Indian as well as the first South Asian to receive this particular honour. In 2004, Jaffrey was made honorary Commander of the British Empire (CBE) by the queen, in recognition of her achievements in the culinary and television world. In 2022, she was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award bestowed by the Indian government.
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With the 2023 Lifetime Achievement award, Jaffrey has become a nine-time James Beard Award winner. According to the foundation’s press release, “Jaffrey first captured attention as an actress in the film Shakespeare Wallah, winning the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival in 1965. Her first cookbook, An Invitation to Indian Cooking, was published in 1973, and was inducted into the James Beard Foundation’s Cookbook Hall of Fame in 2006. She has since released more than 30 award-winning cookbooks, cementing her status as the “Godmother of Indian Cooking.” The foundation added that she “is credited with bringing mainstream attention to Indian cuisine, both in the U.S. and the U.K.” Regarding her win, Jaffrey said, “It’s a wonderful pinnacle to my career and I’m overjoyed.”
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Jaffrey began her career as an actress. She taught herself to cook with the help of her mother’s recipes when she was an acting student in London in the 1950s. After her divorce in 1966, she began taking cooking classes to provide for her family. Eventually, as her work got recognised, she started writing cookbooks that would go on to become bestsellers around the world. Jaffrey is also well-known for presenting cooking shows, including Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery, which premiered on the BBC in 1982. “The series on the BBC was so popular that Ms. Jaffrey remembered being told that the city of Manchester, England, ran out of cilantro after she used it in a recipe with chicken,” reported the New York Times.
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About Toshita SahniToshita is fuelled by wordplay, wanderlust, wonderment and Alliteration. When she is not blissfully contemplating her next meal, she enjoys reading novels and roaming around the city.
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