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“The food system in this country would not run without immigrants, it wouldn’t.” Padma Lakshmi’s new cookbook, Padma’s All American, is a natural extension of her Hulu series Taste the Nation. In fact, the documentary laid the groundwork for the book, says the former Top Chef host. “Once we had done the show, I had all these communities I had already embedded myself in.” Beyond recipes, the book carries an important message: Lakshmi “was trying to…really highlight the positive effects of having all these contributions from immigrants.” For Lakshmi, the recipes are ultimately a vehicle for connection. “I am hoping that the food will entice you, will almost be like a bait to get closer to your neighbors. Hopefully you’ll be curious enough to get to know the culture that the food came from and the people that are making this food.” Lakshmi returns to TV with the new CBS reality competition series America’s Culinary Cup, where elite chefs compete for a major prize. “It doesn’t look like any other TV set or studio I’ve ever seen.” SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARTING SHOT WITH H. ALAN SCOTT ON APPLE PODCASTS OR SPOTIFY AND WATCH ON YOUTUBE Editor’s Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication. You should be so proud of this book. What inspired it? Taste the Nation, which on Hulu, started off as a cookbook idea. And I wound up just showing my book proposal to my producing partner, and we were working on another show, still on immigration, and he said, “Oh my God, this is our show. And it’ll be perfect to do it with food because, you know, it’s a good icebreaker, right?” People will open up to you about that. So then I kind of put down the cookbook idea, not put it down, but just put it aside and developed the show. And then the show went, and then we were kind of gathering recipes at the same time, but it was very start and stop. Then, once I left Top Chef a couple years ago and had more time—for a while there, I was on the road, I wanna say seven or eight months a year. I mean, you know, I would come back home and stuff with Taste the Nation, but Top Chef, I was gone for a whole six weeks and then we would go back and do the finale. So I really didn’t have time to do anything but make television. And at the end of the day, I feel like I am a writer, first and foremost, so I wanted to go back and finish the book. We had only been able to really feature three or four recipes in each episode. So I really wanted to flesh that out. And it’s something that I’m curious about, and it’s how I like to cook. I love to cook from different cultures. It’s what keeps it fresh in the kitchen to me. So that’s how the book came along. It was obviously much easier to do once we had done the show because I had all these communities I had already embedded myself in. I got to know them well, so a lot of the research that’s required was already done. I love food. And I love the power of food bringing all different types of people together and the conversations that can come from that. Sure, I mean, that’s a major part of the show. I mean, Taste the Nation is really more of a social commentary and a political show; it’s sort of a pun on Face the Nation, masquerading as a food show. And I think people will not talk often—and now we know why—about politics or religion, but they will talk to you about their grandma’s recipe or what they like to cook at home on a weekend. It’s sort of a safe subject that’s also still very intimate. And you know, you don’t have to be a food professional to have these fully formed opinions on food. We all eat every day to survive, to thrive. And so we all feel very strongly about the kinds of foods we eat, we cook, we like to go out and experience with our friends and family. And it just became a great vehicle or Trojan horse to have those deeper, harder conversations. With Padma’s All American: A Cookbook, it really does feel uniquely American. American food is international food because we don’t necessarily have an American food output. I’m sure a food professional would say differently, but I feel like so much of the food that we love as Americans came from somewhere else. Oh, yeah, completely. I mean, I always say this fact, which is that, apple pie, we have that saying, “Nothing is as American as apple pie.” But, [in] apple pie, not one ingredient in it comes from North America. Not even the apples are indigenous to North America, not the flour, not the lard, not the cinnamon, not the dairy and butter. All these things have been appropriated into the larger American culinary landscape. And I think, for good and bad, that is what America is really known for. It’s for welcoming, inviting all these other cultures into our fold, incorporating th...
