
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


This is more than a story about chicken tikka masala. The UK's palette is changing with a demand for far more spice and pizzazz in our menus and larders. The UK currently imports almost double what it did in the year 2000. Much of that demand has been attributed to the UK's changing and diverse population - not only in home cooking but introducing recipes and dishes to a wider market. Travellers exploring exotic countries have also returned with a taste for spice blends. However spice is more than a simple ingredient - it can also be part of a story about identity, health, family and life.
Cyrus Todiwala travels to Easton in Bristol for the Spice Festival to meet those for whom spice is part of their lives. For him spices have been used for health as well as to bring flavour to his dishes while cooking in India and opening restaurants in the UK. He meets the man whose family fled Uganda while under the rule of Idi Amin, losing everything but their love and knowledge of spices led his father to source and share ingredients, eventually serving food and is now an 'Aladdin's cave' of exotic spices and ingredients for individuals and restaurants across the South West. He meets the chai wallahs who now sell on street corners of Bristol as well as Bombay and hears about the backpacker whose craving for the Indian snacks he tasted led him to set up his own business with over 300 products and blends.
Get some fire in your belly and hear how spice plays a role in commuity, culture and culinary delights.
Presented by Cyrus Todiwala and Produced in Bristol by Anne-Marie Bullock.
By BBC Radio 44.6
241241 ratings
This is more than a story about chicken tikka masala. The UK's palette is changing with a demand for far more spice and pizzazz in our menus and larders. The UK currently imports almost double what it did in the year 2000. Much of that demand has been attributed to the UK's changing and diverse population - not only in home cooking but introducing recipes and dishes to a wider market. Travellers exploring exotic countries have also returned with a taste for spice blends. However spice is more than a simple ingredient - it can also be part of a story about identity, health, family and life.
Cyrus Todiwala travels to Easton in Bristol for the Spice Festival to meet those for whom spice is part of their lives. For him spices have been used for health as well as to bring flavour to his dishes while cooking in India and opening restaurants in the UK. He meets the man whose family fled Uganda while under the rule of Idi Amin, losing everything but their love and knowledge of spices led his father to source and share ingredients, eventually serving food and is now an 'Aladdin's cave' of exotic spices and ingredients for individuals and restaurants across the South West. He meets the chai wallahs who now sell on street corners of Bristol as well as Bombay and hears about the backpacker whose craving for the Indian snacks he tasted led him to set up his own business with over 300 products and blends.
Get some fire in your belly and hear how spice plays a role in commuity, culture and culinary delights.
Presented by Cyrus Todiwala and Produced in Bristol by Anne-Marie Bullock.

7,763 Listeners

370 Listeners

526 Listeners

893 Listeners

1,058 Listeners

408 Listeners

297 Listeners

5,519 Listeners

2,118 Listeners

2,091 Listeners

279 Listeners

349 Listeners

161 Listeners

97 Listeners

239 Listeners

63 Listeners

342 Listeners

234 Listeners

162 Listeners

330 Listeners

43 Listeners

3,211 Listeners

203 Listeners

71 Listeners

132 Listeners

686 Listeners

577 Listeners

626 Listeners

370 Listeners

244 Listeners

57 Listeners

79 Listeners

118 Listeners

112 Listeners