MY LIFE IN FOOD NISH KUMAR

The comedian discusses Indian cuisine, comfort food and learning to cook during lockdown

I come from a very foodie family. It’s just a sort of constant obsession, like: what are we going to eat? Where are we going to eat? What time are we going to eat? It’s a sort of long, continuous problem. To some extent, it’s also in my blood, because my grandfather ran curry houses in Leicester in the ’80s. So food, particularly Indian food, is deeply ingrained in my family.

I didn’t realise until I was a bit older that it’s not normal to eat okra constantly. When I go home, my mum dry-fries okra. That really is my idea of comfort food.

Prawns taste different in Kerala. It’s because you’re eating them just after they’ve been plucked out of the ocean. My grandmother lived and died in Kerala, so we used to go and visit her a lot when I was a kid. It’s largely coastal, so you have access to incredible fish — there’s a Malabar fish curry that I associate with being in Kerala. Things like vegetable or lamb stew and dosa are very much the taste of my childhood.