Priya Krishna: Cheering on Indian-ish food

THE INDIAN-AMERICAN CULINARY WRITER DISCUSSES ALL THINGS CULTURE, CUISINES AND BEING THE PERSPECTIVE SHE WANTED TO READ

- POOJA NAIK

I tune into The New Yorker’s cooking segment on their YouTube channel. PriyaKrishna, the host, is walking viewers through her Mumperfected recipes, while revealing the secret behind her favourite Indian food hack—chhonk. Cumin seeds sputter in hot oil as Krishna weaves in narratives of her heritage. Growing up in Texas as an Indian-American child of first-generation immigrants, she admits to not being proud of her culture. After an incident where she was told that her lunchbox smelled like rotten curry, she made her Mom pack peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all through her schooling. “It wasn’t until I became a food writer that the shame started to melt away,” says the 2021 Forbes Food & Drink 30 Under 30 list awardee.

Today, the 29-year-old seeks comfort in the fact that the food shaming served a larger purpose of getting her to embrace her brown-girl soul, and eventually landed her a cookbook deal. Krishna’s body of work—which has featured in prominent food magazines and YouTube channels—leads a new generation of global writers pushing for Indian food to take its rightful place in the mainstream. Her writing is rooted in her culture, and approachable in method, which is perhaps what makes her voice so uniquely relatable.