Mother Tongue

WINNER OF THE JANE GRIGSON TRUST AWARD
‘Amazing, original, boundary breaking.’ Diana Henry
‘One of the most gleeful cookbooks of 2023.’ Stylist Magazine
‘His recipes have a dynamism that is genuine, personal and flavour-led… dazzling and yet warmly inviting.’ Nigella Lawson
With recipes for everything from Coconut Crab Crumpets to Kasundi Keema Lasagne Rolls, award-winning food writer Gurdeep Loyal celebrates the hybrid third-culture cooking of second-generation migrants around the world today.
Born in Britain to Indian parents, Gurd felt constantly pulled by the clashing expectations of both cultures. But through his passion for food and cooking he was able to embrace the delicious contradictions of his plural British Indian identity.
In Mother Tongue he explores his culinary upbringing that combined ‘authentic’ home-cooked Punjabi food, with ‘inauthentic’ curry-house Tikka Masalas, the Western foodie cannon, and a wanderlust for travel in pursuit of flavour. What results is a flavour amplified intercultural cuisine, that is a delicious culinary self-expression of his second-generation experience of the world today.
Gurdeep serves up over 100 knock-out recipes, including a mouth-watering Miso-Masala Fried Chicken Sando, Sweet Chilli-Gunpowder Roasted Cauliflower, Desi Kofta Meatballs with Sticky Mango-Lime Tomatoes and Chocolate-Orange Jalebis, all combined with expert know-how on building, blending, and remixing global flavour combinations. Mother Tongue is bursting with vibrantly spiced, colourfully flavour-forward recipes for home-cooks to explore and be inspired by every day.

Reviews

‘One of the most gleeful cookbooks of 2023… prepare to fall deeply in love with this book.’ Stylist Magazine
‘His recipes have a dynamism that is genuine, personal and flavour-led… dazzling and yet warmly inviting… There is so much more to the book than the recipes… It allows you — to draw on an analogy that both Loyal and I favour — new music in the kitchen.’ Nigella Lawson
‘Inventiveness, originality and pleasure run through every page… the recipes are consistently inviting, and more than occasionally wow-out-loud thrilling… book of the month.’ Delicious Magazine
‘Outstanding… a kitchen journey that spans cuisines… our new favourite cookbook.’ Observer Food Monthly
‘If food can be melt in the mouth, this is melt in the mind… unbelievably beautifully written.’ Saturday Kitchen
‘A beautiful cookbook… really beautiful.’ Table Manners Podcast
‘How thrilling and inspiring to be drawn into Gurdeep’s extraordinary diaspora and fantastic world of flavours!’ Claudia Roden
‘Every so often a rare cookbook comes along which brings something completely new and fascinating to the world of food. Mother Tongue does just that. A fiercely original, boundary shifting celebration of flavour and culture, that I will go back for years to come’ Anna Jones
‘This book really excites me. It looks at Indian food with fresh eyes and break moulds with its recipes, photography and style. Gurdeep is very talented – this book is just the start!’ Chetna Makan
‘A stunningly evocative cookbook with creative modern recipes that pay homage to the rich and diverse Punjabi and South Asian culinary traditions. I wanted to devour every page’ Yasmin Khan
‘A Willy Wonka-style wizard of flavour, his joy in food shines from every page – a genuinely thrilling book’ Felicity Cloake