Samin Nosrat: ‘I ate a piece of parmesan that made me cry’

Photograph by Pål Hansen

My mum came from a middle-class family in Iran, where servants prepared their meals. When she moved to San Diego, she taught herself to cook by memory, taste and calls to my grandma. She made either Persian food like tahdig [crisp-bottomed rice], or a Persian interpretation of other cuisines. I think she was trying to cook her way back to Iran.

About 80 miles from where we lived there was a huge store that was like a brown person’s Mecca for groceries. A baker made huge sangak flatbread over hot stones, which dimples the dough. You were limited to three per person, so Mum made me and my two brothers go with her so she could buy 12.

Chez Panisse, when I started working there as a busser, was the most popular and powerful restaurant in America. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to become a chef, but as a deeply curious nerd I was completely open to the education it gave me. What really convinced me was the food. The first time I tasted their arancini, I couldn’t get it out of my head.

Nigel Slater is my food hero. His book Tender was the first I read, several years after I started cooking. In a world of so much artifice there’s something about his sensibility, and the way he writes so simply and straightforwardly about food, that really appeals to me.

I know too much to open my own restaurant. I had a fantasy of having a place that only served lasagne; great in theory, but it’s actually a complicated, labour-intensive dish. I’d be miserable if I had to make it every day for 20 years. I’ll stick to eating at other people’s restaurants.

When I was told I was nothing until I’d cooked for 10 years, I took it very seriously. It’s hard, sometimes soul-crushing work and you have to want it badly. There are many young people cooking in crazy, beautiful ways, but I do believe in the value of mastering your craft first, so it’s in every cell of your body, before you start innovating.

My friend, the novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, wrote a book about climate change called We Are the Weather that inspired me to become a “daytime vegan”. Regretfully, it didn’t last. I’m not out here eating burgers for every meal, and I have primarily plant-based food, at home – but I do enjoy the pleasure of cow’s milk in my coffee.

My neighbours and I share a garden. I’m the mastermind behind the vision; we all split the labour and its fruits. We got new beds and soil this year so everything has shot up – there’s a 12ft bean trellis and 5ft tomato plants – but nothing is ripening. I’m hoping that spraying them with copper fungicide will help.

Every Monday evening my friends and I get together to share a meal. It’s always the same group, at the same house, and we all bring a dish – or order takeout if we’re tired. Recently, it was one of the kids’ birthdays so we had an ice-cream party. It’s the anchor to my week, and a profoundly important part of my life.

In an episode of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, I ate a piece of parmesan (at an artisanal factory in Italy) that made me cry. What I found so moving was the invisible labour; the history and the steps it took to get that one bite to me. The best food doesn’t have to be the most dazzling; it’s the skill and the time that goes into it that makes it special.

I love the food scene in London. I experience new cuisines every time I visit. It’s where I tasted Singaporean food for the first time. When I had the black daal at Dishoom, my brain couldn’t handle it. Oh, and I love that Margot Henderson’s Rochelle Canteen used to be the bike shed of a school. So British!

Food

Bean and cheese burrito.

Drink

Freshly squeezed tart lemonade.

Restaurant

Sonoratown in Los Angeles. The shredded beef chivichanga is extraordinary.

Dish to make

Lasagne from my new book. It’s the ultimate expression of everything I’ve worked towards since I first made pasta 25 years ago. Also, it feeds a crowd. It conveys the idea of sharing, which is at the heart of what I do.

Samin Nosrat’s new book is Good Things: Recipes to Share with People You Love (Ebury, £30). Buy a copy from observershop.co.uk for £27

Hair and makeup by Neusa Neves at Arlington Artists using Cle de Peau skincare, Nars makeup, and Lashify