Salt, Smoke and Grandmothers

Food traditions explained by the people who still cook them

Aina Rosli2 episodes2 min of audio57 playsEpisodic

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S1 · E2May 14, 20260:5138 plays Preview

Sunday Kibbeh on a Street in the Chouf

In a Lebanese mountain village the whole street still makes kibbeh together on Sundays. Aina joins the pounding, the gossip and the argument about how much bulgur is too much bulgur.

S1 · E1Mar 14, 20260:5619 plays Members

The Biryani House That Cooks for Two Thousand

In Hyderabad a family of cooks has catered weddings for four generations. Aina spends a wedding night with them, from the first pot of ghee at noon to the last plate at two in the morning.

About the show

Aina Rosli grew up above her grandmother's nasi kandar stall in Penang and has spent the last decade recording the cooks who keep old recipes alive without writing anything down. Salt, Smoke and Grandmothers is a narrated documentary series. Each fortnightly episode of around forty-five minutes follows one dish, one kitchen or one market, from a Hyderabadi biryani house that cooks for weddings of two thousand, to a Oaxacan family that smokes chillies the way their great-grandparents did, to a Lebanese village where the whole street makes kibbeh together on a Sunday. Aina tells the story in the cooks' own words, with the sound of the kitchen left in, and then explains the history and the trade routes that put those ingredients on that table. It is a show for people who think food is the fastest way to understand a place, and for anyone who wishes they had asked their grandmother more questions while they still could.

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