Diaspo – Bringing my home to yours

Is there anyone out there who hasn’t used Zoom since the lockdown in March? An older generation of cooks, who are keen to espouse the virtues of their native cuisine through Diaspo[1], have embraced the technology with ardour. Diaspo (short for “diaspora”), the brainchild of Harish Malhi, a 24-year old graduate at London School of Economics, has been hosting a mélange of online cookery classes, focusing on heritage recipes.

Harish Malhi

Founder of Diaspo

The latest offering from Diaspo encompasses options of £10 for a cook-along virtual class or more for series of classes, of eg Indian, Italian, Peruvian and Carribean cuisines. Diaspo seeks to enable learners to tap into the fount of knowledge of home cooks with 30+ years of experience. It started life as face-to-face sessions in February 2020 but then switched to virtual (and initially free) ones during Covid-19 lockdown.

Aruna Khanzada taught Hainanese Chicken rice at Diaspo

Curious to learn another way of making the famous Singaporean dish, Hainanese chicken rice, I quickly signed up to the class of Aruna Khanzada, a seasoned cook[2]. During the interactive session, she would check on our attempts. Waiting time was filled with her anecdotes and history of the dish. There were participants not just from the UK but also Istanbul, Australia, Malaysia and Germany.

Hainanese chicken rice that I made during the cook-along session with Aruna Khanzada at Diaspo

Aruna’s version of this popular dish uses her own method and the results were satisfying. The chicken was as tender as marshmellow, having been gently poached. The meal was perfect, with the chicken sunkissed with a little chilli sauce, a drizzle of the dark sauce and the rice steeped in flavours from the broth.

What’s different about this venture is the founder’s aim. “The mission is to enable older adults to work on their passion and share their knowledge.”

Harish explains: “I have seen people of my parents’ generation who had stopped working and it affects their mental and physical health. You had been working for 40+ years and reaped the benefits of interacting [with people]. At home, people were relying on you. One person had an abject fear of feeling unneeded, and so, the moment you retire, [the sense of being needed] all goes away.” He hopes that Diaspo will add 5 quality years to later life.

Amrita Narain, one of Diaspo’s regular fervent teachers, retired over 2 years ago. Cookery teaching was something that she started doing 25 years ago, setting up “Spice Club”. Working full-time and with motherhood, she reluctantly gave it up. She recently reignited her passion for teaching. Like most retirees, her offspring has left home. During lockdown, Diaspo “has most definitely helped me fill the time.” She had to work out her recipes step-by-step for the classes. “It gave me something to do, slightly meaty, a mini project to do. It has focused my mind on things. I am grateful to Diaspo for being there right now because otherwise, [my teaching] would have completely lapsed.”

Aruna, on the other hand, is far from being retired. She published a cookery book, “Curry Base” and has since started teaching cooking. Born and having grown up in Singapore, she says, “I love the idea of passing on family recipes by demonstration. I remember craving certain foods and the joy of discovering how to make it and make it well is immeasurable.”

Amrita feels the same and is keen to teach the older and younger generations. She was thrilled that, “there was a young lad [in a cook-along session with Diaspo], home-schooled, with his mum watching. He must have been about 13 or 14 years old.” Her recipes are “unique to my family” and not in any cookbook nor used in restaurants but are her mother’s and her sister’s. “When I came here 38 years ago, we used to correspond because telephone was very expensive. My mother used to write a letter on 2 sides of an aerogram and on the 3rd side, there would be a recipe or 2. I have still got them. I asked my sister (who is no longer with us) how she made things. I have her letters, which are very special. I am really grateful [to Diaspo] that I can bring these [family recipes] back.”

Amrita has also benefited from learning a new skill. Before Diaspo, she had only taught in person. Through Diaspo, she has transitioned to teaching zoom classes of 10-12 people, adapting to feeling comfortable in front of a camera. She would demonstrate before her iPad positioned on a stand. She likes that “people cook along and there is result. You feel validated, satisfied.” She enjoys the feedback, though there is limited time to talk to the learners or see them on screen. In addition to tips, she earns some money from the paid classes.

Harish spotted the issue that the older generation lacks the means to share their knowledge with younger people. He was brought up in the UK by his grandfather, originally from India. He described some students on Diaspo as, “like me, 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants who didn’t get the chance to learn from their parents about the meals. They deeply care about learning dishes that they know and are familiar with.” He sees Diaspo as providing access to learn from someone they would otherwise never have been able to.

He observes: “If you think about minority culture, they have had to hide their culture in certain ways.” He has been inspired by Krishnendu Ray, Associate Professor, Food Studies at New York University who has spoken about the fact that “people dress British and speak British but food is the one cultural domain that people retain a vivid memory of,” Harish explains. Is it a natural progression of people of ethnic origins initially to yearn to integrate and be accepted but at one stage transition to having the desire to discover their heritage once again?

For Harish and those like him, Diaspo aspires to give them a sense of identity, a sense of belonging. It gives them a means of reconnecting with their heritage and satisfying their thirst for knowledge about their motherland, while being entertained and learning. Harish seeks to give a platform to those in retirement or semi-retirement via Diaspo a new lease of life. He believes in making a “social impact” and wants to “balance purpose with profit”. This chimes well in our new world of companies with value. His vision sounds authentic and not just a tick in the right box at the right time. For foodies like me, it serves as a deep reservoir of precious previously hidden knowledge and Diaspo acts as a means of passing on family recipes which would otherwise have been forgotten.

For many, it feels good to give. Just because one has retired, life does not have to stop. Retirees, like Amrita, still have so much to give, so happy to give and so happy to learn.

[1] www.joindiaspo.com

[2] www.mixfixcook.com

June 2020