Madhur Jaffrey facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Madhur Jaffrey
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Jaffrey at a cookbook event in Vancouver in October 2010
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Madhur Bahadur
13 August 1933 Civil Lines, Delhi, British India (present-day India)
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| Awards | See below |
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| Culinary career | |
| Cooking style | Indian and South Asian |
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Current restaurant(s)
Dawat, New York City (1986 to present)
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Television show(s)
Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery (1982), Far Eastern Cookery (1989), Listening To Volcanoes (1990), From Manna to Microwave (1990), Madhur Jaffrey’s Flavours of India (1995), Friends for Dinner (2001), Ready, Steady Cook (2001), Cooking Live (2001)
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Award(s) won
James Beard Foundation Award
* 2006: Cookbook Hall of Fame An Invitation to Indian Cooking Guild of Food Writers Award |
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Madhur Jaffrey (born August 13, 1933) is a famous Indian-born British-American actress, writer, and TV personality. She is well-known for introducing Indian cuisine to the Western world. Her first cookbook, An Invitation to Indian Cooking (1973), was so important that it was added to the James Beard Foundation's Cookbook Hall of Fame.
Madhur Jaffrey has written many cookbooks and appeared on several cooking shows. Her most famous show was Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery, which started in the UK in 1982. She also helped create the menu for the restaurant Dawat in New York City, which was considered one of the best Indian restaurants there.
Besides cooking, she is also a talented actress. She helped connect filmmakers James Ivory and Ismail Merchant. She starred in many of their movies, including Shakespeare Wallah (1965). For this role, she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress award at the Berlin International Film Festival. She has also acted in plays, radio shows, and other TV programs.
In 2004, she received an honorary CBE award. This was for her great work in connecting the cultures of the UK, India, and the US through her acting and cooking. In 2022, she received the Padma Bhushan from the Government of India. This is one of India's highest civilian awards.
Her childhood memories of India were published in her book, Climbing the Mango Trees (2006).
Contents
Early Life in India
Madhur Jaffrey was born in Civil Lines, Delhi, India. She grew up in a large Hindu family with five siblings. Her grandfather built their big family home by the Yamuna river, surrounded by fruit trees.
When Madhur was about two, her family moved to Kanpur. Her father worked at a factory there. Madhur went to St. Mary's Convent School. At age five, she acted as the brown mouse in a musical play. After eight years, her family moved back to Delhi in 1944.
In Delhi, Madhur attended Queen Mary's Higher Secondary School. Her history teacher encouraged her to act in school plays. She played Titania in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. She also played the lead role in Robin Hood and His Merry Men. Her older brothers went to St. Stephen's College, Delhi, and she loved watching their Shakespeare plays every winter.
Madhur supported Mahatma Gandhi's fight for India's freedom from British rule. She spent time each day spinning khadi (homemade cloth) and delivered it to a collection center.
In 1947, Madhur saw the effects of the partition of India. Her classmates were divided on the issue. On August 15, she watched the transfer of power at India Gate. She saw Jawaharlal Nehru and Lord Mountbatten in an open carriage. The partition led to violence in Delhi. Her family guarded their home with guns. All her Muslim classmates left school. In 1948, she attended one of Mahatma Gandhi's prayer meetings. She heard the news of his assassination on the radio. She also saw his funeral procession.
At home, servants usually cooked for Madhur's family. But the women of the family supervised. They sometimes bought delicious Mughlai cuisine from Old Delhi. After the partition, refugees from Punjab brought their cooking style to Delhi. Restaurants like Moti Mahal introduced tandoori chicken and later invented butter chicken. Madhur loved the simple, fresh taste of Punjabi food.
In school, Madhur took a domestic science class. She found the cooking lessons boring, especially making bland dishes like blancmange. She thought they were making "British invalid foods." For her final cooking exam, she had to cook with basic ingredients over a wood fire. She tried her best but thought she failed the class.
Madhur and her cousins often worked at the nearby All India Radio station. They acted in radio plays and children's programs. She earned a small fee for this, which she considered her first job.
College and Early Acting Career
From 1950 to 1953, Madhur attended Miranda House, a women's college in Delhi. She earned a degree in English. She acted in college plays like Hamlet and The Importance of Being Earnest. She also appeared in The Comedy of Errors at St. Stephen's College.
In 1951, Madhur joined the Unity Theatre. This was an English-language acting group in New Delhi, started by Saeed Jaffrey. She quickly got a role in the play The Eagle Has Two Heads. She also acted with Saeed in A Phoenix Too Frequent.
After college, Madhur worked as a disc jockey at All India Radio. Saeed Jaffrey was an announcer there. They fell in love and dated.
During this time, Madhur also met Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, a British novelist. Madhur acted in some of Prawer Jhabvala's radio plays. The main characters in Prawer Jhabvala's first novel, To Whom She Will (1955), were based on Madhur and Saeed.
In 1955, Madhur acted in Auto-da-Fé and Othello with Saeed. She decided to become a professional actress. She won a grant from the British government to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London.
She sailed to London in December 1955.
Life in London and New York
At RADA, Madhur studied acting with future stars like Diana Rigg. She earned scholarships and took small acting jobs at the BBC. She lived modestly in London.
Madhur found British food and Indian restaurants in London to be disappointing. She missed her home-cooked meals. So, she wrote to her mother, asking for recipes. Her mother sent recipes written in Hindi on thin paper. The first recipes included meat with spices, cauliflower, and egg curry. Madhur learned to cook these dishes herself. This was a key moment that led to her future career as a cookbook author.
In 1957, Madhur graduated from RADA. She decided to move to America to join Saeed Jaffrey. He was studying drama and acting in summer plays in Vermont. Madhur taught pantomime there and later studied at Catholic University of America.
In September 1957, Madhur and Saeed married in a simple ceremony in Washington, D.C. They then moved to New York City. Madhur worked as a tour guide at the United Nations. Between 1959 and 1963, they had three daughters: Meera, Zia, and Sakina.
In New York, Madhur met Ismail Merchant and James Ivory. They were both interested in films. Madhur and Saeed often hosted dinners, and it was at these dinners that Merchant and Ivory became friends. They later formed a famous filmmaking partnership, Merchant Ivory Productions.
Madhur and Saeed acted together in an Off-Broadway play called A Tenth of an Inch Makes The Difference in 1962. Critics praised their acting.
By 1965, Madhur and Saeed's marriage ended. She moved to Mexico for the divorce. Their children went to live with her family in Delhi.
Madhur returned to India to film Shakespeare Wallah (1965). After filming, she stayed in India. But Ismail Merchant wanted her to attend the Berlin International Film Festival where the film was competing. In Berlin, she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress award.
Back in New York, Madhur reconnected with Sanford Allen, a violinist. They started a relationship. In 1966, Ismail Merchant wanted to promote Shakespeare Wallah. He convinced The New York Times food critic Craig Claiborne to write about Madhur. She cooked a meal for Claiborne, including stuffed green peppers, koftas, and cucumber raita.
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Koftas in sour cream
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Cucumber raita with mint
In 1969, Madhur married Sanford Allen. To support her children, she became a freelance writer for food and travel magazines. She wrote about art, music, and architecture.
Film and Television Roles
Madhur Jaffrey played a key role in bringing together filmmakers James Ivory and Ismail Merchant. Their partnership became very famous.
Her first major film role was in Shakespeare Wallah (1965). She played a glamorous film star. A film critic called her performance "a ravishing study in felinity." For this role, she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress award.
She continued to act in many Merchant Ivory films, including:
- The Guru (1969)
- Autobiography of a Princess (1976)
- Heat and Dust (1983)
- The Perfect Murder (1988)
She also starred in and co-directed Cotton Mary (1999) with Ismail Merchant.
Madhur Jaffrey has appeared in many other films and TV shows:
- Six Degrees of Separation (1993)
- Vanya on 42nd Street (1994)
- Flawless (1999)
- Prime (2005)
- The Hindi film Saagar (1985)
- The British TV series Firm Friends (1992–94)
- ABCD (1999), which she also produced.
- She appeared with her daughter Sakina Jaffrey in Chutney Popcorn (1999).
- She played a traditional Hindu wife in Cosmopolitan (2003).
- She starred with Deborah Kerr in The Assam Garden (1985).
- She played a doctor in A Late Quartet (2012).
- She appeared in the DC Universe series Doom Patrol (2019).
Theatre Performances
Madhur Jaffrey has also had a successful career in theatre. Some of her notable stage roles include:
- A Tenth of an Inch Makes the Difference (1962)
- The Guide (1969), based on the novel by R. K. Narayan
- Conduct Unbecoming (1970)
- Two Rooms (1993)
- Last Dance at Dum Dum (1999)
- Bombay Dreams on Broadway (2004), where she played the main character's grandmother.
- India Awakening (2005)
Cooking and Cookbooks
Madhur Jaffrey is a well-known author of cookbooks. Her books focus on Indian, Asian, and vegetarian dishes from around the world. Many of her books have become best-sellers and have won James Beard Foundation awards.
She has hosted several cooking shows on television:
- Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery (1982)
- Madhur Jaffrey's Far Eastern Cookery (1989)
- Madhur Jaffrey's Flavours of India (1995)
It's interesting that Madhur didn't cook much as a child. She almost failed cooking class in school! She only learned to cook when she moved to London for acting school. She used recipes her mother sent her in letters. Her editor, Judith Jones, said Madhur was a great cookbook writer because she learned to cook familiar dishes as an adult, following written instructions.
After an article about her cooking appeared in The New York Times in 1966, she got a book deal. She gathered all the recipes she learned from her mother and adapted them for American kitchens. In 1973, her first cookbook, An Invitation to Indian Cooking, was published.
In the 1970s, she taught Indian cooking classes. The BBC hired her to host a show about Indian cooking. In 1986, the Dawat restaurant opened in Manhattan, using her recipes.
Awards and Recognition
Madhur Jaffrey has received many awards for her acting and cooking:
- Best Actress from the Berlin International Film Festival in 1965 for Shakespeare Wallah.
- Taraknath Das Foundation Award in 1993.
- James Beard Foundation Awards: Her cookbooks have won 7 awards, including "Cookbook Hall of Fame" for An Invitation to Indian Cooking. In 2023, she received the James Beard Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award.
- Muse Award from New York Women in Film & Television in 2000.
- Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2004. This was for her contributions to cultural relations between the UK, India, and the US through her work in film, television, and cookery.
- Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination for Saagar (1985).
- Padma Bhushan from the Government of India in 2022. This is India's third highest civilian award.
Family Life
Madhur Jaffrey has three daughters from her first marriage to Saeed Jaffrey: Zia, Meera, and Sakina.
- Zia Jaffrey is a professor of Creative Writing. She has written for newspapers like The New York Times and magazines like Vogue. She wrote a book called The Invisibles: A Tale of Eunuchs of India (1996).
- Meera Jaffrey teaches music in New Jersey. She made a documentary film about China called Fine Rain: Politics and Folk Songs in China (2005). She has a son named Rohan.
- Sakina Jaffrey is an actress, like her mother. She is known for her role as Linda Vasquez in the TV series House of Cards. She lives with her husband, Francis Wilkinson, and their two children, Cassius and Jamila.
Madhur Jaffrey is also the aunt of British journalist Rohit Jaggi and literary critic Maya Jaggi. She is also a cousin to the late Raghu Raj Bahadur, a famous statistician, and his sister, the late Sheila Dhar, a writer.
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