A Goan chef from London is acquainting herself with her maternal roots through illustrated recipes, which she plans to turn into a book
Emma Diniz-Ryan says she wants to make Goan cooking a part of mainstream in the UK, where knowledge about the cuisine is currently restricted to fish curries
The food you eat in your formative years stays with you forever,” says Emma Diniz-Ryan, 32, a UK-based illustrator and Goan cook. Emma, who was born and raised in London, never had the opportunity to travel to the coastal Indian state, where her maternal side of the family hails from, but, her heart and palate are very much Goan. “Indian cooking has been a big part of my childhood. My grandmother [Emeliana Diniz] lived with us. She and my mum, Rosinha Ryan, made Goan food every day. We also have a Goan family nearby and together, we’d hold Goan Christmas feasts with my aunt, uncle and cousins,” she remembers.
Emma’s six-step guide to folding the samosa pastry, held together with edible glue made using two tablespoons flour and one tablespoon water. ILLUSTRATIONS AND PICS COURTESY/EMMA DINIZ-RYAN
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Emeliana has roots in Betalbatim and Mormugao in South Goa. It was she who first acquainted her with classics like sorpotel, balchao, and xacuti. “I plan to teach all of these [dishes] through illustrations, so that I can bring Goan cooking into the mainstream. Here, in the UK, I have found that fish curry is the only Goan dish that people know. I would like to change that,” she says.
Her love for pork vindaloo, a fiery Indo-Portuguese curry dish, and bebinca—the traditional layered cake of plain flour, sugar, ghee, egg yolk and coconut milk—eventually led her to start My Illustrated Kitchen on Instagram. Launched last December, the page combines Emma’s love for food and illustrations, as she meticulously sketches her recipes, one ingredient at a time.
She uses a Venn diagram to illustrate how to prepare pork vindaloo
“Before training to be a chef [in 2019], I ran my own illustration business. I started it as a hobby in 2015, while working at a tech company and then through word of mouth, developed clients until I was able to do it full time. My business was helping companies communicate using illustrations and graphic design,” says Emma.
In 2019, she enrolled in a year-long culinary diploma at Leiths School of Food & Wine, in London. “Prior to this, I was working from home and I began to cook more since I had flexible hours. After a few months of this, I found I enjoyed cooking so much more than my job and considered training to be a chef. I went to the open day of my school and knew it was the right decision to take the big leap. While I was there, I used our end of the year project to start a Goan cookbook. My final term at school was during the COVID-19 lockdown here in the UK, so I had about three months at home to learn more about Goan cookery, and it was then that I wrote and illustrated the book.”
Her three-step process to making garam masala
Having graduated, Emma decided to develop the book she had started, further. Her Instagram project, she says, is an attempt in that direction. “I realised that a lot of people are visual learners. This Christmas, after graduating from culinary school, we found ourselves in another lockdown in the UK, so I set up an online store called My Illustrated Kitchen, on a bit of a whim, and sold illustrated recipe prints as gifts. The idea was that people can hang up the prints as wall art, but also follow the recipe.”
Her print on Indian spices enumerates the 15-odd masalas used in her home kitchen. Her drawings of the bay leaf, cumin seeds, cinnamon sticks, turmeric powder, pepper, red chili powder, star anise, almost make it look easy-peasy for someone navigating the world of Indian spices for the first time. In another print, she simplifies the making of pork vindaloo using a Venn diagram.
“When illustrating a recipe, I first write out the steps in the shortest, simplest way. I want people to be able to look at an illustrated recipe and not feel overwhelmed by information. I then draw all the ingredients so that people know immediately what they need. Below, I do a step by step guide, including diagrams, which show the process. If you can see the drawing of a method, it makes life so much easier.”
Emma will soon be starting her own website, Yesterday’s Curry, alongside social media, where she says, she will share everything related to her roots. Goans often refer to fish curry from the night before as “yesterday’s curry” or kalchi kodi. “…Because it always tastes so much better the next day. I think this is true of all curries,” she says of the name.
When flying restrictions due to the pandemic are lifted, Emma’s first trip will be to Goa. “It will be a research trip on the cookbook that I am developing,” she says. “Food is a constant reminder of my childhood and family. To be able to use my recent training to give new life to those dishes, is invaluable to me.”
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