Anjum Anand
Encyclopedia
Anjum Anand is a British Indian
food writer
and TV
chef
of Indian cuisine
.
-Indian
descent, grew up in London but has also lived and studied in Geneva
, Paris
, and Madrid
. She speaks French
and Spanish
, holds a degree in European business administration, and for a period ran a business importing flat-pack furniture from eastern Europe. She has worked in the kitchens of hotel restaurants including at Café Spice in New York, as a waitress in Park Royal Hotel in New Delhi, and for Tommy Tang
at Mondrian Hotel
in Los Angeles.
Her perspective on adapting healthy meals from a traditionally rich Indian diet came from personal experience of weight problems while growing up. Her diet consists of varied traditional dishes, recreated with wholesome ingredients and limited oil. At age 25 her first book Indian Every Day: Light Healthy Indian Food was published.
Anand became a regular guest on UKTV Food
's Great Food Live from 2004 to 2007, and featured in the BBC Two
series Indian Food Made Easy broadcast in 2007. Her accent and flirtatious manner have led to her being dubbed "the Nigella Lawson
of Indian cuisine in Britain". Reacting to descriptions of herself as "television's tastiest chef", she finds it "preposterous".
She has been a regular contributor to The Times Online
food pages since 2007. She has acted as consultant chef to Birds Eye
brand to develop a range of healthy Indian ready meals. In September 2008 Anand published her third recipe book Anjum's New Indian, followed by a new BBC television series in November.
British Indian
The term British Indian refers to citizens of the United Kingdom whose ancestral roots lie in India. This includes people born in the UK who are of Indian descent, and Indian-born people who have migrated to the UK...
food writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
and TV
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
chef
Chef
A chef is a person who cooks professionally for other people. Although over time the term has come to describe any person who cooks for a living, traditionally it refers to a highly skilled professional who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation.-Etymology:The word "chef" is borrowed ...
of Indian cuisine
Indian cuisine
Indian cuisine consists of thousands of regional cuisines which date back thousands of years. The dishes of India are characterised by the extensive use of various Indian spices, herbs, vegetables and fruit. Indian cuisine is also known for the widespread practice of vegetarianism in Indian society...
.
Biography
Anjum Anand, of ScottishScottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
-Indian
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
descent, grew up in London but has also lived and studied in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
. She speaks French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, holds a degree in European business administration, and for a period ran a business importing flat-pack furniture from eastern Europe. She has worked in the kitchens of hotel restaurants including at Café Spice in New York, as a waitress in Park Royal Hotel in New Delhi, and for Tommy Tang
Tommy Tang
Tommy Tang is a Thai-born chef and television personality well-known for his PBS series of cooking shows.Born in Bangkok, Tang was the eldest son in a family of 12 children...
at Mondrian Hotel
Mondrian Hotel
The Mondrian Hotel is the name of three boutique hotels owned and/or operated by the Morgans Hotel Group.-Mondrian Los Angeles:The original Mondrian Hotel is located on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, California. The structure was built in 1959 as an apartment building. It was later renovated...
in Los Angeles.
Her perspective on adapting healthy meals from a traditionally rich Indian diet came from personal experience of weight problems while growing up. Her diet consists of varied traditional dishes, recreated with wholesome ingredients and limited oil. At age 25 her first book Indian Every Day: Light Healthy Indian Food was published.
Anand became a regular guest on UKTV Food
UKTV Food
Good Food is a lifestyle channel broadcasting in the United Kingdom as part of the UKTV network of channels. The channel originally launched on 5 November 2001 and relaunched in its current format on 22 June 2009. Good Food is available on satellite through Sky and on cable services, primarily...
's Great Food Live from 2004 to 2007, and featured in the BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
series Indian Food Made Easy broadcast in 2007. Her accent and flirtatious manner have led to her being dubbed "the Nigella Lawson
Nigella Lawson
Nigella Lucy Lawson is an English food writer, journalist and broadcaster. Lawson is the daughter of Nigel Lawson, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Vanessa Salmon, whose family owned the J. Lyons and Co. empire...
of Indian cuisine in Britain". Reacting to descriptions of herself as "television's tastiest chef", she finds it "preposterous".
She has been a regular contributor to The Times Online
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
food pages since 2007. She has acted as consultant chef to Birds Eye
Birds Eye
__FORCETOC__Birds Eye is an international brand of frozen foods owned by Pinnacle Foods in North America and by private equity group Permira in Europe....
brand to develop a range of healthy Indian ready meals. In September 2008 Anand published her third recipe book Anjum's New Indian, followed by a new BBC television series in November.
Published works
- Indian Every Day: Light, Healthy Indian Food (Headline Book Publishing, ISBN 0755312015)
- Indian Food Made Easy (2007, Quadrille Publishing, ISBN 9781844005710)
- Anjum's New Indian (2008, Quadrille Publishing, (ISBN 9781844006168)
- Anjum's Eat Right For Your Body Type (2010, Quadrille Publishing, (ISBN 9781844007578)
- I Love Curry (2010, Quadrille Publishing, (ISBN 9781844008896)