If you’ve ever seen Arun Kapil do a cookery demonstration for his Green Saffron spice company, it’ll come as no surprise to learn that he began acting on stage and TV at the age of 11. He’s a born performer, and brings an energy and sparkle to his events that rivals the vibrancy of the spices he imports from India and beyond.
Now he has a new stage to shine on, with the publication of his first book, Fresh Spice, in which he promises to bring "flavour, depth and colour to home cooking". It's an impressive debut, published this week in London and New York by Pavilion, but if you were to assume it's another curry bible, you'd be wrong.
“People pigeon-hole me – because of my colour when I was young – and because of Green Saffron now, and I hate it,” he says, by way of explaining his decision to write a book on “how to make the best use of spices in everyday cooking”. So you’ll find recipes for “My mum’s sausage and potato pie” alongside pork vindaloo, and Irish rarebit opposite eggs Akoori.
The juxtaposition could be attributed to Kapil’s upbringing, as the son of a Hindustani father and Yorkshire mother in the steel town of Scunthorpe. “Mum taught me to bake cakes and buns. Dad would have bowls of chickpeas and lentils soaking overnight and the next day I’d walk into a kitchen filled with the gorgeous scent of beautifully fragrant, hot, sweet spices.”
Kapil moved to London at the age of 18, and launched into what he describes as " a heady, hedonistic" life. He worked in a restaurant – earning the accolade of "snake-hipped, smiling, informative and friendly young chap" from the Sunday Telegraph restaurant critic Craig Brown – to fund his record label where he launched the first ever DJ compilation album.
It was, he says, a life of “massive highs and downright dirty lows”, and something had to give, which is how he found himself enrolled at the Ballymaloe cookery school in Co Cork, “in search of a more simplistic stability”, and later in chefs’ whites, working in the kitchen of Ballymaloe House.
While there he met local girl Olive, who is now his wife, and the rest is history. “I fell in love with Cork, found what I had been missing and settled down to the business of finding the best spices India has to offer.”
Those spices, sourced through family and friends in India, and roasted and blended in Midleton, have opened doors for Kapil to the kitchens of some of the world’s best known chefs, including Alain Ducasse, Richard Corrigan, Eric Chavot, and, closer to home, Ross Lewis.
Green Saffron is going from strength to strength, and with this book, Kapil hopes to share some of the immense knowledge he has accumulated in his varied career path. "I just want to inspire. Quite simple, really." Fresh Spice is published by Pavilion, £25 FOOD MONTH EVENT As part of our reader events during Food Month this November, Arun Kapil will give a demonstration of how to cook with spices at The Irish Times building on November 5th. See Frontlines in The Irish Times magazine on page 5 for details
