28-06-2025
How to travel the world through your kitchen cupboards
It sounds old-fashioned but there's a larder in my kitchen. There isn't homemade charcuterie hanging inside, or a cheese cabinet; in fact you can't walk around it, but you can stand just inside its door looking for inspiration for dinner. There's no fresh food, not even eggs, but you'll find north African preserved lemons, Greek olives, Chinese chilli oil and tinned vintage sardines from both France and Norway. Everything is supposed to be arranged by country, but they get mixed up. It's annoying not to be able to find pomegranate molasses because it's hidden behind Chinese black vinegar.
If you were trying to assess global politics through this cupboard you'd think Japan and south-east Asia were taking over the world. A little plastic figure of Hello Kitty presides over miso, fish sauce and various types of soy. I have to reorganise the larder every so often but it's a big job sorting out the world.
I didn't travel much when I was growing up in Northern Ireland; instead I went places through books and cooking. I became obsessed with the flavours that girdle the Earth. Food writer Gurdeep Loyal is a fellow 'flavour hunter', though this wasn't a decision, it simply became the obvious thing.
His family comes from the Punjab, he was born in Leicester, and putting different flavours together was part of life. 'I've always loved joining the dots,' he says. 'Looking at where spices have come from and where they end up. We talk about food trends and think it's something new. It's not. If I just look at the Punjab, conquerors brought foods with them and took foods away. Food has always been on the move.'
Since his first job in the industry at Innocent Drinks, where he was surrounded by other food lovers, Loyal has worked for Harrods and M&S seeking out food trends, sniffing out the unusual and the unfamiliar. The first thing he does on holiday, like all keen cooks, is go to a supermarket. On a recent trip to Philadelphia, he immersed himself in the food of Cambodia (there's a significant Cambodian population there), and he tips it as the next 'big thing'.
It might sound like a commercial job – 'Let's find something that will sell big!' – but Loyal is driven by curiosity. He's also a huge lover of art and music, and finds they all link up. It's as if he has a kind of synaesthesia. 'I'm a flavour collagist,' he says with a smile. 'I'm interested in connections, in looking for constellations of amazingness.'
Nicola Lando set up Sous Chef, the online company that sells every ingredient you could ever want, after she left her job in finance. She couldn't stop cooking; she was, like Loyal and me, an obsessive. Lando worked her way through the most significant cookbooks of specific cuisines, and became an expert in everything a home cook would need to get to grips with the food of Sri Lanka, Spain or Sicily. She launched Sous Chef with 400 recherché ingredients in 2012. Along with her, three employees now taste, track down and decide what should be added. It's as much a place to browse as to shop for a specific item.
Lando has some of the best olive oils in the world, and has recently brought in chocolate (chocolate is getting a lot of love right now, she tells me) from Modica in Sicily. It isn't just about providing the unfamiliar, it's also about selling the best in a particular category.
She won't list an ingredient just because it's gone mad on TikTok, but she will rave about a particular vinegar (Giusti 'Banda Rossa' 20-Year-Aged Balsamic, more please) and not everything is serious. (Want to try French crisps that taste of tartiflette? Believe me, you do.)
Right now, Loyal wants us to try tian op, a Thai candle that scents sweet dishes, and I'm up for the Modica chocolate (it doesn't melt as readily as most). As the recipes shared here prove, I have room in my larder for everything.
