0:04

Hi,

0:04

this is Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO

0:07

of the Business of Fashion. Welcome to the BOF

0:09

Podcast. It's Friday, April 7.

0:13

Like fashion, the food industry has long

0:15

been a powerful enabler of cost cultural

0:18

sharing and entrepreneurship. Our

0:20

two guests on this week's episode of the BOF

0:22

Podcast are emblematic of this as

0:24

two of the most prominent female chefs

0:27

in the UK. Asma Khan

0:29

owns and runs London's Darjeeling Express

0:32

Restaurant, whose

0:32

first location happened to be in Kingley

0:35

Court, the same building where we at

0:37

BOF had our first offices. Asma

0:39

is an unstoppable force for social

0:42

change in the food industry. Judy

0:44

Joo is a Korean-American restaurateur,

0:46

presenter and author, and has her

0:49

own restaurant called Soul Bird. Judy

0:51

left her career working on Wall Street to pursue

0:54

her passion for food. On this

0:56

week's episode of the BOF Podcast, Judy

0:58

and Asma have a conversation to discuss

1:00

how food fits into our broader cultural

1:03

landscape and share their learnings from

1:05

charting careers in the food industry as

1:07

women of color. Here are Judy

1:09

Joo and Asma Khan on the

1:11

BOF Podcast.

1:14

Thank you, Mimbron. I thought it'd be a

1:16

little bit useful just for us to share a little bit about

1:19

our backgrounds, just put ourselves in context. I

1:21

think my entire childhood and upbringing,

1:24

My destiny was to be on

1:26

the fringes. I grew up in a

1:28

patriarchal society, and

1:31

I feel that hospitality, which is

1:33

my industry, is like a Mayfair

1:36

all-male club, where women

1:38

can be occasional guests, but

1:40

you never really belong, and I do

1:43

not belong. I am

1:44

on the fringe of hospitality,

1:47

but I was also on the fringe of the society where I

1:49

grew up. I was born from

1:52

both sides, father and mother's side from a royal family

1:55

and of course I wasn't the blessed which

1:57

is always a problem. But

2:00

I presumed that just like all the other

2:02

girls in my family, I'd get married at 18 to

2:05

a prince from one of the clans. But

2:07

of course, I was the dark,

2:10

fat, ugly one. And

2:13

very early on, I realized that

2:16

unlike all the other girls in my family who looked like

2:18

princesses, who behaved like that, I

2:20

was the disruptor, the outsider,

2:22

the renegade. And obviously,

2:25

no mother-in-law wanted someone like me. So

2:28

I was the first girl in my family to go to

2:30

college because I wasn't married. What

2:32

would I do? But then I realized

2:34

very quickly that there is an advantage and

2:36

strength from being the outsider. And

2:39

a lesson that I learned

2:41

as a young woman in India

2:44

was that in our society,

2:46

in every male, women ate

2:49

last, girls ate least. This

2:51

was how it was. This is deep

2:54

rooted in all agrarian societies, Ireland,

2:57

Colombia, Mexico, you go to all these

2:59

societies where the men are fed. Of course,

3:01

because they're the hunter-gatherers. They've been killing dinosaurs

3:03

or whatever. You need

3:05

to serve them. And this

3:08

whole idea was complicated

3:10

by the fact that our food is so patriarchal. And

3:13

I had all these things that I realized that food is

3:16

deeply political. It is really

3:18

about justice and rights and who

3:20

you are.

3:21

And because I couldn't

3:24

marry anyone from the clans,

3:27

I was very lucky. I had an arranged

3:29

marriage, which, please, can I

3:31

add, is different from a forced marriage. You

3:33

agree to do that. So it's an arranged marriage

3:36

from a professor who was teaching at Cambridge. I

3:38

wanted to marry an intelligent person, someone who was liberal.

3:41

He told me, oh, fine. I don't believe in gender

3:43

roles. I'm going to cook for you. Didn't tell me you're such a bad

3:46

cook. And I came to

3:48

Cambridge thinking, I'm going to have dawat, which is the Indian

3:50

feast. someone's going to look after me. It

3:52

didn't

3:53

work out that way. It was pretty tough. It

3:55

was really hard. I learned

3:57

to cook. And then I did

3:59

what? you

4:00

would expect from all good Indian

4:02

girls. You either be lawyer or doctor. Everyone

4:05

tells you that. So I decided to study law. I

4:07

did law, and I did a PhD

4:09

in law. So when I want to sound very ponzi and very

4:11

posh, I can say I'm a doctor, but I'm

4:14

not a chef. I'm a cook. And I then

4:16

realized that I got no pleasure

4:19

from law. What gave me pleasure was feeding

4:21

and cooking people. That became my career.

4:24

I chose to cook for people

4:27

from my house as a supper club, Initially, 10

4:30

years ago, some of them looked like me, accented,

4:32

Muslim, immigrant. You didn't see

4:34

on food media, food television at all.

4:37

There was Mother Jafri, and then there was no one. So

4:40

I didn't think I belonged in the industry. I started

4:42

from my home, and then, of course, I moved on

4:44

to doing supper clubs outside. Eventually,

4:46

I ended up at a restaurant, 2017. I've

4:49

been five years a restauranter, five years doing other kind of

4:51

food. And that, essentially, is my story.

4:54

I am the only Indian female

4:56

founder

4:57

for all Indian women's kitchen

4:59

in the world. And that's the RJ Express. CHEERING

5:02

AND APPLAUSE

5:09

Asma and I are old friends. And we've cooked

5:11

together, we've fused our cuisines together, we've done

5:13

Korean dinner. So it's very happy

5:16

for us to be on stage together. So I think a lot

5:18

of what we're talking about today is just paving

5:20

your own way. And I'm going to just

5:22

start talking about my father, because I feel there

5:24

is a lot to what we're doing in terms of paving our own

5:26

way. but it's also about creating your own luck. I'm

5:28

Korean, I'm descent. And my father was born

5:31

in 1939 when Korea was one country. And

5:33

he was born in a small town in what is now North

5:36

Korea. And it's a crazy story,

5:38

but very typical for most people of

5:40

his generation. Just before the war in 1950, he

5:42

fled the north with his entire

5:44

family, eight brothers and sisters, by

5:46

foot. And they made it to a small island on the southern

5:49

tip of the peninsula called Jeju.

5:51

And there he grew up in a refugee camp under

5:53

very, very poor circumstances and situations.

5:56

four of his older brothers were drafted into the war. Miraculously.

6:00

everyone survived and through hard

6:02

work and sheer will and determination. My

6:04

father ended up making it to medical school because he

6:07

just became doctors back then. There were no other things

6:09

to do. And ended up immigrating

6:11

to the United States in the 1960s,

6:14

along with most of his medical school classes,

6:16

is when they relaxed the immigration laws of America,

6:19

great brain drain of Korea, for degrees

6:21

that they needed. My mother also

6:24

was kind of crazy. Everybody was trying to get out of

6:26

Korea at this time because, as you learned before, was

6:28

one of the poorest countries in the world. It's

6:30

kind of also miraculous that now they built up to

6:32

be the 10th largest economy in one

6:34

generation. So my mom is

6:36

even more crazy because most families

6:39

were not even thinking about educating their

6:41

daughters back then. And to travel as a female

6:43

alone and to go abroad was basically unheard of.

6:45

She's like, I'm getting out of this hellhole, call

6:47

Korea. And I am going to pursue

6:49

a master's degree in chemistry. And

6:52

I'm going to get a scholarship at Ohio State University

6:54

in the middle of nowhere. And so my parents

6:56

met in the States, And they really didn't speak English

6:58

very well, because back then you learned

7:00

English from books, weren't any English speakers.

7:02

They met, and I was born in the great state of

7:04

New Jersey, hence my amazing accent. And

7:07

I just kind of went into the sciences, went

7:09

to engineering school, and then went into finance. And

7:12

I pursued a career in fixed income derivatives for

7:14

about five or six years. And then I had an epiphany.

7:17

And I decided I can't chase a paycheck anymore.

7:20

I am not inherently happy. I really

7:22

want to chase my passion. And all

7:24

I ever wanted to do in my free time is just read cookbooks

7:27

and read about chefs. And I just wanted to cook and

7:29

eat. And

7:30

so I was like, there has got to be a career in

7:32

this. So I just quit. Much to the chagrin

7:34

of my parents, they were very upset, I have to

7:37

say. And I said, I don't care. I'm an American

7:39

girl. I grew up in America. And

7:41

I am going to pursue my

7:44

luck in the cooking industry. And so I

7:46

went to FCI in New York, the French Culinary Institute.

7:49

And the rest is history, you know? Cookbooks,

7:51

television shows, restaurants later. I'm on my sixth

7:53

restaurant now, opening up in Las Vegas in December.

7:55

But what, thank you.

7:57

But what...

8:00

And I'm still waving this Korean

8:02

flag and this Korean banner and trying

8:04

to spread the love of Korean food around the world.

8:07

And this leads to our next topic of

8:09

how food has become an important vehicle for

8:11

cross-cultural sharing. And in my

8:13

lifetime, I think this is particularly pertinent for Korean

8:16

food because when I grew up, I

8:18

was embarrassed about my lunchbox. Nobody

8:20

knew where Korea was. People

8:22

thought it was part of Thailand. Even when I opened up my first

8:25

restaurant here in London, about eight years

8:27

ago, the top food critics came in and compared

8:29

me to Thai restaurants by name and said my

8:31

food is missing lemongrass and lime. I'm

8:33

like, are you kidding? And so I was

8:35

like, look at a map. And now it's

8:37

crazy because I'm being bombarded

8:40

with so many questions from around the world

8:42

about, what are they eating in parasite? What are they

8:44

eating? What are they drinking in squid games? I'm watching this.

8:46

And Korean dramas are a big fuel

8:49

of this because they're translated into 90 different

8:51

languages around the globe. It's

8:53

real. It's happening. And it's kind of created this almost

8:56

great but also weird cultural voyeurism,

8:58

I have to say, around Korean culture.

9:00

But it's been very, very,

9:02

very exciting. But I've also had to do a lot

9:04

of education. People don't really

9:06

recognize the cultural differences within East

9:08

Asia. And I think that that's very difficult. They

9:10

think it's Thailand. They don't understand that in

9:13

Korea, or in Asia, rather, we are

9:15

separated. We are a very fragmented

9:17

continent. We don't share an alphabet. We don't share language.

9:19

We don't share religion. And so Korea is

9:21

its own country, and it has its own unique cuisine.

9:24

So a lot of this has been about an education.

9:27

And I believe asthma has had the exact opposite

9:29

experience.

9:30

Yes. So

9:32

Judy was talking about the early days of people not

9:34

knowing what Korean food was. When I moved

9:36

to this country as a new bride in 1991,

9:40

I got a shock when I went to the first Indian

9:42

restaurant. I was like, whoa, what is

9:45

this? Because I had no clue

9:47

the rice came multicolored. And

9:50

all the names were so random.

9:52

I didn't even know. It was like, my god, what's

9:54

this dish going to look like? And I

9:57

realized that this is a problem that everybody

9:59

thought

10:00

It's like saying I'm going to go and have American food. They

10:02

thought Indian food is something. In

10:04

India, three villages you go, you temper the

10:06

dal differently. We are very different.

10:10

We're separated by the basic

10:12

thing,

10:12

rice growing, wheat growing, rice growing, wheat

10:14

growing. If you are eating roti, your

10:17

entire food is going to be different. If

10:20

you're eating rice and wheat with our hands,

10:22

the gravy is very important. It

10:24

is the texture. And it's what you grow

10:26

locally. We don't have fridges. Food

10:29

didn't move from areas. So we used

10:31

coconut oil, mustard oil. Even the oil

10:34

we used was different. And the biggest

10:36

problem, I got a shock here. Everybody

10:39

was telling me when they saw that I made dal

10:41

that was yellow, they said, what is dal? Dal is dal

10:43

makhani. Absolutely bloody minuscule

10:46

number of people eat dal makhani in

10:47

India. But it's what all the five-star

10:49

restaurants made, and that's what everyone thinks we eat.

10:52

And it was a shock, because when

10:54

I wanted to cook my food and I wanted

10:56

to do supper clubs in my house, I was so scared

10:59

that nobody would come. I did all

11:01

my first few supper clubs for charities, for

11:03

hunger charities, because I thought, you know,

11:06

if they think my food is weird, at least they've

11:08

donated a charity. I didn't even keep my costs. I

11:10

completely lacked the confidence because it was

11:13

against the tide of bright orange

11:15

food, which was like, whoa,

11:17

it just was so hard. And

11:20

this is the difficulty that food and culture

11:22

has been separated very, very easily. And

11:25

a bigger problem is that as

11:28

a Muslim immigrant, an Indian,

11:31

a female, now I'm 53,

11:34

I want to tell people, you cannot take my

11:36

food and separate culture from it. I

11:38

won't let you eat it. You need to

11:40

be someone who I can interact

11:43

with. You break bread with me. You have a conversation with

11:45

my food. And this is really important.

11:48

And even though I've criticized the

11:50

curry houses that chase the pilot of a nation,

11:53

and I'm very grateful for them, Even

11:55

though it was food that was green or orange,

11:58

I feel, I stand on the shoulders of...

12:00

who were these people who

12:02

allowed someone like me to become who I am today. Absolutely.

12:11

We'll be right back with more on the BOF

12:13

podcast.

12:17

It's important to also know that like food is so

12:19

often the entry point to learning about a new

12:21

culture. And it is something that

12:23

we all have to engage in. We all have to eat. And

12:26

it is the number one bonding experience that you can

12:28

do with somebody that engages all the

12:30

senses other than sex. So this is

12:32

why food is so highly emotive

12:34

and emotional. And we have so many memories anchored

12:36

around food. And this is why it's so important,

12:38

because the more you learn about other cultures, you learn about tolerance,

12:41

you learn about mindfulness, and you learn

12:43

to just respect each other more. And

12:46

Asma spoke about standing on

12:47

shoulders. And I feel that we are always standing at each

12:49

other's shoulders to try to break down these ceilings

12:52

above us as minority women in

12:54

this crazy male-dominated industry.

12:57

I often feel that kitchens are testosterone

12:59

arenas. And what do you feel about

13:02

that? Yes, and it

13:04

is very difficult. I have a feeling

13:06

that, because I just

13:08

gave you one example. From Afghanistan

13:11

to Sri Lanka, every home,

13:13

the woman is cooking or the matriarch is in charge.

13:16

When

13:16

you look at middle range high-end

13:18

restaurants in the east or the west, and

13:20

I'm from both, you can make out for my accent, they're

13:22

all men. And they have taken away

13:25

our

13:25

status completely. The

13:27

stage is full of men. There

13:29

is no place for someone like me. So

13:32

as I pointed out earlier, I'm the only all-female

13:34

kitchen cooking Indian food in the world.

13:37

And this is not an accolade. It's

13:39

a point of shame for me. And

13:42

the difficulty is I realized, when

13:44

I was trying to get a lease after Chef's Table,

13:47

the place went mad. We had bookings for two years. We

13:49

couldn't. We were struggling. I was trying to find a lease. And

13:51

everyone kept telling me, oh, I'm so sorry. You know,

13:53

we gave it to someone. Who did they give it to? A mediocre

13:56

white guy. And I was thinking like, oh, how

13:58

interesting. And it was all this. What

14:00

is going on? I had to work for a bloody pandemic.

14:03

When these mediocre white men failed, I

14:05

got a lease of a big restaurant.

14:08

This is unacceptable. I had to wait

14:10

for men to fail to be able to get my

14:12

restaurant. And every time before that,

14:15

they always ask me, who's your business partner? They're

14:17

looking for the suit. And this

14:20

is the problem that if you're a female founder and

14:22

it doesn't matter, it's beyond color of skin. Although

14:24

I think that's a big issue as well. I

14:27

realized one thing,

14:28

that the way that in India you would ask, what's

14:30

your father's name? Who's your husband? Are you

14:32

married? Do you have children? Kind of the offensive

14:35

questioning of who you are, which we all know

14:37

has happened recently as well. People ask you, where are you

14:39

really from? This idea that they want

14:41

to know where you're from and what you're doing, they want to put you in

14:43

a box. My difficulty was that

14:45

there was no man around me.

14:49

The East and the West is equally biased

14:52

when it comes to women. Everyone,

14:54

it's just a veneer of respectability

14:56

in the West. The bias

14:58

is real against women.

15:01

It's true, definitely. I mean, I think that

15:03

we feel that we're always walking uphill or always

15:05

sailing into the wind. It is a constant battle,

15:07

but it's almost our normal. You

15:10

know what I mean? We're just used to it all

15:12

the time. And I get this question

15:14

all the time, which really bothers me. I tell people

15:16

what I do, who I am, and they said, but you don't look like

15:18

a chef. And I'm like,

15:20

what is a chef supposed to look like? And

15:23

I feel it's because I haven't emasculated

15:25

myself entirely. Like if I cut off all my

15:27

hair, maybe if I didn't wear makeup, maybe if I was

15:30

covered in tattoos or

15:31

wore pierces or something, I'd be taken more

15:33

seriously in this industry that is

15:35

just completely male-dominated. And another

15:38

thing that I find that I have to overcome too is

15:40

that being an East Asian female, breaking down

15:42

that stereotype, that I'm submissive,

15:44

I'm obedient, that I

15:47

am just going to be quiet. And

15:49

there's so many meanings when I've brought in a

15:51

male counterpart. And questions are

15:53

directed towards him. they're asking

15:55

questions and they expect him to answer. I'm like, I

15:58

pay him. You know, like I know, I know.

16:00

understand this. And then he's confused

16:02

because they're asking questions to him. He's

16:04

like, you know, it's a dynamic

16:06

that most people aren't used to and it

16:08

causes a bit of surprise in

16:11

the room. But we are the unicorns right

16:13

now but we hope not to be the unicorns

16:15

going forward. And we have these machetes and we

16:17

are cutting down all of the obstacles for the next

16:20

generation to come through. And

16:22

we hope that they do come through. But the other thing

16:24

that I think that does make us unique is

16:26

the fact that we are career changers. And I think

16:28

this is something that's particularly

16:30

pertinent, especially after COVID, everybody's kind

16:32

of reevaluating their lives, getting new

16:34

perspective. And so asthma has

16:36

done their career change, if you want to talk more about that. Yes,

16:39

for me, the career change

16:41

was of course, from low to food, but

16:44

it is even harder

16:47

to change tracks when you're in your

16:49

40s. So I've been doing

16:51

food for the last 10 years. I started when

16:53

I was 43. And so you're not

16:55

just dealing with the fact that you want to change careers,

16:58

I had to deal with the bias about

17:00

my age.

17:01

And I am not in

17:03

this battle of reproduction and

17:06

use. The problem is that

17:09

I had learned as a lawyer

17:12

that you have to be on the right

17:14

side of history. You speak up. And

17:17

this is how the law changed

17:19

because there was a force from within

17:22

to change it, slavery, colonialism,

17:26

segregation. I'm not going to get off my seat from

17:28

the bus. You need one person to say that.

17:30

Occupation. All of this will end one

17:32

day when you are brave enough to say, I

17:35

want to be on the right side of history. And

17:37

for me, this is the skills I learned

17:40

as a lawyer, which I've used in food. For

17:42

me, people who've come to my supper club, come

17:44

to my biryani supper club, you get a speech

17:47

from me on politics, on power, on justice,

17:49

and equality.

17:50

You get to eat my biryani. I will not let you

17:53

leave the room, because you're captive. You've paid for the meal. You're

17:55

going to sit there while you eat. And I'm going to talk

17:57

to you about power and injustice, about slavery.

18:00

and racism, and how food

18:02

is about somehow people don't want to pay

18:04

a lot of food on Indian food because we're seeing us cheap and

18:06

cheerful, they pay a lot for European food.

18:09

This is racism. So the thing is that I change

18:11

careers, but I also realize one

18:13

thing, that this is not the autumn

18:15

of my life.

18:17

This is the spring of my life. Look at me.

18:20

I'm

18:20

here. And I,

18:25

for every game there are two innings. I've

18:28

come for my final innings. This

18:30

is when I know I'm not going to chance

18:32

to bat again. I'm going to hit every ball out of the park.

18:35

And that is the difference when you come into a second

18:37

career.

18:38

You come with a passion, and you come with

18:40

a confidence, which is very different.

18:42

Yeah, I definitely agree. So

18:46

I

18:46

come from a finance background and also an engineering

18:49

background. And there's a famous saying that if you can run

18:51

a restaurant, you can run a country. And let me tell you, it

18:53

is true. Because you are

18:55

wearing so many different hats. I never thought I would

18:57

use my engineering skills with operations research

19:00

and planning, queuing systems, ticket times,

19:02

everything. I am running a business at the end of the day, it has

19:04

to be profitable, I'm using my finance side, and

19:06

plus all the creativity. So it is something

19:08

that I think that has actually helped me to

19:11

excel, and I'm sure helped you to excel in

19:13

the industry. Actually, frankly, most people don't even

19:15

have a college degree or higher education.

19:17

So I think that the fact that we can

19:20

write, the fact that we can speak, we can read an auto-queue,

19:22

really, really has kind of propelled us to

19:24

the front of our industry relatively quickly.

19:27

And the whole thing about being a career changer, I

19:29

say that I change careers in my

19:31

late 20s, early 30s, though. But I

19:33

think it is a great time, though, because

19:36

it's never too late to reinvent yourself. And I

19:38

think it's perfect when you're older, because you have the confidence

19:41

to do so. You can bet on

19:43

yourself. And I think that's important in life.

19:45

And I mentioned this before, but you have

19:46

to create your own luck. Confucius,

19:49

famous Chinese philosopher, he said, famous

19:51

quote, and the quote that I love, is that everybody has

19:53

two lives. And the second one begins

19:56

when you realize you have only one, right?

19:59

And so the- That's

20:00

exactly what happened to me. I

20:02

was like, I can't do this fixed income derivatives

20:04

anymore. I want to go into something that

20:06

I actually love. And you just have

20:08

to have the confidence and the gumption to bet

20:10

on yourself and just do it, because you can.

20:13

And I'm going to leave Asma to say a

20:15

few last closing words. Thank

20:18

you. For me, what is very important

20:20

and which drives me all the time, and

20:22

I think it's true for Judy and me and for a lot of you all in

20:24

the room as well, we are leaving

20:26

a legacy. And I tell people this, and I go

20:28

into a lot of schools, in deprived

20:30

areas and tell girls, you're not your dress

20:32

size. You're not your father's name. You're

20:34

not the number of followers you have on social media.

20:36

Your whose life you changed. And this is

20:38

the opportunity that you can go and change your life.

20:41

And for me, and I know for Judy as well, people,

20:44

long after I'm dead, a woman is

20:46

going to get on a stage like this. She's going to go

20:48

into a bank, go into a landlord's office,

20:51

and she can say my name. Even when

20:53

I'm dead, I will be serving the cause. That

20:55

is so important to me. And this is why

20:57

I think all of us should be doing this. that

20:59

we leave the legacy, not of immediate

21:02

fame and fortune and all of this. And if you're

21:04

a restaurant business, there's no fortune. It's

21:07

not all of that. It really is that

21:10

you leave. I just want to end

21:12

by saying that both Judy and I, I

21:14

think we're both sowing the harvest. We

21:17

will never reap.

21:18

And that gives significance to our lives

21:20

and what we do every day. Thank you very much. Thank

21:22

you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank

21:24

you. Thank

21:25

you. Thank you. You

21:27

can catch up on all the videos from BOF

21:29

Voices on our YouTube channel. Check

21:31

out the link in the episode notes. The

21:34

BOF podcast is edited and produced

21:37

by Emma Clark, Kate Vartan,

21:39

and Eric Brea in the BOF Studio

21:42

team.