October 2025
The bane of my life as a South Asian cook is turmeric with its capacity to stain anything and everything. Looking at the most recent stain my thoughts turned not to how to scrub it out of existence but deflected to the story of turmeric in Australia. I’ve written a history of chillies in Australia but have been pussy-footing about writing histories of other ingredients in curry. I took the stain’s refusal to budge as a sign that turmeric wanted me to historicise it.
