Delicious New Book, ‘Pakistan,’ Celebrates Local Cuisine

Having left Pakistan for grad school in the US in 2008, food writer, Maryam Jillani, used cooking and experimenting in the kitchen as a conduit for staying close to her roots.

Through the many years of living in Washington DC, Jillani launched an award-winning food blog, in 2016, called Pakistan Eats. But underneath her inspiration was her yearning for home which she assuaged by cooking up a storm in the kitchen of her favorite, local comfort foods.

Currently based in Manila, Philippines, Jillani is gearing up for the release of her debut book: an all-inclusive guide to the broths, snacks, savory dishes and sweet treats that encompass the identity and heritage of her home country.

Titled, ‘Pakistan,’ the author took a three-year sabbatical from work to research countless recipes (across each province) and to travel extensively throughout her homeland to put together a spectacular and scrumptious cookbook…

SR: Maryam, your book aspires to offer a comprehensive picture of Pakistani cuisine. How did you go about putting over 100 recipes together? It must’ve been quite a challenge…

MJ: I found that a majority of the Pakistani and Pakistani-origin food blogs, content creators and cookbooks represented food that was closely tied to the writer and creator’s own personal background. This often meant that most of the Pakistani recipes you will find online and in-print are from Punjab, Urdu-speaking communities or the country’s major urban centres, such as Lahore or Karachi. While you can definitely find some family recipes in Pakistan, I worked hard to capture a broader picture of our cuisine that includes all four provinces, the northern areas, and various ethnic communities. Many of the recipes were sourced during a cross-country tour I took in spring 2023 where I stepped into 40 kitchens in 16 villages, towns, and cities across the country. During the trip, I reached out to both majority and minority ethnic and religious groups, in order to challenge outdated notions of what Pakistani cuisine was.

The big impetus behind Pakistan was to present a more complete picture of Pakistani cuisine. To me, this meant striving to represent food from as many regions and ethnic communities as possible. But I also wanted to balance my desire for representation with including dishes that readers will want to cook. I developed an initial list based on desk research and reworked it during my trip to Pakistan. Once I was back in my kitchen in Manila, I brought it down to a 100 based on the recipe testing and validation process.

SR: As someone as well-travelled as yourself, how does Pakistan’s food landscape compare to other countries?

MJ: That’s a great and challenging question. I can talk more easily about how it’s similar though. The conception of a singular national cuisine is flawed in nearly all of the countries I have lived and traveled to. In my opinion, it’s always better to think of a national cuisine as the sum of the cuisine of its communities. In Pakistan’s case, we are an incredibly diverse country. Our cuisine is not only a product of our shared history with Afghanistan, India and Iran but also the influence of various migrant groups. It’s what makes it so good! But if you were to push me on what makes Pakistani cuisine especially unique, its food is where South and Central Asia come together.

SR: You describe your cookbook as a ‘labor of love.’ What were some of the challenges and triumphs you encountered while putting the manuscript together?

MJ: Yes, this book is certainly a labor of love. I took a full three-year sabbatical from my work in international education to refine and pitch my book proposal, secure a book deal, and work on the book. It was challenging because it was definitely a step outside of my comfort zone. When you work on a cookbook, you are a writer, researcher, recipe developer, visual editor and project manager. But it was also incredibly rewarding. Traveling across Pakistan to cook and break bread with people from all over Pakistan was the ultimate coming home experience. Even though I have lived outside of Pakistan for over 10 years, every kitchen I stepped into felt like home. On a broader level, I feel incredibly privileged to know that I’m playing a small part in ensuring Pakistan is finally included in conversations about global cuisine.

SR: During your travels, which region’s cuisine stood out for you the most?

MJ: My most inspiring stop during the tour was in Quetta. I wish I could have both spent more time in the city, and traveled more across the province. The people are so warm and hospitable, and their cuisine is informed by a completely different set of influences than the food in the eastern side of the country due to Balochistan’s long shared history with Afghanistan and Iran.

SR: Given that local cuisine has been inspired and influenced by shared borders with Afghanistan, India, Iran and China for centuries, were there any recipes that caught your attention?

MJ: Yes, definitely. In Quetta, for instance, qurt, a dried, sour cheese that is widely used in Central Asia and Iran, is a popular ingredient in Balochistan and the northern areas. In Hunza, you will detect Chinese influence in dishes like mamtu, which are dumplings, and the widespread use of handmade wheat noodles, in dishes such as hoi la garma, noodles with spinach, or dao dao, a hearty soup.

SR: In the book’s introduction, you mention how cooking became a way for you to re-connect with your roots while living overseas. Is there any specific comfort food from Pakistan that you especially love?

MJ: The one dish that immediately comes to mind is kadhi! It’s deep-fried fritters folded in a bright, turmeric-hued yogurt curry. One of my all-time favorite dishes! It was made frequently in my home, and I didn’t realize I missed it so much until I found it at a small Pakistani dive restaurant close to my office in Washington DC. I ended up there every Wednesday when they served it as part of their buffet lunch.

SR: ‘Pakistan’ is scheduled for release next month…what impact do you hope your cookbook will have in the culinary world?

MJ: I hope my book will create space for Pakistan on the global culinary map, and finally encourage people to stop conflating Pakistani cuisine with Indian food. From there, it will be exciting to see if it also opens the door for a more robust exploration of regional cuisines within Pakistan.