Shelina Permalloo: Our world is changing – it’s not always the 2.4 family

TV chef Shelina Permalloo has “started to feel more confident” in her identity as a single mum, saying she “recognised it resonates” with a lot of people.

The 43-year-old was the first woman of colour to win the coveted BBC One MasterChef title in 2012, by showcasing the food of her Mauritian heritage.

Mum to eight-year-old daughter Niyyah, Permalloo says being a solo parent can feel “relentless and exhausting”.

“I don’t want to have to cook a meal, then think about all the washing up, because the minute I put her to bed and the house goes quiet, I still have work to do [so] I don’t want to be in the kitchen.”

Although very proud to be a single mother, the chef says: “I actually only became confident saying it out loud when I realised what the problem was.

“When you’re in a 2.4 family, you assume someone’s going to take the bins out whilst you’re cooking dinner, hopefully someone’s bathing your child when you’re cleaning up in the kitchen. But when you are responsible for all of that, the onus is heavy.”

After more than a decade-long hiatus from cookbook writing (she published two in quick succession after her MasterChef win) Permalloo is back with her third, What To Make When Everyone’s Hungry – and it aims to solve the problem for people who have “no time or mental capacity to cook”, whatever your family size.

“It’s a really relatable cookbook for people like me who are in situations like mine. I think the world of parenting has changed, you know, it’s not always the 2.4 family.

“Our world is changing, and we need to reflect what that looks like,” says the British-Mauritian chef, who has appeared on Sunday Brunch, This Morning, and John And Lisa’s Weekend Kitchen.

“The other lonely aspect about single parenting is, when you’re cooking a meal, a lot of the recipes [are made to feed] four or six. You don’t want to eat that meal four times in one week.”

Permalloo fell pregnant just three months after opening her first restaurant in Southampton, Lakaz Maman Mauritian Street Kitchen, while also running the kitchen as head chef.

She wants people to be able to use the skills she learned in the restaurant at home.”You don’t have to be a professional chef but with all those skills that I know; being a little bit more prepared, cleaning up your kitchen a little bit, not having to go through 50 different pots…”

“There’s something about having an organised kitchen that allows you to make quick decisions, and it allows you to free up the space for all the other stuff that you have to get on with.”

For anyone on their own, she wants them to “feel pride” in what they’re cooking, and “feel a sense of joy and a little bit of calm without it feeling frenetic.”

Being able to lean on, say five recipes that you can go back to, from which “you know you’re going to get clean bowls” from, “no fuss, not too much mess, a bit of leftovers and some peace and quiet”, will help single parents.

But even a professional can’t also get children to eat whatever they cook.

“Being a Mauritian parent, there are certain things I want my child to, without question, love, [because] it’s part of her cultural identity. For example, plantain, she didn’t like it. And I was like, ‘What? Sorry, what did you say?’ She said, ‘I don’t like this mummy’ and pushed it away – it was a proper dagger to my heart!”

Next time, Permalloo seasoned it with cumin and salt – a nod to Niyyah’s dual Moroccan heritage – and it was gobbled right up.

“The same with okra, she hasn’t quite gotten used to the consistency yet. So I continue to try and bring it into her diet every two weeks, and normally the plate gets pushed aside. But I think the whole point of introducing diversity at a young age is really key. ”

Although the cookbook includes family classics like spaghetti bolognese and chicken peri peri traybake, Permalloo says she “naturally cooks with heritage”.

“You’ll see a whole array of different inspirations from Thailand, from Ghana, from Mauritius, from Jamaica because that’s naturally what I’ve been exposed to. So these recipes are really entrenched in our everyday life, and they work for so many different families. They cover so many different tastes, flavours and textures.”

The African island of Mauritius, to the east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, is “religiously and ethically diverse”. The cuisine is “a true melting pot of identity”, says the mum-of-one. “Because of the way the island was formed, through African, Chinese, Indian and French [migration] these cultures and identities brought with them the foods of their heritage.

“If we were to have a spread on a Sunday, we would definitely have Mauritian noodles, we would have a curry, a flat bread, some kind of roti, a fiery African chilli paste, a French stew with baguettes. That’s a really traditional table, all in one meal, because the flavours and the food completely correlate and make sense.”

Permalloo was born and bred in Southampton, while her parents emigrated in the 1970s after being invited through the Commonwealth because her dad was a teacher.

“It was a different world back then. Moving to Southampton from Mauritius, I don’t know what the link was, I think they just thought, ‘It’s next to water, so we’re going to be fine’.

But, “they were faced with rife racism, challenges of integration, difficulties of understanding the language, and connecting with people… So one of the things that my mum and dad did was [get] involved in the Mauritian community.

“Every weekend, without fail, there were people in our house all day long. We had this whole cacophony of noise; women gossiping and clampering in the kitchen as they’re cooking, and then the men playing cards or dominoes, and they had the big pots in the garden, almost like the barbecue mentality.”

When her dad died when she was just 12, “we became very, very independent very quickly. I think when you have such a trauma at a young age you learn to become a mini adult very quickly.”

With her mother working as a nurse in the NHS, it was normal for Permalloo and her older sister and brother to cook dinners and clean up the house. Money was tight, “so we would cook from what we had, back then it was hessian sacks full of lentils and rice, and tinned corned beef, tinned sardines, and mackerel – and that was a treat.

“We would eat vegan, probably five days a week. We were poor, really, really poor, and obviously with Dad not being around, my mum hustled.”

Learning to stretch ingredients and make meals from what’s available has stayed with her though.

“I’m really frugal. The way that I cook at home is not dissimilar to the way that I was brought up. I suppose the only difference is we have the pleasure of eating more expensive cuts of meat, or having the pleasure of choosing what kind of eggs we want. So I think because of that, I am privileged.”

Permalloo first visited Mauritius at 11 years old and it brought up questions for her of identity. “I realised, I’m not quite Mauritian, my Creole accent was very English, but I spoke Creole, I ate the food, I was the same ethnic identity as all my family. But I was different, I looked bigger, I was a bit more well-fed.

“There is something really interesting about being from a land and your soul thinking that you’re from there, but equally, being very, very British.

“And there is absolutely no harm in straddling both of those identities at different points when it’s necessary. So I very confidently say I am British, Mauritian, and I say that with pride, because I exist here, my life is here, but my soul and heritage exists over there.”

What To Cook When Everyone’s Hungry by Shelina Permalloo is published in hardback by Ebury Press, priced £25. Photography by Danielle Wood. Available now.