Samin Nosrat has traveled the world both as a chef and as the host of the Netflix Original Series, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. In this interview, Samin tells us everything from what her first extravagant purchase was to the best prank she’s ever played (it's an elaborate one).
Samin Nosrat has traveled the world both as a chef and as the host of the Netflix Original Series, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. In this interview, Samin tells us everything from what her first extravagant purchase was to the best prank she’s ever played (it's an elaborate one).
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Catherine: Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to I Hate Talking About Myself, the podcast where we hand your favorite Netflix star the glass bowl filled with fun questions that they have to answer all by themselves. This week we’ve got everybody’s favorite food friend, Samin Nosrat. In her show Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat Samin travelled the world to learn the secrets about what makes good food. She also has the most infectious laugh I’ve ever heard. But did you know she can play a pretty good prank? Keep listening to find out more.
Samin: Hi, I’m Samin Nosrat from Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and this is I Hate Talking About Myself. My mouth is full. Which character have you played that you most want to get brunch with? Myself, just kidding. But which character maybe has been on my show that I most want to get brunch with? Lydia, the grandmother from Italy who I made pesto with.
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What would we talk about? Cooking and pesto and if I can come stay on her beautiful house in the Italian Riviera.
What’s a relationship dealbreaker for me? Lying, deception.
Tell us five reasons you should watch my Netflix show or film. Lydia, the honey ladies, the soy sauce maker, I almost fall out of a boat with the seaweed guy. Oh, and I cry eating parmesan cheese.
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What is your biggest fear? Hmm, that I make someone feel bad.
What does the phrase guilty pleasure mean to you? Well, when it’s related to food, I have a problem with the idea of guilty pleasures because I think it should just be pleasure. I don’t think there should be guilt involved with what we eat. But I definitely have guilty pleasures when it comes to television. Although, to be totally honest, like why should it be guilty? I spend a lot of my time doing really hard and like critical thinking. So, if I want to watch like a delicious and trashy and light hearted thing I should be able to. So, I kind of hate the idea of associating guilt with pleasure. I’m an immigrant child, my entire life is already filled with guilt, I don’t need anymore.
If someone played me in a movie, who would I want it to be? I totally have a prepared answer for this, Maya Rudolph.
What’s the story behind my last Instagram post? Funny you should ask. Why my last Instagram post is a picture of me and Mrs. Obama. [Music] Hey queen, my BFF. Okay, she’s not my BFF but I wish she was. I got to go see Mrs. Obama on her book tour, her Becoming Tour and I got to meet her and she told me that she had watched my show and that she’s proud of me and I pretty much died. And there’s just a picture of me with like a big, goofy grin standing next to the goddess of all goddesses, so that’s the story.
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What’s the most memorable prank I’ve pulled off? Okay, okay, okay, okay, this is a good one. It might seem so boring and dumb but I went to UC Berkeley, I have zero school spirit, I do not care about rivalries or anything like that. But UC Berkeley’s huge rivalry is with Stanford. And Stanford’s mascot is the tree and UC Berkeley’s mascot is the golden bear. So, I totally couldn’t have cared any less about any of this stuff during school. And then, a couple of years later, I graduated, I went to Italy to cook and I was working in this restaurant with Benedetta Vitali, who’s in my show, my mentor in Italy. And because I spoke English, a lot of times if there were Americans coming, I would translate menus for them and stuff.
So, one day I saw in the reservation books that like the, you know, a group of Stanford students who were studying abroad were coming in for dinner. And so, since I had like translated and printed their menu, I flipped the menus over and in really teeny, tiny letters, on the bottom of every menu, in the teeniest-tiniest writing I wrote little things like little insulting Stanford things. Like, you know, ‘down with the tree’ and ‘go bears’ and stuff like that. And I didn’t work that night so I had like printed all this stuff out and then I left. And then, the next day I came to work and they were like, “Oh, yeah, everybody was like flipping out about something.” But the Italians had no idea what because they had no idea about this rivalry or anything. And so, I really felt like I had pulled it off because I think they were looking for the culprit and the culprit wasn’t there. So, that was pretty delicious.
Where would I time travel to, year and place? Hmm, the first thing that comes to my mind is that I would very much like to go see some of the Dutch masters still life’s being painted. There was an amazing woman, if I can remember her name, Clara Peeters, I remembered, Clara Peeters. She started painting like reportedly when she was nine years old and some of the paintings are so beautiful and she—I think her entire career was from like age nine to 22. I mean, she was a genius, like a young genius. And she did a lot of cheeses and milks, which is why I love her. But there might be like a little vase or a little spoon or something made out of metal somewhere in the whole setup and she would do a tiny self-referential, self-portrait in the like reflection of the spoon. And I’ve always thought it would be really cool to do some research on her and write about her as like the first teenage selfie maker. Like the inventor of the teenage selfie. I would love to go visit her, that would be cool.
Oh, what was my first extravagant purchase? I totally remember this. When I sold my book, I got a book deal and after many years of having like $0 or $12,000 a year, eating rice and beans for a lot of years, I was like, “I’m rich.” [Music] And I’d had the same bed from college for, I don’t even know, probably 15 years or something, it was a full-size Ikea bed. So, I bought myself a really beautiful bed and a beautiful like handmade mattress. It was $5,000 and it was just the best, best purchase. And still, every day I’m like so excited to go to bed.
If you could give your younger self advice, what would it be? I mean, it’s so simple to say, so hard to believe, “You’re just fine as you are. You’re just fine as you are.”
What do I wear to bed? Oh, old t-shirt and like comfy sweatpants. Oh, my God, I just want to be comfy, comfy, comfy when I got to bed.
What about the future excites me? Young people, I’m so inspired by Greta Thunberg, the amazing young woman who’s doing all of—like really leading climate change action. And I’m so inspired by all the young people who are the age I was when I started working in restaurants 20 years ago who kind of just are not standing for the crap that we had to take, that we didn’t even understand we were taking. You know? We just understood it was the way things were. And to be clear, like I had it pretty good in the places where I worked, it wasn’t like I was facing daily abuse or anything like that. But I think that the standards in the food world are just really low and people now know that they can demand more. And I’m so inspired by the young people, by the queer people, by the women, by all of the people who just are not staying quiet.
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Catherine: Samin, you inspire me, you and that amazing laugh. And thank you listeners for tuning in this week. Take a moment and just breath in, breath out, really soak up this gratitude and then get ready because we’ve got more where that came from. Subscribe now to get this week’s ep automatically in your phone, it’s like magic babe. I Hate Talking About Myself is produced by Pineapple Street Media and Netflix. Our music is by Hansdale Hsu and it’s hosted by me, Catherine Cohan. Until next time.
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