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Big news in the food world today is that Samin Nosrat‘s Netflix show has just dropped. The wait is finally over! Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat is a TV show that was born from Samin’s James Beard Award-winning cookbook with the same name. A book that’s been described by Eater as “one of the seminal food books of the last decade.” And if you’re about to Google who Samin Nosrat is – stay here, we’ll give you the lowdown.
Samin Nosrat was born into a family that loves to eat. With her Iranian heritage and San Diego upbringing, she was always in search of good food. “There was definitely always an interest in finding the most delicious things to eat,” she told Born Hungry Mag in an interview.
While studying English at UC Berkeley, Samin applied for a job bussing tables at Chez Panisse, arguably one of California’s most revered restaurants. It was here that Samin’s life changed indelibly. She began begging the chefs to teach her how to cook and before long she was in the kitchen, learning from the one and only Alice Waters!
Samin recalls how one of the chefs in the restaurant gave her a list of literary cookbooks “so I could learn the way cooking well should feel. Other than that, his only explicit instructions to me were: Cook at home every day. Pay close attention to what the other cooks do. And taste everything thoughtfully.”
Fast forward to 2018 and Samin Nosrat is a chef that the food world has become obsessed with. She’s down to earth, funny, and unapologetically herself. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, the book she wrote over 7 years, was a way of distilling the concept of cooking to its very essence using just four elements. It was a resource that every novice lapped up with glee. Her core message in the book is this: trust your intuition and your senses. At that time, a very empowering concept for home cooks.
Now her star is only getting brighter as she brings her ideas to the screen. And before you think her show is going to be another Chefs Table, it’s not. “My secret weapon… is letting bits of humanity creep through,” she said to Bon Appetit. Which just makes us like her even more. She’s as human as you’ll get and inspires you to find the best ingredients, pick up the closest wooden spoon and begin cooking properly. From scratch.
WATCH the trailer
