66 | Rolling Stone | March 2020
LOCATION^
COURTE
SYO
F^ BERKELE
Y^ BOWL^ WES
T
SAMINNOSRAT
EVERY TIME
Samin Nosrat
laughs, it’s like
someone’s
opened a bottle
of champagne. It
pops in a bright,
round burst and
then leaves a
delightful fizz in the air, the lingering feeling of
everyone within earshot smiling. And when you
have a conversation with Samin (who’s a first-
name-only star to her legion of fans), it adds up
to a lot of champagne.
That infectious spirit, on full display in her
Netflix show, Salt Fat Acid Heat, has made Nosrat
a star. Based on her award-winning 2017 book of
the same name, the series is a few years’ worth
of culinary school in three revelatory hours
of television. Where most cooking shows (and
cookbooks) present recipes, Nosrat teaches you
how to cook — what to do with fundamental
ingredients when and, most important, why.
Each episode explores one of the four pillars
of good cooking name-checked in the title, in
a different location across the globe: Japan,
Italy, Mexico, and the U.S. The show is joyful,
captivating, and deeply informative. As much
knowledge as she brings to the table, Nosrat
is irrepressibly curious, and that signature
laugh — not to mention a face of Chaplin-level
expressiveness (see: Samin tasting seaweed
pulled straight out of the ocean; Samin tasting
salsas made with sour honey) — buoys her small
talk at outdoor markets, cooking tutorials with
a language barrier, and convivial meals. Even in
a strange land, Samin is never a stranger.
Which is ironic, since she’s always felt like an
outsider. “Brown people, kids, queer people,
fat people, all sorts of people see themselves
in me,” Nosrat says of the Saminiacs who now
accost her (sweetly) wherever she goes. “And
I think what it is about me is that I’m always
looking for where I belong. That is the eternal
question in my heart. I’ve always felt like I don’t
fit in. So the way that I’ve chosen to respond to
it in my work is that everyone is welcome here.”
Born in San Diego to Iranian immigrants,
Nosrat grew up eating dishes like khoresh
bademjan, a stew of eggplant and tomatoes with
sour grapes, while her friends pounded chicken
nuggets and fries. As a girl, she helped her mom
“pick mountains of herbs or peel a ton of pome-
granates,” but she wasn’t drawn to the kitchen
until her first experience with fine dining: a
dinner at Chez Panisse, that renowned lodestar
of California cuisine, while she was a student
at Berkeley in 2000. Awed by her meal, she
wrote the chef, Alice Waters, a letter, offering —
pleading — to work for her. She started sweepingA chef and author who’s changing the face — and the heart
and the soul — of cooking on TV By Maria Fontoura
Women
Shaping
The
FutureNosrat in
Berkeley, in
JanuaryPHOTOGRAPH BY Cayce Clifford