Poonam Chawla

The youngest of six children, Poonam was always shy.  Born and raised in India, she couldn’t play with her siblings due to the big age difference, as the closest sibling was seven years older than her. She would prefer to escape in her own imagination or that of her favorite authors. After completing her degree in French translation and interpretation from JNU in New Delhi and working for the Indian railways and as a guide for French-speaking groups visiting India, she obtained a translating position in the French Basque town of Bayonne and settled there to raise her two sons, Nikhil and Pushan. For the first few years, the cultural shock was big. The French knew very little of Indian cuisine and her dishes were not received very well. At the same time, even though she knew the language, she realized that she knew very little of the codified ways of the French and spent the next ten years learning about their food, culture and lifestyle. She loved cooking in the kitchen, where she could interact with her spices and communicate with her roots, reminiscing about the culture that saw her grow up. 

As life moved on, her children’s friends and even their parents became increasingly interested in Poonam’s cooking. It took time, but people started becoming curious about the spices she would use. The more she poured herself into her cooking, the more the people around her were awakening to the wonders of Indian cuisine. However, it was a tad too late. She had always wanted to move to the U.S.A to be closer to her relatives. Soon thereafter, she and her sons moved to New Jersey to experience a slice of the American life. During her three years there, she was able to appreciate Indian food again, due to the big Indian populations of New York City and New Jersey and the many incredible restaurants they had to offer. Even though that made her feel closer to home, life would eventually bring her back to France three years later.

Finally when she retired from her translating career and moved to Paris, she decided to share her love of Indian food with the Parisians and show them how to make real authentic dishes by giving cooking lessons in her Parisian kitchen. Up until then, Indian cuisine was mostly known through the few Indian restaurants available in France that would cater to the French pallet by watering down the taste of the dishes. These restaurants, most of them in the big cities, would come up with new variations of « Indian » dishes with very little spices and heavy curries with a lot of cream or oil that would muddy the taste. Up until now, the French are still under the impression that the infamous “cheese naan” is an Indian dish. A beautiful type of Indian bread with so much history, is made with a cheese spread filling from Europe. Imagine that! As Poonam says, growing up, “the only cheese the Indians were familiar with was homemade paneer and Amul.” 

So while Poonam started sharing her passion for Indian cuisine with her students, she also started touring the Indian quarter, or Little India in Paris to show Parisians and people from all over France, where they could go to get authentic Indian spices and ingredients in the city. She had become a living, breathing historian of Indian cuisine in Paris, demystifying the clichés around Indian food and sharing the real essence of Indian dishes with avid listeners. She also started organizing and accompanying French groups to India too. Soon, the French media such as the M6 channel, as well as worldwide media such as the New York Times, started taking interest in her cooking and her tours of Little India. 

However, at the age fifty, she could no longer cope with her touring activities due to a movement disorder called Dystonia that she had developed. This disorder affects the lower members, making it hard and painful to walk. Dystonia is a neurological disorder that causes excessive, involuntary muscle contractions. These muscle contractions result in abnormal muscle movements and body postures, making it difficult to control certain movements.  This has no cure and the only treatment is relaxation techniques and physical therapy. As a result, she also had to put an end to her tours of Little India in Paris.

Poonam always wanted to share her recipes with her two kids who loved Indian food and eating in general. After working on a cookbook pitch for a year, her youngest son Pushan, a food and lifestyle photographer, printed a copy of it and approached Editions Hachette, one of the biggest publishing companies in France, at a book fair. Hachette liked the idea and soon thereafter, Poonam worked on the recipes for the book while her son Pushan visually immortalized Poonam’s dishes. After much tedious work, the book finally came out and is now available online. They even published a second edition of the book with new recipes and photography!

Poonam’s mission is simple: to teach the French about authentic Indian cuisine and to educate them on the history of Indian cuisine.