“I didn’t even know that that was somehow possible!” says , who has adapted her into an extremely watchable TV program. While legit versions of the show exist on , Salt Fat Acid Heat has become a hot commodity since it launched a few weeks ago. Fan mail has come in from Chile, Israel and Thailand. “I’ve heard people in Cuba are watching it,” she says. “It’s so awesome.”
Having your show drop simultaneously in might be an experience that’s “bigger than one human could ever deal with”, she admits with a laugh, but should it surprise anyone that Nosrat is earning praise in so many languages? After all, she grew up in San Diego with a dependency on yoghurt’s sour tang that affirms her Iranian roots and a weakness for parmesan that makes her – her borderless curiosity (and palate) is one of the show’s many charms. Add her time at and her years instructing people (such as ) on how to be a boss in the kitchen, and she ends up being your favourite cooking teacher. This is why is so great to watch (and rewatch – I’m currently on my third viewing).
Growing up in a household that spoke Farsi – where saffron rice, sour plums and pomegranate seeds coloured the diet – it must be heartening for Nosrat to learn that people in Iran are watching her show (even if they’re resorting to not-entirely-legal means), right?
Samin Nosrat first started teaching cooking classes to Californian students in 2007, now the entire world is taking on her lessons. (Adam Rose/Netflix) Source: Adam Rose/Netflix
But there’s one audience reaction that’s affected her even more: learning of someone who was having such a rough time that she was too depressed to even leave her bed. “And then the morning after she watched the show, she woke up and she made pesto with a mortar and pestle [just as I do on the show] and home-made pizza. That one was pretty moving.”
18 years had essentially led up to this moment. Salt Fat Acid Heat stems from an idea that Nosrat first had nearly two decades ago. Her time at Chez Panisse made her realise that good cooking relies on those exact four elements.
This led to her acclaimed book, , which is a masterclass on how to nail dishes by using these principles. (Even something as simple as hot chips and tomato sauce illustrates how salt, fat, acid and heat will make something certifiably delicious.)
The TV show is divided into these four elements, with fat ruling the first episode – and where better to go than Italy, where oil is made from olives shaken from 250-year-old trees in Liguria and there’s parmesan so amazing it makes you cry (which Nosrat does onscreen when she tries produced from red cows). That particular cheese factory was one of the first stops the crew made when making the show.
Salt Fat Acid Heat is so good that people are bootlegging the show in Iran. “I didn’t even know that that was somehow possible!”
“Film production is no joke,” says Nosrat. “We had 33 camera cases and equipment cases in addition to our luggage, we had so much stuff and we were schlepping this stuff all across Italy.”
But when they made it to for their first (cheese-related) filming location, she was struck by another priority. “Immediately, I was like guys, we have to eat as much gelato as possible,” she says. “I want a gelato montage.” So they hit the gelaterias.
When they finally met the cheesemakers at (after a brutal 5am start the next day), it was clearly worth it, given Nosrat’s not-so-dry eyes upon trying the artisanal parmesan.
The cheese at Consorzio Vacche Rosse actually made Nosrat cry. (Netflix) Source: Netflix
It’s not the only time there were onscreen tears.
When they met , who makes soy sauce in a heartbreakingly old-school way for his brand on Japan’s Shodo Island, “I fully cried in the soy sauce factory and I was like, ‘Caroline, keep that scene’”. Her director laughed off the suggestion. “Because he’s Japanese, Yamamoto-san had no idea why you were crying. You looked cuckoo,” Nosrat remembers her saying. “That was really funny.”
What makes Yamamoto one of the most memorable figures in Salt Fat Acid Heat is his dedication to making soy sauce traditionally: he carefully ferments the soy beans for two years; industrialised soy sauce, meanwhile, is done at a fast-paced three months. He credits the quality of the sauce to the old wooden barrels used – but there’s only one company left that produces them.
“In 2009, I placed an order for a barrel, and it was the first order they had received since World War II,” he says on the show. “The survival of this soy sauce depends on whether the barrel-making continues.”
No wonder Nosrat cried.
What’s also striking about Salt Fat Acid Heat is its diverse and accessible outlook – this is not a cooking show run by dude chefs eating extreme food, yelling at kitchen staff or checking out the world’s most priciest restaurants. It’s hosted by an Iranian-American woman who didn’t see faces resembling hers on TV when she was growing up. It wasn’t until her thirties that people went out of their way to learn how to pronounce her name properly (and ). “In second grade, I was called a terrorist,” she . Making an inclusive show was non-negotiable. “Luckily, there were was a team that felt this way. Caroline populated the production team with almost all women,” she says.
Nosrat travels to Japan for the episode on salt. (Netflix) Source: Netflix
“It can be a little bit of extra work to find women, to find people who aren’t traditionally represented. And that’s because we live in a vacuum chamber of media that continues to promote and elevate the same stories and the same types of stories over and over again,” says Nosrat.
“But I don’t think it’s that hard if you set your mind to it. It was a practice, it was a muscle we had to build as a team," she says. "Because both as a kid and a young cook, I felt very left out of the narrative. The narrative of who is on TV, who is given respect as a cook … I knew I had to do the work to tell a new kind of story.”
It means featuring her own mother, who makes , a rice dish that every Iranian woman is meant to master; we meet the people who produce in Mexico (made from stinger-less bees that humans have protected for 2000 years, “it tastes like honey lemonade”) and we see the host roll soft-boiled eggs in a “comforter” of miso with in Japan, to demonstrate how easy it is to give dishes a sodium hit without needing to reach for the salt shaker. Nosrat’s driving ambition is to show viewers how easy it is to apply the magic of salt, fat, acid and heat to their dishes.
As a kid and a young cook, I felt very left out of the narrative. The narrative of who is on TV, who is given respect as a cook … I knew I had to do the work to tell a new kind of story.
While the program has gained a worldwide audience quickly, it’s surprising to learn that Nosrat’s mum hasn’t yet seen the show, even though she’s been set up with Netflix.
“But she did respond to my text when I told her I was on that . She’s so funny. A lot of people have been saying that we need to have our own cooking show. And my response to that is, I don’t know if I could do a show with her. But she should have her own.”
Maybe they’ll start bootlegging it in Iran, too.
Salt Fat Acid Heat is currently on Netflix.
