Meet Our Mothers cookbook: 'Food is a bridge and these recipes are the soul of Bradford'

The collection, due to be published on Monday as part of the Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture year, celebrates family, community and the unifying power of food.

“Food is something you can invite your neighbour around for or a stranger into your house to share,” says artist Deepa Mann-Kler, who has led the cookbook project. “Everybody needs to eat and it can be such a bridge for meeting new people and strengthening ties but also it’s about legacy.

“My mum and dad have both passed now but a way that I celebrate their memory meaningfully is by cooking the recipes that they taught me or that have a special memory in terms of my growing up. It’s such a human bond and it goes to the core of each and every single one of us.”

Mann-Kler spent her early years between India and England, before settling in Leicester in 1997. The project is in part a tribute to her own parents and the slow-cooked feasts of her family gatherings.

Many of the family food stories she has collated have crossed valleys, oceans and generations. Collecting them was an idea that had sat with Northern Ireland-based Mann-Kler for some time and grew out of discussions with artist Akeelah Bertram and Bradford 2025’s creative director Shanaz Gulzar when Leeds held its own year-long celebration of culture two years ago.

It has found its home in Bradford, with Mann-Kler describing the book as a “love letter” to the city.

It’s fitting for a place known as the curry capital of the country, a title that acknowledges its thriving Asian food scene. But food of all kinds is part of Bradford’s identity and diversity is something, Mann-Kler says, that the book aims to celebrate.

“It’s a city that is built on migration and I think resilience. I think there’s also a spirit of radical creativity and food is everything. I didn’t have one bad meal going out there and selecting restaurants randomly. I think its identity is very much built around food.

“I’m not sure this book would have been as strong (anywhere else) as it is in Bradford. We were overwhelmed by recipe submissions, which is a really lovely problem to have. This book is born in Bradford’s markets, its kitchens, its schoolyards, its streets and the recipes are not just meals but memories - and sometimes medicine.

“It’s a love letter to Bradford and the people who live there, completely co-created with the community, celebrating and honouring stories that aren’t always told.”

The book brings together more than 40 recipes, including banga soup from Nigeria, stew from Wales, marble cake from Ukraine, and pie and peas from Keighley. A select few are also brought to life with the use of immersive digital technology.

In many cases, the recipes are a living history shared between generations and each dish is accompanied by a personal story from the contributor, from cooking to impress on a first date to 50 years of making the same dish in the same kitchen.

“It’s something that can be treasured and passed down,” Mann-Kler says, “and I hope people use it in the way that cookbooks are meant to be used - that people try recipes that come from all over the world and adapt them. This very much belongs to the people of Bradford.”

To purchase Meet Our Mothers, visit bradford2025.co.uk/merchandise/meet-our-mothers-cookbook/