If you went into Nadiya Hussain’s kitchen you would probably find orange peels drying out on the window sill. The 39-year-old British television chef, whose life changed considerably after winning the sixth series of BBC’s Great British Bake Off in 2015, was born on Christmas Day to a Bangladeshi family living in Luton, where there were strict rules about the wastage and repurposing of food: you weren’t allowed to throw anything away, even if it had mould on it. Even though Hussain and her husband Abdal Hussain have now moved down south from Leeds with their three children, it’s this same philosophy that is applied in her home and hopes viewers will benefit from after watching her BBC Two six-part cooking series Nadiya’s Cook Once, Eat Twice.
The author showed the nation how to make the most of the ingredients in your kitchen, create recipes that consider the cost-of-living crisis, and made the idea of eating something for the second time more appealing. “You’re supposed to follow whatever the use-by date says,” explains Hussain, who has also hosted the documentary The Chronicles of Nadiya and TV cookery series Nadiya’s British Food Adventure. “But I think people get really confused by the best before [date] because often people look at it and think they better get rid of it.
All that’s suggesting to you is that it’s not going to be at its best, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t use it. And so that is where I think there’s a lot of misunderstand.
