The books that shaped me: Meera Sodha
Welcome to 'The books that shaped me' - a Good Housekeeping series in which authors talk us through the reads that stand out for them. This week, we're hearing from Meera Sodha.
Meera is a cook and a food writer, renowned for her Asian-inspired, meat-free recipes. She writes the Guardian’s weekly ‘The New Vegan’ column, and is the author of three best-selling cookbooks including Made in India. Her latest is Dinner: 120 vegan and vegetarian recipes for the most important meal of the day.
What impact have books have had on you?
As a lover of words and stories, books have always given me joy. As a child growing up in a rural part of Lincolnshire, books opened doors to other peoples’ lives in other parts of the world and now, as a food writer and cook, books have been instrumental in helping me to learn about communities, dishes and techniques I wouldn’t otherwise know about.
The childhood book that’s stayed with me...
I loved Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree when I was a child. The story is about three children: Jo, Bessie and Frannie who discover a magical tree in a nearby wood and climb its branches to discover a new land everytime they climb it. I loved it because it was filled with adventure, excitement and fun. It gave me both a place to escape to and a love for using my imagination to dream up worlds. I still love dreaming and imagining thirty years on! And I like to think it's thanks to books like this one.
My favourite book of all time...
John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row. The book follows a few lead characters situated in and around ‘Cannery Row’ named after the sardine canneries in Monterey, California or else a place filled with ‘whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches’.
I’ve picked it as my ultimate book because the people and places between the pages are still as vivid as they were when I first read it decades ago. It was the first book I read where I really felt like I could step inside the pages, turn down a particular road and go and chat to any of the characters inside: Doc, Mack or Lee Chong, they are so well sketched out by Steinbeck. I enjoyed that the book was gritty and slow (as it’s set in The Great Depression) and that Steinbeck placed the characters in a predicament you could watch them try and get out of during the course of the book.
It felt so relatable to me. I grew up in and around Grimsby, Scunthorpe and Hull - great industrial towns in the North where there was a lot of unemployment and industry that had fallen by the wayside. It gave rise to derelict buildings and shady characters but also an indomitable spirit only common to places and people that found themselves in a situation through no fault of their own. It made me see people differently and gave me more understanding and empathy.
The book I wish I’d written...
When I started writing about cooking 10 years ago, most books extolled the virtues of restaurant cooking which, at that time, only really served to make the home cook feel bad about not aspiring to use micro lettuce or shape potatoes into cylinders. Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin, by comparison, felt so different. She writes about everyday things in the kitchen from the idiocy of having unnecessary equipment like salamanders and flan rings! Or how she first had her suspicions about an ex-boyfriend because his scrambled eggs resembled asbestos mats.
It is such a masterclass in writing because she has the ability to see what is interesting, joyful or wonderful (or even silly) about the ordinary. That’s what I love to read about, it’s also what I like to write about and - without wanting to sound too profound - it’s what’s at the heart of the human experience.
The book I wish everyone would read...
I’d like to consider myself a writer, but the truth is that I have to drag every word out like a dog taking its owner out for a walk. On Writing by Stephen King was one of the first books I read which helped to demystify the process of writing. It’s a semi-autobiographical, semi-pragmatic guidebook in which King explains how he got into writing in the first place and then details how to get the job done.
From memory, it’s about making sure you find the joy in writing, which is key to the stamina within any profession - and that you keep going, day-by-day, to habituate yourself into the practice of writing, like you might into a morning or bedtime routine. That’s all I recall, but I remember thinking, when I read it, that I’d really found the answer to what I was looking for. Perhaps not everyone needs to read it, but it’s a useful tool for aspiring writers (and we are all writers in one form or another).
The book that got me through a hard time...
Recently I read The Success Myth by Emma Gannon which she wrote following experiencing burn-out. I myself had a breakdown a few years ago, where, exactly like a car that was run too hard, I just eventually stopped being able to function properly. Emma’s book gently opens your eyes to myths we all might be holding on to tightly around big life themes like money, life, ambition and success. I found it soothing to hear about her experience and helpful to examine and check my own belief systems.
The book that uplifts me...
I’m currently rediscovering Roald Dahl’s children’s books by reading to my 7 year old. I forgot how fowl and disgusting Mr and Mrs Twit are to one another and how twisted and funny the book is. Although it’s dark and full of betrayal and greed, it’s also completely gleeful because he skirts that fine line between being hideous and hilarious.
Dinner: 120 vegan and vegetarian recipes for the most important meal of the day by Meera Sodha (Fig Tree) is out now
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