‘Never go to battle hungry’: Australian chefs on their mother’s best advice in the kitchen – and beyond

‘In her everyday life she’s quite impatient, but when she’s in the kitchen she relishes the process’: former Raja head chef Ahana Dutt (left) with her mother Sharmila Basu Thakur in 2023 Photograph: Supplied

From our first breath we all look to our mothers for sustenance, so it makes sense that the bonds formed between mothers and their children around food run deep. But even from those earliest days, there’s more to it than just filling our bellies.

Nourishment might be the first language we understand, but as we grow up, a mother’s stove-side manner and approach to cooking often begins to articulate more complex ideas and advice, inevitably influencing far more than what we cook for dinner.