Not Your Butter Chicken celebrates vibrant South Asian stories

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Indian food is much more than butter chicken.

Underscoring that point — while also exploring and celebrating the impact of South Asian communities on food and wine throughout Western Canada — is the effort of the new docu-series, Not Your Butter Chicken.

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“We have so much history. We are so rich. We also have so much different food,” host Shiva Reddy says. “It’s not just butter chicken.”

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The Vancouver-born-and-based food and wine expert — Reddy is sommelier at Michelin-star restaurant Burdock & Co. as well as a food writer for the CBC — takes viewers on a tour of four cities in search of the South Asian stories so integral to the region’s history.

The four-part Telus Original docu-series from award-winning filmmakers Priyanka Desai and Joanna Wong premiered May 1 for Asian Heritage Month on TELUS Optik TV and online at watch.telusoriginals.com.

Episodes see Reddy visit Kamloops and Kelowna in B.C., and Fort McMurray and Lethbridge in Alberta. At each stop, Reddy meets with community leaders such as reporter Meera Bains, hockey player Dampy Brar, Punjabi-Cree artist Madeson Singh, Chef Aman Dosanj and the team at the family run Kalala Organic Winery.

For Reddy, creating the show was as much about informing viewers as it was about further exploring the cultural influences on food and wine for herself.

“Having to grow up in spaces that are very homogenous, eventually, over time, you’re constantly assimilating without even realizing,” Reddy says. “Everything within our world of food and wine, especially wine, is very much so looking at the world through a Eurocentric lens.

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“Getting older and realizing how powerful it is to have what we have, which is this beautiful culture, and connection to our past or our families, through food.”

Throughout her travels for the show, Reddy relished the diversity she discovered among the stories.

“It’s so rich and so full of culture. You can be living an hour away from me, or from where my family’s from, and the way we speak and the way we cook is so wildly different,” Reddy says. “I think the biggest thing that I learned, especially going to places like Kamloops, was how long South Asians have been here for. And how much history we have. And all the things that have happened because of South Asians — like building a railroad, the sawmills, being in the logging industry, being farmers — you just don’t get to see these stories.”

As a young South Asian woman working in the wine world, Reddy recalls facing adversity — and having to find her own path to the prestigious sommelier position she holds today.

“It was just like, ‘This sucks. And this can’t go on,’ ” Reddy recalls of her experience. ” ‘And it’s going to be messy, but somebody’s got to do it.’ I wish somebody did this for me, but they didn’t have the opportunity to even be in the world. And if I can be in this world, I may as well give back and do that.”

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After a decade in the industry, Reddy says she’s finally seeing other young South Asian women coming up in wine.

“Recently someone said, ‘I saw you, and I didn’t even think that this was a job!’ And I was like, ‘That’s so freakin’ cool,’ ” Reddy, who also broke boundaries as a competitive hockey player, says.

The show also turns its lens on Reddy as she opens up about her personal experiences, with the rawest of moments coming through those related to her mom, Latchmi.

Immigrating to Vancouver from Fiji, where Reddy says she was among the first female police officers in the country, Latchmi moved to Canada in order to marry Reddy’s father. Tragedy struck the family when he died at a young age, leaving Reddy’s mom struggling to make ends meet while still finding a sense of community in her new home.

“She didn’t really know anybody here and didn’t really have a community herself. Eventually, she was in a car accident and just lost all of her mobility in one leg and she couldn’t work anymore. So, I had to start working,” Reddy recalls. “I was playing hockey very competitively at the time, so I kind of had to split my time between school, hockey and work.”

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Finding a job in the restaurant industry, Reddy worked her way up, eventually falling in love with wine. Today, Reddy continues to care for her mother, who has dementia.

In dealing with the disease, Reddy has worked to help keep her mom connected to her history through recipes, while also working to record the ones that weren’t written down. 

“With my mom, she never wrote down recipes and I feel like that’s like a very classic Indian mom thing to do. And so, with that, it’s just always going by taste,” Reddy says. “Thank God from being in the wine world because you are always going by taste and always going by memory. So, weirdly enough, the two are so connected.”

Reddy says, despite the disease, her mom continues to impress upon her the importance of ‘sewa’ or being in the service of others.

“It’s a really beautiful South Asian concept,” Reddy says. “It’s the idea that, no matter what you have, you’re constantly giving back.”

That guiding principle is a continuous thread throughout Not Your Butter Chicken, Reddy says. And one that ultimately helped her to decide to get so personal with viewers on the show.

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“There’s always this idea in Asian culture, especially South Asian culture and especially for girls, that you’re always having to behave in a way that’s proper and appropriate. And you don’t give much of your heart. You have to give everything you have, but you can’t actually share. And that was so hard,” Reddy says. “Over time, I would see how much that practice would really hurt people. You wouldn’t be able to really be you.”

Reddy hopes that, by opening up about her mom’s struggles with dementia — and her role as a primary caretaker — that she’s able to help others who might be living in a similar situation.

“People should share those stories,” Reddy says. “It would suck if I knew that somebody who was close to me was also having that experience and I couldn’t be there for them.”

With the first season of Not Your Butter Chicken out in the world, Reddy is more than open to the idea of a second (or even third) season.

“Honestly, there’s always space on the plate for things that you love,” Reddy says. “It just adds more flavour. So, that would be the dream. I really would love that.”

Aharris@postmedia.com

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