Cookbook to celebrate city’s ‘culinary greatness’

Home chefs have been invited to submit their recipes to be included in a recipe book celebrating Bradford’s rich culinary heritage.

The project, part of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, will create a cookbook called Meet our Mothers containing 50 recipes.

Artist Deepa Mann-Kler, who is leading the project, said it was a “celebration” of Bradford’s unique combination of cultures and flavours.

She said: “One of the things that brings human beings together is food and it’s common to cultures, class, races, communities.”

“It’s a collection and celebration of Bradford’s people, communities, and flavours across the district," she said.

Recipes can be submitted by anyone from a BD or LS29 postcode via the City of Culture website before 9 December.

They can be submitted in a written format or by video.

Mrs Mann-Kler said she was looking for “special stories and memories around food”.

She said: “If there is a specific food or a recipe that has been in the family for generations, that has been passed down, we all have those recipes and we want to hear them.

“The one that I go to in terms of my own reflection is a chicken curry recipe that my father taught me."

She said each time she prepared the dish she was back in a kitchen in Leicester with her father.

“It brings me joy and I relive that as I cook it, as I eat it, as I share it with my children and my husband and it’s being passed on to another generation.”

The book will be available to buy in late 2025.

Anyone under 18 will need permission from a parent or guardian to submit a recipe.

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