Nadiya Hussain, From “Great British Bake Off” To Elbows Out (Reheat)

When Nadiya Hussain competed on The Great British Bake Off in 2015, it seemed like all of Britain — from self-proclaimed #Nadiyators to the prime minister — was rooting for her. Since then, she’s hosted TV shows, written best-selling books, and become a household name in the UK.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

  There's nothing quite like Aruba. The white sand beaches are truly unlike anything you've seen. But what really stands out is the food. Because Aruba's not like other Caribbean islands. French pastries, Spanish paella, Peruvian barbecue, papardelle that has no business being that good that far from Florence. Not to mention the local fare. Aruba's food scene pulls you in with its astonishing variety of cuisines and beyond satisfies you with its unexpected flavors. So plan your escape to culinary delight at aruba.com. Your taste buds will thank you. As we turn to fall and the weather starts to cool down, I think of things like crunching leaves. I think of sharing from the sidelines of a soccer game, walking the dog in the woods. And when I think of doing all those things,

• 0:43Dan Pashman?

  I'm usually wearing something from LL Bean. Whether it's my puffer vest, my puffer coat, my scarf, whatever you're doing outside this year, you probably need something from LL Bean. Whether it's their boots, their Scotch plaid flannel, their rugged field coat or more. Grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider.

• 1:18Dan Pashman?

  Hey, everyone. Dan here, and we are kicking off Great British Bake Off Week here on The Sporkful. This week's reheat, I talk with Nadiya Hussain. She won British Bake Off in 2015, which launched her from being a stay-at-home mom in northern England to an international food star. In this conversation, you'll hear that whole story and also how Nadia has become an outspoken voice on issues of racism, sexism, Islamophobia and mental health. I really enjoyed our conversation. And if you're a Bake Off fan like I am, stay tuned because this Monday, all-new episode featuring my conversation with the one and only Paul Hollywood. Did I get a handshake? Tune in to find out. As always, if there's an episode you want us to reheat, drop me a line, tell me your name, where you're from, what episode you want to hear and why. You can reach me at [email protected].

• 2:03Dan Pashman?

  Thanks and enjoy.

• 2:06Dan Pashman?

  Your latest cookbook, Nadia Bakes, includes a recipe for this really old English dessert called syllabub. It dates back to the 1500s. It's just cream, sugar, and some kind of citrus. But it's not something you see that much of today. Why did you want to include it?

• 2:22Speaker 01

  I look for things I absolutely love, and syllabub is one of those. You know, it's a really simple, sweet, tart, delicious dessert. And then there's something magical that happens where the citrus, the lemon juice, hits the hot cream and the hot sugar, where it instantly starts to thicken, and there's a lot of sugar and there's a lot of cream. And I'm not about the kind of less is more. You know what? If you want something that you love, then you go for it and you enjoy it.

• 2:53Dan Pashman?

  This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. Six years ago, Nadiya Hussain was a 30-year-old stay-at-home mother of three, living in northern England. Today, she's an international cooking star, host of TV shows on the BBC and Netflix, and author of bestselling cookbooks. In the UK, everyone knows her simply as Nadia. Clearly, her world's very different now, and I'll talk with her all about how that happened. But I was most curious to hear not how her life has changed, but how she herself has changed. Nadia was born in Luton, one of six kids in a British Bangladeshi family. Her father was a chef who ran Indian restaurants.

• 3:36Dan Pashman?

  Her mother stayed home to raise the family. But while Nadia was surrounded by her parents' cooking, traditional Bangladeshi dishes are done on the stove top, like a lot of Indian cuisine. Today, Nadia is known for her baking, but when she was growing up, nobody ever used the oven.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  You have the stove top cooker, you have the grill on top, and then you have the oven underneath. And my mom would store all her frying pans in there. And I said, "Mom, you can't..." Like, when I went to school and I saw that my teacher had baked this cake, I said, "Mom, what's going on here? Because that's an oven, you bake with that." My mom was like, "I knew the whole time." I was like, "You've been lying to me all this time." It was like a massive lie. I was like, "Mom, you can't do that."

• 4:16Dan Pashman?

  Did you know this cupboard heats up?

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, this cupboard heats up, Mom. There's fire in here. And she was like, "What?"

• 4:25Dan Pashman?

  Nadia's first exposure to baking was watching Delia Smith on TV. Delia is like a British Ina Garten or Martha Stewart.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  For me, it was very aspirational, kind of like, it was kind of like she bakes. And for me, I was a world away from that.

• 4:38Dan Pashman?

  And I would imagine watching Delia was also a little aspirational in the sense of, you know, she's in this beautiful home in the countryside in a gigantic kitchen. You know, just like with a lot of American cooking shows, like you, you, you make assumptions about a person's lifestyle when you see that and you're like, oh, that looks like a pretty good life, hanging out in the countryside in this palatial estate, baking cakes.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Exactly. So yeah, for me, it wasn't, um, you know, I grew up, you know, in a terrorist home, we had a train station behind our house. So it was nothing on television that I looked at and thought, oh, well, this is exactly my life. And it, and it was nothing like it. So it was, um, it was one of those things that, um, felt completely, completely removed from, from what I was living.

• 5:20Dan Pashman?

  But you, you had also said in an interview, growing up in a house where women cooked, you attached a direct negativity to cooking.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  Yes, because I think for me, cooking was the only people that really cooked in our, my dad cooked, he was amazing. He, my dad's an amazing cook, but he only cooked because he fancied being in the kitchen. Whereas kind of for me, I always kind of grew up watching my nan slaving over the kitchen, my mom in the kitchen, and they were constantly cooking. And it didn't look fun. It didn't look like they were enjoying it. It looked like they were getting in there to cook for their family and it was in and out and that was it. And so my mom never encouraged us to be in the kitchens. You kind of never said, you've got to learn how to do this.

• 6:02Dan Pashman?

  And so you took home economics in, as a teenager. That was when you first started baking and you were, you were good at it. Your teacher suggested, oh, you should go to catering college. You're good at this. There were these signs that maybe this might be a path for you, but I gather that at that point in your life, you were very resistant.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:20Dan Pashman?

  Why?

• 6:21Speaker 01

  My dad grew up running restaurants. And so, you know, and, and that was often a job that lots of people did that, um, Often didn't have education. So when I said to my mom, I'd love to learn how to cook and let go to maybe go to um catering college or do some sort of kind of hospitality management. And my mom was like, absolutely no way. So yeah, uh, that was something my mom was completely dead against. Once my mom had said no, I kind of kind of parked that away and thought, no, actually, that's not for me. And then kind of steved myself in a different direction.

• 6:55Dan Pashman?

  And you wanted to go to university?

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Yes, so um I think I'm naturally quite academic. I love an exam. I love the idea that I learn something and someone tests me and says, let's see how much you've managed to absorb. I used to love exams in school. And I did really well at high school and then applied for university. But essentially, that was one of another one of those things that my mom just said, absolutely no way you're going to university. And that was like a massive hit for somebody like me who was desperate to uh be the first to go to university, who kind of really valued education, especially because coming from a country where education isn't free. Um, you know, it felt like such a waste to not go to university.

• 7:35Dan Pashman?

  Why? Why was she against it?

• 7:37Speaker 01

  I think for my mom, it was like asking her if I could go to space. That's how alien it was going to university because as an immigrant, you know, going to university was me asking to do something that nobody in our family had ever done before. Um, which is a shame for my mom because actually I'm doing things that might none of my family have ever done before now. Um, uh, from, you know, for for the last six years. So that scares the life out of her. She just says, don't tell me what you're doing. I don't want to know.

• 8:08Dan Pashman?

  I'm I'm curious to unpack that a little bit. I mean, I understand to a point like it's it's it's extremely foreign. It's not something that she grew up with or that she was familiar with or that other people were doing. But I guess I'm a little surprised to to hear you say that she still feels that way today with all your success. So why do you think that is?

• 8:26Speaker 01

  As an immigrant, I think a lot, they were, they had a lot of firsts and there were a lot of there were a lot of kind of doing new things that were unfamiliar. And I think I suppose from her experience as a mom uh raising six children in a country that didn't feel like hers, it it with a language that was foreign. I think for her, I think it scared her that it was my world and I was confident in it. And I think that's what that that's what made her really nervous. And I think Because I now do this job, which was completely foreign to me six years ago. I think she thinks, well, how you would, you you don't know anything about it. How will you manage? And and I kind of always say to her, well, that's kind of life, mum. Like, you don't always know what you're doing, but sometimes you have to learn.

• 9:06Dan Pashman?

  Although Nadia really wanted to go to university, her mother just wouldn't allow it. This led to tension with her parents. She decided she wanted to leave home. As she writes in her memoir, it was the only way I could be me. Even though I didn't know who I was, I wanted to learn. But I wasn't allowed to do that alone. I had to have a guardian. A husband could be my way out. So she and her family started the process of an arranged marriage. Nadia talked and texted with her future husband, Abdallah, for six months. She says in that time, he became her confidant. She was able to tell him things that she hadn't told anyone. She told her parents she wanted to marry him. The first time they met in person was on the day they were engaged. The next time they met in person was on their wedding day, when Nadia was twenty.

• 9:50Dan Pashman?

  She says a lot of people weren't convinced it was a good match.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  Within our community, there is a colorism that exists uh that lots of people don't talk about, you know, that's within our own ethnic group. There is colorism, just like lots of ethnic, lots of minority groups out there. Um if you have darker skin, it's kind of like it's um it's seen as a as a negative thing. So um I remember kind of growing up, being told constantly, you know, you've got dark skin, I don't know how I'm gonna get you married. And and and I think that really put me off marriage to begin with. I was like, well, they've kind of already written me off. But then my husband and I, when we got married, when we kind of got to know each other over six months, the stark difference between the two of us was that I was this little, short, uh dark girl,

• 10:35Speaker 01

  and he was this, you know, tall, Italian-looking, fair guy with gorgeous dark hair. And and they were like, that's not gonna, how's that gonna work? And and it was so based on our looks that it was ridiculous. And my husband and I are kind of definitely, almost feels like we're cut from the same cloth. We're quite stubborn. And we're like, oh, you know what? Let's prove all of them wrong, shall we? And that's what we did for sixteen years. Our marriage has been based on proving people wrong.

• 11:07Dan Pashman?

  Nadia spent most of her twenties having and raising her three kids, cooking and taking care of the household. But she never gave up on her dream of getting that university degree.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  I started my degree when I became pregnant with my third child. And I studied the first year. It was really hard. And I was like, oh, my goodness, morning sickness. And studying while then putting the kids to bed was was a lot of work. When I was in labor with my little girl, I was revising for my exam, which was 10 days away.

• 11:37Dan Pashman?

  You're studying while in labor?

• 11:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was like, I can do this. You know what? Give me all the drugs. Give me all of the drugs.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  And I did. I had all the drugs. And I then I did my revision and then I had a child. But both of us were then both on drugs. It was like, whoa. It was amazing. 10 days later, there I was in my exam room doing my exam.

• 12:04Dan Pashman?

  While she was working toward her degree in social work, Nadia also got more and more into baking. She discovered that she really loved baking cakes. And her husband, he loved eating them. And in the evenings, after the kids were asleep, they'd sit together and watch cooking shows, especially the Great British Bake Off. And one night, sitting on the couch, Nadia's husband says to her.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think you could do that. And I was like, no, I don't think I can. The weirdest thing was, he was, he'd been saying it for years. And I didn't actually, you know, when you just don't listen, right? Yeah, yeah. So like selective. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I only listen to the bits that matter. And everything else, forget that, forget that. And it was four days before the deadline. And he, it was an online application. And he filled out this online application. And he said, I think you should, I've done the boring bits. And if you could just do the kind of actual bits that require you to know about baking, could you do those bits? And I said, no way, not going to do it. And I said, I'm only doing this to humor you. Um. And he said, yeah, well, humor me then. Go on, go on, do it. And so I did it.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  And I mean, at the time, the only reason he actually applied was because, you know, I had, I was suffering with anxiety in a, in a, in a, in, in the worst way that I'd suffered with it for a really long time. And he just said, I think you need to just do something for you. I think you need to just step out of the box and just not put me and the kids first. I think you need to do something for yourself.

• 13:25Dan Pashman?

  For people, I mean, they shoot Bake Off in this sort of, looks like a huge English castle in the countryside. The whole thing's in a tent in the garden or whatever. Like, you, you get there, you're all by yourself. How are you feeling?

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Um, well, it, um, it was one of the most daunting things that I've ever done. There I was completely on my own. And, you know, now in hindsight, as I've gained, and also as I've gained my confidence, I should have slept. I had no children with me. I should have enjoyed the sleep and I didn't, and I didn't, um, because I was too nervous to sleep. But, um, it was the first time I'd done anything on my own. And although I was nervous, I found comfort in doing something that I enjoyed and I could comfortably kind of engross myself in doing that.

• 14:05Dan Pashman?

  I know you, you talked in your autobiography and in a lot of interviews, you've been open about your struggles with panic disorder. Now, I'm, I'm not a professional, so what do I know? Um, but as an ignorant layman, I would think that subjecting yourself to something as intense and stressful as a cooking competition television show might be the opposite of what I would expect you'd want to do.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  It's ridiculous, isn't it? Nobody says, oh, well, you know, you're not great at the moment. Your mental health is suffering. Why don't we just stick you on the biggest baking show in the country, if not the entire world? Really, when you say it out loud, it's in, it is absurd. And it had a massive toll on my mental health. I'm not going to say that it was a walk in the park that I just kind of breezed through it. I absolutely didn't. I had more panic attacks during Bake Off than I've ever had in my life. Um. It was one of the most emotionally, mentally hardest, physically hardest things that I've ever had to do. And I suppose I kind of imagined in my head that I may make it through to week two. I was optimistic in thinking that I'd get to week four. And to then get to week 10, to get to the final

• 15:13Speaker 01

  was completely like, it was a shock even for me. I was like, this is not like, it was ridiculous because I kept calling it week 10. And my husband kept saying, it's the final. There, if there's no week 11, it's the final. You realize that. And I was like, yes, but I don't want to call it the final because. It just feels too final, you know, like I don't want to talk about that. I just want to call it week 10. And he kept saying, there's no week in a month. And I'm like, no.

• 15:40Dan Pashman?

  Coming up in the Bake Off finals, Nadia bakes a cake that embraces her own identity and challenges what it means to be British. Then her life really changes. Stick around.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  Time to cook up some advertisements.

• 16:03Dan Pashman?

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• 16:48Dan Pashman?

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• 17:31Dan Pashman?

  So plan your escape to culinary delight at aruba.com. Your taste buds will thank you. As we turn to fall and the weather starts to cool down, I think of things like crunching leaves. I think of sharing from the sidelines of a soccer game, walking the dog in the woods. And when I think of doing all those things, I'm usually wearing something from LL Bean. Whether it's my puffer vest, my puffer coat, my scarf, whatever you're doing outside this year, you probably need something from LL Bean. Whether it's their boots, their Scotch plaid flannel, their rugged field coat, or more. Grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider. Start the day strong with Quaker protein products. Quaker makes it easy and delicious

• 18:16Dan Pashman?

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• 18:58Dan Pashman?

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• 19:27Speaker 02

  Bakers, welcome to your final challenge. No matter what happens today.

• 19:32Dan Pashman?

  So you make it all the way to week 10, the final.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. Now, what we would love you to make today is a classic British cake.

• 19:42Dan Pashman?

  And you make a wedding cake?

• 19:44Speaker 02

  Yes. On your marks, and get set. Bake!

• 19:49Dan Pashman?

  That you wrap in a red, white and blue sari. So it's a sari, but it's also the colors of the Union Jack.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:58Dan Pashman?

  That choice in itself feels like a statement.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when I think back to that, yeah, I put a lot of thought into what really made that cake special for me. That was quite important for me to do something that meant something to me. Uh, because when I got married, we didn't have like a proper tiered wedding cake. We didn't have, uh, we didn't have all the bells and whistles at our wedding and I wanted this cake to represent everything about me, you know, I wanted to represent some of the layers that make me who I am. You know, when else am I going to make a wedding cake for myself? And it was, you know, to do a sari, that's a traditional Bangladeshi dress for us. Um, and then to do that in red, white and blue to represent the British part of me. So that was really important. It was really thought out. It was something that was really important.

• 20:48Dan Pashman?

  Right. I, I can see how it would be representative of you. It also feels, I guess to me, and maybe this isn't what was intended, but it felt like something of a statement because it felt like British Bake Off is so British. They literally have Union Jack flags hanging around the tent and so many of the challenges are these very traditional bakes that have been around for many hundreds of years. And for you to, to do something in the colors of the British flag also felt to me like sort of like laying claim, like this is my country too.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I suppose growing up, um, straddling between the two worlds, being British, being Bangladeshi, you know, going to mainstream school, but coming home to an immigrant household. I never felt fully Bangladeshi, but equally I never felt fully British and.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Those two parts of me, I think, within both communities, there's a constant need to prove yourself. How Bangladeshi are you really? How British are you really? And to be able to do something that combined both of those things was, for me, pretty special. And it felt like a statement at the time because it was like, actually, I can do all, I can do both of these things. I'm quite comfortable to say, actually, there's a gray area somewhere in between all of these worlds where those of us who don't really fit in anywhere, we get to fit in that world. And that's being able to take the best bits of both worlds and mixing them and making them one.

• 22:24Dan Pashman?

  Despite Nadia feeling like she didn't completely fit into British culture, she was quickly becoming a fan favorite on the show. Her baking was outstanding, but also her personality shone through. She just seemed very honest. She didn't try to hide how nervous she was. After a judge would take a bite at one of her cakes and pause before delivering a verdict, the camera would often cut to Nadia, whose eyes looked like they might pop right out of her head with anticipation. BuzzFeed even made a list of her best facial expressions. After a particularly intense challenge, she said, "I'd sooner have another baby." By the show's finale, it seemed like the whole country was rooting for her. Her growing legion of fans named themselves Nadia-ers. David Cameron, the prime minister at the time, said he hoped she'd win. The Telegraph, a conservative daily paper, wrote,

• 23:08Dan Pashman?

  "Never before has a Muslim woman wearing a hijab been so clutched to the nation's bosom." Fourteen and a half million people tuned into the finale. It was the most watched program of the year in Britain.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  Of course, there can only be one single winner. And so, with real pleasure, the winner is Nadia.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  I'm never ever gonna put boundaries on myself ever again. I'm never gonna say, "I can't do it." I'm never gonna say, "Maybe." I'm never gonna say, "I don't think I can." I can, and I will.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  You know, at the end, I remember, and everyone always says to me, "Did you make that speech up? Did you write it?" And I said, "Absolutely no way." Those were the words that came from me, from the deepest, darkest parts of me. And they were almost desperate to come out. And, and those were the words that came out.

• 24:14Dan Pashman?

  In the six years since then, Nadia has gone on to host eight TV shows and published 12 books. And it's not just all cooking. She wrote a memoir on which she talked openly about being bullied in school because of her darker skin and being the target of sexual abuse by a friend of her uncle's when she was just five. She wrote three novels about Muslim sisters living in England and a children's book about dealing with anxiety.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  My mum always says to me, are you done yet? And I said, am I done with what, mum? And she just assumes that I'm on this jolly, that I'm just out having a great time, which I am, most of the time, having a great time, but I get to call it my work. And she's like, are you gonna go home to the kids yet? I'm like, mum, I'm still doing all of that. So for her, the two cannot coexist. You can't be a good wife and a good mum and have a career or a job. So for her, she's waiting for the day I get to go home and be with my kids. And they're teenagers. They don't care where I am. They want me at home as little as possible.

• 25:11Dan Pashman?

  And I gather that nowadays at home, another difference from the way that you grew up, sometimes your husband is the one who serves you tea.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Yes, you know, that's not something that was natural growing up. Like, my dad didn't make tea for my mum. You know, my uncles didn't make tea for their wives. It was very much the other way around. But we, you know, we don't have specific gender roles in our house. I haven't ironed for four years. You know, as much as I can cook, I can change a tire. So we have no gender specific roles in our house. We, and that's what I love about it. I love that we are making those changes in our homes. Because, you know, we both, both my husband and I grew up in homes where there were gender specific roles and men didn't change in our peas or make tea or look after their wives. Whereas, we, this is our home, and everybody mucks in, and everybody gets stuff done. And ultimately, that's, that's how we keep our home running.

• 26:05Dan Pashman?

  Does your husband serve tea to your mom?

• 26:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:08Dan Pashman?

  How does she feel about that?

• 26:10Speaker 01

  Hates it. She absolutely hates it. So as he says, oh, I'll go make a cup of tea, she's literally kicking me under the table, saying, get up, get up, get up. And then I was like, no, mum, just let him make tea. He makes tea for his parents. He makes tea for anyone who'll come around. He'll make tea for my sisters. Get up. And I'm like, nope, nope, I'm gonna make you as uncomfortable as physically possible, mum.

• 26:37Dan Pashman?

  As we said, Nadia's father was a chef. He cooked in Indian restaurants when Nadia was growing up. And she would ask him sometimes why his dishes were nothing like the food they ate at home. He told Nadia that he cooked for Westerners and they weren't ready for her mom's korma. These days, when Nadia develops her own recipes for her cookbooks, she says she also feels that same pressure to appeal to the Western palate. But she resists it.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  I test all my recipes at home and then they get sent off to a tester. And the tester will always come back and say, that's too much salt. That's too much chili. I'm like, no, no, no. That's exactly, that's fine as it is. Thank you very much. Everyone knows what chilies taste like. It's up to them how they use it. And that's the whole point. You know, having learned from like my dad, who refused completely. He was like, no, we cook what is known as the Western version of Indian food. I don't think that English people are ready to eat our version of food, my dad would say. And, and I was always like, Dad, I reckon you're, you're not, you're, we're on to something here. People need to taste mom's cooking, like she should be running the kitchen. He was like, absolutely no way.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  And so I take pride in writing some of the recipes that I grew up with and putting them into my cookbooks.

• 27:52Dan Pashman?

  Nadia tries to create recipes that are authentic to her experience. Sometimes that means dishes she grew up eating at home. Other times it means dishes that exist in the same gray area between cultures that she does, like a mango and coconut yogurt cake topped with German buttercream, or a saag paneer spanakopada, or a blueberry cake that uses the Bengali spiced flour dough shini.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  When I showed my dad, Dad, look, I did, in my very first cookbook, I did the korma. And my dad looked and he said, and they let you do it? And I said, yes, Dad, and they let me do it. And he said, wow, that's really cool.

• 28:26Dan Pashman?

  How, how did that feel in that moment where your dad had that reaction?

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Oh, it's amazing because me and my dad have this love hate relationship where we're always kind of one upping on each other like constant. It's like, oh, I beat you to that. So we're quite competitive. So when I did that and he goes, I remember doing it. And I said to my dad, Dad, look, remember you said you would never do this korma? And I've just put it in my book. And he said, yeah, like 15 years late. And I was like,

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Dad, so yeah, so he, whenever I do something, he'll always find a way of kind of just taking it away from me.

• 29:00Dan Pashman?

  Another thing you'll see in Nadia's cookbooks, her hands. Last year, she posted a photo of them on Instagram, and she wrote that years ago, she applied for a job as a hand model and was told, "Black hands don't sell jewelry." She went on to write in the post, "I've since worked with Swarovski with these very hands and worn their jewelry with pride." In the second photo in that Instagram post, she got her middle fingers raised to the camera. In the first couple of years after winning Bake Off, Nadia wasn't speaking out about issues of racism and sexism in the world of food media. I wanted to know what changed for her.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  If you'd asked me six years ago, "Come on, let's talk about this and let's talk about that," I would have said to you, "Absolutely no way. We're just talking about cooking and baking. This is my world and this is what I want to do." And now, I think, six years later, I kind of understand the responsibility of talking about being a British, first-generation Bangladeshi Muslim woman, working in an industry that never really had space for me. And I think that's really important to talk about that and how hard it is to find the space in the world of publication, media, television. Because I know I've spent my whole life trying to fit in. You know, I've spent my entire life trying to be the, to walk into a room and not feel like everybody's looking at me, to walk into a room and feel like I can just walk in

• 30:17Speaker 01

  without it being really obvious that I am completely different to everybody else.

• 30:23Dan Pashman?

  And I know you talk about entering a room, creating space. You have a mantra for yourself that you also teach your kids, "Elbows out." What is elbows out?

• 30:31Speaker 01

  That is, that is something that I tell my kids every day. I even shout it, like, when they're having a really bad day and they're walking out to go to school, I kind of, I shout from the side door. I'm like, "Elbows out, guys!" Oh my gosh, this year's again. Yeah, they kind of hate it and but they get it. That's something that I when I'm having a day when I feel like I'm not fitting in and I'm struggling and I don't know where I belong. That's what I tell myself. I remind myself, elbows out, and that's something I'm trying to teach my kids because it's important to make space for yourself in order to create space for other people. And my hope is that in being in the public eye, in being in publication, being in media, being on mainstream television,

• 31:14Speaker 01

  people like me who come from backgrounds like me, women, first generation, British, American, anyone, you know, like who can look at me and say, actually, if she can do it, then I can do it. And I've got to say, you know, it's not always fun constantly being strong. Sometimes I want to, I don't want to be strong all the time. I want to be able to just be amazing at my craft. But it is so important to constantly keep inspiring people and showing them that they are able to do exactly what I'm doing.

• 31:44Dan Pashman?

  These days, the path of winning a cooking competition show and using that as a springboard for a career in food has been pretty well established. But I feel like even with that, your case stands out to me. Like, since winning Bake Off in 2015, you've hosted eight TV shows, published 12 books. In Britain, you're at first name status. You just say Nadia, people know who you're talking about. A few years ago, you were a stay at home mom in the north of England, which for our American listeners, it's kind of like the Rust Belt of England. And today, you're not only an international star in food and cooking, but you're also a leading voice on these issues of racism, sexism, mental health.

• 32:25Dan Pashman?

  I'm curious to ask you, did you always know you had it in you?

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Oh, I remember once being, oh my, that's a really good question. It's actually got me thinking. It stopped me. You know how much I love to talk. It's actually stopped me in my tracks. There was a time, my dad said, I remember saying to my dad when I was, I think, maybe seven or eight. And I said to my dad, I'm going to be famous one day. And he said, no, you're not. And I remember being a teenager and saying to my dad, do you think I can do a job that makes a difference? And my dad said, no, you need to do a job to pay your mortgage. So for me to be able to Do something that's important to me, to have a cause, to have a reason to do the job that I do is a luxury for me.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  And so I now get to do a job that not only um provides for me financially, but also I get to, I also get to talk about things like racism, sexism, uh, mental health. I get to talk about the things that are really important to me.

• 33:32Dan Pashman?

  You know, in terms of the question of did you always know that you had it in you? I, I would think that there's also just a tremendous internal drive and ambition that is required to, it's not even the win, winning Bake Off, it's everything that happened after. I feel like that was this, like, like a switch was flipped at that moment, that, that suddenly opened up something that perhaps had been there all along, a level of drive and ambition, a, an almost like a ferocity, to go out and host eight TV shows, 12 books, and to, to accomplish so much in such a short span of time, to undergo, the word I, I, that first pops into my head is to undergo a transformation, but then I'm not sure, was it a transformation

• 34:14Dan Pashman?

  or was it just that, that something that was inside all along was finally let out?

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Um, it's probably the latter. I think it feels like there's somebody, there was, there was this kind of, like you said, that ferocity, that kind of n- need to succeed. There was a moment for me when I won Bake Off, that it kind of unlocked something in me that I didn't know was there. Uh, there was a voice deep down inside that was desperate to come out and it always, it's always been there, but I think I grew up believing that I had one role and one role only, and that was to be, you know, be a good wife and be a good mom. And it turns out I can be a good wife and a good mom and be completely fierce and take over the world at the same time.

• 35:12Dan Pashman?

  That's Nadiya Hussain. Her latest book, Nadia Bakes, is on sale here in the US on July 27th. You can preorder it right now. This show is produced by me along with senior producer Emma Morgenstern. And producer Andres O'Hara. Our editor is

• 35:26Speaker 01

  Tracy Samuelson.

• 35:27Dan Pashman?

  The show is mixed by Jared O'Connell. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher. Our executive producers are Peter Clowney and Daisy Rosario. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 35:38Speaker 03

  And I'm Pete Pond in Bloomington, Normal, Illinois, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

• 35:59Dan Pashman?

  This reheat was produced by Gianna Palmer. The team that produces The Sporkful today includes me along with managing producer Emma Morgenstern. And senior producer Andres O'Hara. Our engineer is Jared O'Connell. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of SiriusXM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to

• 36:41Dan Pashman?

  siriusxm.com/sporkful. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 36:52Speaker 04

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