Her role as cook

Madhur Jaffrey has acted in films and on TV shows, has written books, and as a young woman away from home, learned to make the food of her native India.

Madhur Jaffrey was raised in Delhi and came to the United States to act. She earned one of her first awards for a role in the 1965 Merchant-Ivory film "Shakespeare Wallah." She's written more than a dozen books, including the memoir "Climbing the Mango Trees." She and her husband, Sanford Allen, a retired New York Philharmonic violinist, live in New York City and Hillsdale, N.Y., where they tend a large vegetable garden.

Q. You were 19 when you went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Was your family all for it?

A. They were, in the sense that my father always said that acting is my hobby. I was also the fifth child, so it was in a way an experiment for him. He was rather charmed that I would choose something so different.

Q. Is it true that young women away from home learned to cook from letters?

A. That was the case. I was away and suddenly became very homesick for Indian food. This was after the war and there wasn't much there. My mother sent very simple recipes without any measurements. Based on that, I started teaching myself how to cook. I would make one dish and then I would make it again and again until I really learned it. I did that for a whole year and taught myself. The first was a potato dish, something made in my family, potatoes with tomatoes and cumin.

Q. When did you start writing about food?

A. I wasn't getting enough acting work, [jobs were] few and far between. My first off-Broadway job was $10, so I had to do other things.

Q. What have you acted in lately?

A. The last film that opened was called "Phoebe in Wonderland," so I keep at it. I do "Law & Order" once in a while. They go on rerunning. And I've been with the latest cast.

Q. What do you eat when you go back home?

A. It depends on the season. If it's summer, the yearning is always for mango. There are no mangoes in the world that are like Indian mangoes. If I go in the winter, I often stay with my sister. There's wonderful jackfruit, the largest fruit in the world. We always ate it in its green form, cooked like a vegetable; it has a meaty taste. [I want] all the things you can't get here. The breads: I love the Indian breads.

Q. Any particular bread?

A. It's like a tortilla, only made out of whole wheat, done on a griddle, no leavening. You cook it on both sides so it puffs up. Our daily chapati, that's what I really miss.