Samin Nosrat, Creator of Netflix Series, Visits UWM Lecture Series

Samin Nosrat, chef, author and creator of Netflix series Salt Fat Acid Heat, originally came to UWM’s campus to talk about her cookbook and show, but the conversation took a turn when she expressed her hardships as a woman of color in a white-male dominated industry. 

Nosrat’s career began while studying English at the University of California Berkeley. Nosrat said she had always loved writing, journalism and poetry, but her interests changed once she stepped into the restaurant industry. 

She started as a humble dish washer at restaurant Chez Panisse. After working her way up to a chef, she soon left Chez Panisse to become sous chef at Eccolo at a young age. 

“So, here I was, this young brown girl in charge of mostly older white men,” said Nosrat.

Nosrat said it was a horrifying experience, but she grew a lot from it. She said although the restaurant wasn’t hers, she took home all the stress from it. Eventually Eccolo closed and it became a bittersweet moment.

Invited by UWM’s Student Involvement and Restaurant Operations, Nosrat recalled how difficult working in a restaurant was for her. She spoke about washing dishes, taking out the trash and how she applauds students that are still involved in the restaurant industry. 

Nosrat said she gained a temper from there as she became frustrated with the staff often. She then realized that her temper needed to change because she knew she represented not only her, but all minority women in the industry. 

“I’m a brown woman and if I act poorly, that affects a lot more than just me,” Nosrat said. “My job is to be there. I am the conduit for others to tell their stories, mostly women and non-professionals.”

Nosrat also spoke about her favorite foods to teach and that she even had a chance to teach Associate Professor Michael Pollan from Berkeley, how to cook. 

Although the audience roared and laughed at Nosrat’s jokes about how she loves crusty bread and that she lives off peanut butter toast, she unexpectedly shifted the conversation to a more serious note. 

Nosrat recalled when asked as the only woman of color, to sit on a panel of fully white women chefs, she was prepared to say no if organizers didn’t diversify the panel further. 

“I no longer wanted to be the token brown girl, the diversity candidate on cooking panels,” said Nosrat. 

Nosrat said instead of trying to diversify the panel, organizers tried to move her to an all ethnic-chef panel. Again, she refused because she doesn’t believe that’s how diversity should work. 

Nosarat said she gave organizers a list of minority cooks and even minority moderators to diversify the panel. Once organizers understood how passionate she was, they gave in and added other minority chefs. 

Carmela Montenegro, a senior at UWM, attended the lecture series because of pure interest. She says she loves cooking and watching cooking shows, and with her Filipino background Nosrat is an inspiring woman to her because she highlights different cultures and their food. 

“It was really cool how insisted diversity on the cooking panel she talked about. The fact that she gave them step-by-step instructions on how to be inclusive, really shows she cares,” Montenegro said. 

Montenegro also says she appreciated Nosrat’s willingness to learn and cook other cultures’ food. Some minority chefs stay within their ethnic background and hardly venture from it, but Nosrat embraces all cultures.

“White people can cook Japanese, Filipino, and Chinese food, but when a minority cooks step outside of their ethnic group it’s taboo. I’m glad Samin is breaking barriers,” said Montenegro. 

Nosrat also spoke out about her series on Netflix, Salt Fat Acid Heat, has fallen to Netflix’s racist ideology. Although Netflix didn’t change any culturally aspects of the episodes, Nosrat says they changed the order in which the episodes should be watched. 

If you were to look up the show on Netflix now, you’d see that the episodes are listed as Fat Salt Acid Heat, instead of the way Nosrat arranged them in the title. The Salt episode, about Japanese culture, and the Fat episode, about Italian culture, are switched. 

Nosrat said that it’s important to watch the shows in order, however the Netflix staff says that it would be less attractive to show Japanese culture as the first episode. She had no further explanation for the switch other than “racism.”

At the end of the lecture, Nosrat left the audience with advice she says she lives by and is very important in today’s society. 

“I have a lawyer now. And he is a black man. And I picked him,” Nosrat said. 

Being an advocate for diversity, Nosrat urged the audience to do the same. She said that people in power need to step up and make their businesses more inclusive.  She said, “there will always by jobs for white men,” so you have to hire the underdogs first.  

“The very first person, the first hire, the first interviewee, should be someone that doesn’t look like everyone else,” said Nosrat. “If the first person is a non-white guy that sets the tone. And then diversity isn’t just an afterthought.”