How to Eat with Your Hands
Roti Shoti and Other Ways to Settle In
roti shoti n.
- Bread etc.
- A meal centred on roti; ordinary food eaten routinely, comprising one or more accompaniments
- Food in general; habitual nourishment; the everyday conditions of domestic cooking
Cf. formed by rhyming reduplication, a common feature of colloquial South Asian speech, used to generalise or soften reference
With recipes from around the world at our fingertips, have we lost some of the heart that once shaped our everyday cooking?
How to Eat with Your Hands invites readers to rediscover the joy of building a personal, everyday cuisine — one rooted not in perfection, but in memory, resourcefulness, and tradition. Drawing on the Punjabi dishes that have sustained his family across generations, Khalil Akhtar weaves together recipes, practical kitchen wisdom, and personal stories to explore the enduring connections between food, culture, and home.
A familiar voice to CBC audiences for more than twenty years, Khalil has shared his passion for food as the creator and host of The Main Ingredient, through his nationally syndicated food column, and in cooking classes that celebrate the pleasures of home cooking.
More than a cookbook or a collection of essays, How to Eat with Your Hands is a thoughtful reflection on the meals that shape us in which he encourages readers to discover the knowledge that may already be present in their own kitchens.
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This is as beautiful, lyrical, insightful, and above all else delicious a cookbook as you’ll ever find. How to Eat with Your Hands puts Akhtar among the absolute greats. — Chris Nuttall-Smith, author of Cook It Wild
In How to Eat with Your Hands, the kitchen is more than a place to prep meals — it is a sanctuary of ‘dying light’ and ‘pillowy forts,’ where a messy stovetop becomes a sign of a life well-lived. Khalil Akhtar explores ‘the inheritance’ of the kitchen through the daily rhythms of peeling potatoes, rolling rotis, and tending simmering pots. Drawing on stories of ancestral wisdom that travel across countries and time, he offers a guide — rendered in rich, evocative prose — to finding rhythm in the kitchen. — Nik Sharma, author of The Fundamentals of Flavor: 100 Recipes for the Science of Better Cooking
Whether you’re preparing thirty-plus ingredient haleem, chopping green mangoes right through their pits for achar, or mixing flour and water for humble daily rotis, Akhtar’s is the voice you want with you in the kitchen. Capable, thoughtful, passionate. This is food writing at its best. — Bonny Reichert, author of How to Share an Egg
Khalil Akhtar is a Canadian journalist, broadcaster, and cooking instructor. Akhtar was born in the United Kingdom to a Punjabi family and grew up in small-town Atlantic Canada. He has spent two decades working in radio newsrooms across the country. He is the host of CBC Radio's Information Morning in Moncton, New Brunswick, and a past co-host of CBC On the Island. He created and hosted the CBC summer radio program, The Main Ingredient, and developed a long-running syndicated food column that aired on CBC morning shows across the country. How to Eat with Your Hands is his first book.
