Zohran Mamdani is wearing a suit and eating rice with his hands. Many South Asians in America grew up hearing parents tell us that at home, eat rice with your hands, but in public, always eat rice with a spoon because to do so any other way—especially in front of non-desis—is not “proper.”
Mamdani looks puzzled when I mention this. “I have to eat with my hands,” he says. “In Uganda we even eat salad with our hands.”
For the 33-year-old Ugandan-born New York State Assembly Member running to be New York City’s next mayor, this sums up his approach to politics: Be authentic or go home. He is running as a Democratic Socialist and advocates for free buses, freezing the rent, and affordable city-run grocery stores. He is neck and neck with Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary, which takes place June 24.
Mamdani was born in Kampala to the academic Mahmood Mamdani and filmmaker Mira Nair. After a brief stint living in South Africa, he and his family moved to New York City when he was seven. He attended Bowdoin College in Maine and got into politics soon after graduating.
Food has always been an organizing force of his life. He used to rap under the name “Mr. Cardamom” and convinced the 91-year-old Indian film icon and cookbook legend Madhur Jaffrey to star in his music video (and even drop F-bombs). When he campaigned for the New York State Assembly, his slogan was “Roti and Roses,” a play on the labor rights slogan “Bread and Roses.” In 2021, Mamdani engaged in a hunger strike to alleviate the loans that plague many New York City taxi drivers.
Hours before a major campaign rally in Brooklyn, Mamdani and I met at Boishakhi, a Bangladeshi restaurant in Astoria, the district he represents to talk about his connection to East Africa, an enthusiasm for potatoes in biryani, and why Yemeni Adeni chai might just be the Muslim Four Loko.
Bon Appétit: I want to begin in East Africa. Can you talk about your family’s history there?
Zohran Mamdani: The vast majority of Indians in Uganda are ones who came since the expulsion in 1972. There’s a very small group that were pre-1972 and my family was one of them. There are some who describe themselves as Indians in Uganda and others who describe themselves as Indian Ugandans. My father is an Indian Ugandan. That’s why I was born in Uganda. I’ve always been proud to be Ugandan, and I’ve always known that it’s a complex history. I think part of that history is embracing these different points of view and of charting a shared future.
BA: You rapped as Mr. Cardamom. Your campaign slogan was “Roti and Roses.” Why all the references to food?
Zohran: There is no life without food. “Roti and Roses” is a riff on “Bread and Roses” as a rallying cry for what workers deserve. Bread or roti signifies that which is necessary. Roses signifies that which is often pushed off but is frankly just as necessary in that same life. I think when I speak to New Yorkers about what you need to live a dignified life in this city, food is non-negotiable. Yet there are so many who are priced out of it, whether it’s when they’re buying their produce or whether it’s trying to find a place that they can sit down and eat with their family.
BA: One of your campaign platforms is affordable city-run grocery stores. How would that work?
Zohran: The inspiration comes from the twin crises of affordability and food deserts. When you speak to New Yorkers—whether they’re making $40,000 or $200,000—you hear about sticker shock they feel when they go into a grocery store to buy the same item that they used to be able to easily afford a few years ago.
I also represent Queensbridge Houses, the largest public housing development in all of North America. What I hear from so many of my constituents there is, “Why is it that there are five or six fast food restaurants in a five-block radius, but I can’t find anywhere where I can actually afford to buy groceries?” What this network of municipally owned grocery stores would provide is a guarantee of cheaper groceries and a recognition that food is a non-negotiable for New Yorkers.
BA: Tell me about your relationship to food.
Zohran: Well, I have long been a foodie. You know, despite having gone on hunger strike a few times, food really is, in many ways, how I see the world and see myself in the world. I think one of the things that I’ve also been so fascinated with over the course of my life is how food tells the story of the people. It tells the story of migration. It tells the story and the struggles and the joys. I think it’s also a beautiful reflection of this city and what this city is, what it can be.
BA: Can you talk about some of the food you grew up eating?
Zohran: I have very fond memories growing up eating kuku paka (an East African coconut-based chicken dish where the meat is char grilled before adding it to the coconut sauce). I think coconut especially is one of the most obvious examples of the creation of a new culture that is a mix of multiple. Also just think about chapati. Chapati in an Indian context is, I guess in a basic description, a bread that you use to eat other food. But chapati in Kampala is a street food that you eat on its own.
BA: Chapati as a meal?
Zohran: Exactly. It has so much more taste, and if you are really tight on money, you can have lunch with just two chapatis.
BA: Is that the famed Ugandan rolex?
Zohran: No, the ones that I’m speaking about are large. You know, a rolex without the eggs. Rolex is the next frontier. (laughs)
Chapati to me is also just like the quickest; you’re on the move, it’s sitting there, you just have a chapati, you have a rolex. I think even if you think about chai in Kampala in a non-Indian context is milk-based often, not water-based with some milk. What I love about these stories is they’re stories of diaspora, of migration, of influences that are not quite duplicates. In our politics right now, there’s such a desire to divide and to try and create “clean and clear borders.” Food makes that impossible because food is a story of the interaction of people at different junctures in their life and in their journeys.
BA: You studied in Maine. Had you been before?
Zohran: I had not been before, and it was really a lovely experience. I loved my professors. Speaking of food, I did enjoy the food in Brunswick, especially on campus. But yeah, I wasn’t used to (my ethnic identity) being my primary identity.
BA: Can you say any more?
Zohran: Growing up in New York City, you were not unique by virtue of being a person of color. Then in [Maine], it is all brought to the fore.
BA: Was that tough for you?
Zohran: I don’t think so. I used to be quite consumed by this sense of forever being a minority everywhere. If I’m in India, I’m Muslim. If I’m in New York City, I’m all of these things. Ultimately, though, my dad told me, and what has stayed with me, is that to be a minority means to see the truth of a place with all that comes with it.
BA: I’ve got to ask about Madhur Jaffrey. How did you pull that off that music video with her? And what inspired it?
Zohran: That song was inspired by my nani. My mother’s mother. She is this incredible woman who was a social worker for decades and created the Salaam Baalak Trust that has educated and housed thousands of children over a long period of time. She contains so much life within her. I just started thinking of what the most absurd version of a nani who is just finally done with the way in which she’s put in a box. Just flipping some of the generational dynamics, the gender dynamics, and embracing the fullness of who so many of our nanis are and have been.
BA: Over the past year or so, we have seen the watermelon used by pro-Palestine advocates. Can you talk about the connection between food and resistance?
Zohran: In a moment right now, when there’s an attempt to erase an entire people, the very assertion of that identity, that culture, is a rebuke to the notion that it doesn’t exist. And food tells some of that story.
BA: Can you talk about how your parents influenced you?
Zohran: One thing that my parents have taught me among many is the necessity of addressing what is actually happening as opposed to pretending that it’s not. In politics, there is such an incentive to create an alternative world as opposed to the one that people are living through. I think part of what has taken our campaign to this point has been the fact that we have espoused a politics of no translation, a politics that is direct, a politics that speaks to the crisis of affordability.
BA: I have a few hours. Where should I eat here in Queens?
Zohran: (laughs). That’s how I lose my election.
BA: C’mon. Just a few.
Zohran: Sure. So, we are here at Boishakhi which I love. It’s introduced me to Bangladeshi food like the aloo bhorta. We’re just a few blocks from Little Flower, which is great. An Afghan café. They have iced Kashmiri chai. I also love Greek food, and especially Greek seafood. I went to high school with a guy who runs a restaurant in Astoria called Elias Corner, named after his father. There’s another great place called Bahari Estiatorio, also for Greek food. The Egyptian food in Astoria is incredible. Oh, and AbuQir on Steinway for Egyptian seafood is great. There is also this Yemeni coffee spot down the street from me, which is so good, especially during Ramadan.
BA: I am addicted to Adeni chai.
Zohran: Adeni chai is Muslim Four Loko. (laughs)
BA: Muslim Four Loko?
Zohran: You research Four Loko. I don’t want to be on the record talking about Four Loko. (laughs)
BA: (laughs). Do you like to cook?
Zohran: I like to cook Indian dishes like pasta and salmon. (laughs)
BA: So, you make Indian pasta like adding turmeric and garam masala like that?
Zohran: No, I’m just Indian making those things, so it becomes Indian. (laughs)
BA: Do you even have time to cook these days?
Zohran: Not so much, but it is one of my favorite things—to cook with my wife. I love to make salmon and pasta and grilled vegetables.
BA: What about ghar ka khana (food from home)? What is the thing that you miss most from home?
Zohran: My mother is a great cook. She has quite a wide variety of things she can cook. But for me, the real ghar ka khana that I miss is the biryani that I grew up with from my childhood in Uganda.
BA: Potatoes in your biryani?
Zohran: Yes.
BA: (laughs) That’s how we know we are both Gujaratis from East Africa.
Zohran: (laughs) Yes. The other thing is chai. Going home to my parents and having chai in the morning. But these days, I make Mzungu chai. Mzungu in Ugandan and Swahili literally means white man. Mzungu is shorthand. We’ll use it in Kampala, like, quick (snaps fingers). You don’t have time. Mzungu chai, it’s a teabag, some cardamom.
BA: You wore a traditional kurta when you announced your run for mayor. If you become mayor, will you still wear kurtas at public events?
Zohran: (laughs) Of course. Look, we are in a different moment now. For example, Adeni chai is not something that is niche to a specific group of people. I have four different Yemeni coffee shops in my district. So much of what used to be considered marginal is now entering into the mainstream. That is true for culture. It is also true for food.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
