TRANSCRIPT
Standing in front of a stove, Joshua Jamil Hinton is cutting potatoes and coriander; the smell of garam masala and cinnamon fills the kitchen
"We can make curry, we can make omelette... anything...”
Watching over is his 92 year old grandmother, who he calls MehMeh, passing down this family recipe
"What a tasty dish this is”
A chicken curry that's become an inspiration for actor Josh Hinton
"I would come to Brisbane once a year and be surrounded by food and family. And then the one thing that would stay with me when I went back to Wollongong was mum would cook a chicken curry or a dahl and it all, it felt like I was transported back"
Josh… who has Persian, Sri-Lankan and English roots… grew up in regional New South Wales.
His family also have influences of Indian and South African culture; and while's he's grown to be proud of his heritage, it hasn't always been that way.
"There was like a big part of my life where I was embarrassed to tell people my middle name Jameel. And so in the making of the show I really made a point, there's a whole scene on my middle name, because I'm proud of it now, I love it, it's a beautiful name"
His family's restaurant in Brisbane holds special memories: the dining room is filled with colourful art and decorations
It's one of the oldest Indian restaurants in the state, opened in 1983 by Josh's grandmother, who left her home country of Iran during the Anglo-Soviet invasion in the Second World War.
As she looks through old photographs, sprawled across her dining table, Mehrangiz Fassy remembers hiding in bomb shelters in Tehran during her childhood.
"In the evening, we could see we could see the light going up, the fire going up. The children are screaming. And I was thinking, we are all human beings, why do they have to kill us like that"
She hitch hiked to India, where she spent much of her early life...
"We were traveling with the chicken behind the truck, And my my brother, we traveled the one night and one day in that truck, we travel towards India"
And eventually met her Sri Lankan husband, driving her passion for food.
"I did not know anything how to cook, but only I knew how to eat and so if you know how to eat, you will learn how to cook. And my husband wanted to eat."
Back in the restaurant, Josh's uncle Afnan Fassy is helping to keep the family business running.
He's seen generations of families come through the doors and says this job gives him a sense of fulfilment.
"Food is what binds people together - all the happiness that, that is found on the dinner table, you know, it's kind of almost like an expression of your heritage, of your family presence.”
It's a feeling echoed by Joshua...
With the restaurant, and the childhood memories around connecting to culture through food, serving as inspiration for his show called A Place in the Sultan's Kitchen, where he attempts to create his grandmother's chicken curry on stage, telling stories about his family's history.
"My cultural identity is extremely complicated. Um, I, I think the biggest realization I made was it doesn't really need to be labelled. It's more than just the names of the countries. It's the food, it's the memories, it's the experiences my grandparents have gone on."
A melting pot of cultural influences.
