The Natural

Netflix's Salt Fat Acid Heat has taken off for all the right — yet surprising — reasons.

Based on host–executive producer Samin Nosrat's 2017 award-winning book of the same title, the four-part series has been described as everything from revolutionary to "Marxist fantasy porn." Nosrat approves.

"They are paying attention to the fact that giving a platform to people making food in the traditional method is really important," the Iranian-American chef says. "There's a fine line between promoting that artistry and artisans, and shaming people into feeling like you're not a good cook if you're not using 1,200-year-old soy sauce."

The show follows her through Japan (for the episode titled "Salt"), Italy ("Fat"), Mexico ("Acid") and back to her stomping grounds at Chez Panisse, Alice Waters's legendary restaurant in Berkeley, California ("Heat"). Throughout, Nosrat observes, cooks and eats with abandon, an allegedly radical approach for a food-show host who describes herself as "brown and not stick-thin!"

"I have felt for a long time that there is not an accurate reflection of anyone who looks like me on TV, or anyone who has my values," she says. "It meant giving the platform to women chefs and people of color, and giving space to home cooks who don't traditionally get that kind of screen time."

Directed by Caroline Suh (who is also an exec producer, along with Stacey Offman and Alex Gibney), SFAH is a sort of turducken: it expertly stuffs a travel show into a cooking show, along with practical lessons on how casual cooks can approach mistakes, put guests to work in the kitchen and even make a great roast chicken with just buttermilk and salt.

But the secret sauce is Nosrat's own unpretentious hosting style. She has a natural ability to not take herself too seriously, yet she displays utter reverence and gravity toward the culinary artisans whose homes, kitchens and backyards she visits.

"I'm always that person who's trying to figure out how to fit in, how to make people feel comfortable," she says. "This is because I'm an Iranian immigrant kid, and I was constantly navigating between the world inside my home, and then I had to go out into the world in America and figure out how to fit in."

While plans to travel to Iran for the "Acid" episode didn't pan out, there is a palpable Persian presence throughout the show — from tracking the route of Mexican sour oranges to her family home in northern Tehran, to making tahdig with her mother, to apologizing to her grandmother before biting into a piece of pork.

Nosrat, whose family is Muslim, had to come to terms with a staple that many chefs worship but Islam forbids. She recalls her early days at Chez Panisse, where she'd massage a pig with salt before it had its "five o clock shadow" shaved. "I'm like, 'My ancestors are turning in their graves right now!'"

Her ultimate goal is "to get people to cook" and, in the process, to make her mother proud. "All immigrant kids want is to make our parents happy!"

Missions accomplished.

This article originally appeared in emmy magazine, Issue No. 3, 2019