box of Pakistani mangoes and mango chutney

Before It Reached the Table

From Multani mango orchards to Kashmiri chillies

Before It Reached the Table is part of our wider Together project, exploring the connection between food, land, craft and the people who sustain them.

Through a growing collection of tableware and kitchenware, the project brings together stories from Palestine, Sudan, Kashmir and the Rohingya community, looking at the ingredients, rituals, landscapes and labour that shape the way we gather and eat.

Each piece from the Together project helps fund a hot meal for someone in need. Alongside the collection, we are speaking to farmers, cooks, makers and growers whose work reminds us that what reaches the table always carries a longer story.

Explore the first pieces from the collection: our tatreez napkins.

From Multani mango orchards to Kashmiri chillies

Photograph by Tikablah Photography London (@tikablahphoto)

THIRD CULTURE KAT

Meet Saliha Khan Sadozai

Pakistani chef, culinary artist, writer, activist and the founder of Third Culture Kat. A Pashtun raised in South Punjab within a family shaped by farming, poetry and politics, she grew up understanding food as something inseparable from land, identity and power.

Trained at Le Cordon Bleu London, her work moves between cooking, storytelling and advocacy. Through Third Culture Kat, she creates condiments, merchandise, supper clubs and cultural projects that explore memory, belonging and the people behind what reaches our tables. SPINDLE is proud to stock her Kashmiri chilli oil, Multani mango chutney and Lahori tamarind chutney.

For Saliha, food is never only the finished dish. It carries history, politics and inheritance, and its story begins long before the kitchen. It begins in the field.

“A condiment is no longer just a jar; it becomes the meeting point between land, people and craft.”

In conversation

As both a chef and the daughter and granddaughter of farmers, where do you feel the biggest disconnect between food culture and farming culture?

The biggest disconnect is that we celebrate what reaches the table, but often forget where it began. Food culture is very good at celebrating chefs, restaurants and presentation, yet farming is often treated as a background story rather than the foundation. Growing up in a farming family taught me that every harvest is shaped by so many forces beyond our control: weather, water, markets and time. There is also a deeper economic reality that people don't always see. If a crop from a particular region stops being valued, loses popularity, or is replaced by something considered more "trendy", the impact isn't just on the crop; it can affect entire farming communities whose livelihoods depend on that land and knowledge. A chef may spend hours developing a recipe, but a farmer has spent months, sometimes generations, developing the relationship with the land that allows that ingredient to exist. For me, cooking has always started before the kitchen. It starts in the field.

For me, cooking has always started before the kitchen. It starts in the field.

What do restaurants, shops, food writers and customers often romanticise about mango season, condiments, or "food from home" that farming families experience very differently?

We often romanticise the beauty of farming without seeing the uncertainty behind it. Mango season is remembered through family gatherings, overflowing boxes and nostalgia, but for farming families it also means watching the skies, managing crops, dealing with changing climates and hoping that months of work are valued fairly. Sometimes due to bad weather patterns, mango farmers make ½ of what they make in a good season. The same applies to condiments and "food from home". We celebrate the recipe, but sometimes forget the agricultural knowledge behind it. The story isn't only in how something is made, but in everything that happened before it reached the kitchen.

When an ingredient carries the name of a place, like a Multani mango or a Kashmiri chilli, what responsibility do you feel comes with using that name properly?

Place names carry history. They also carry a spotlight (if used correctly).When we talk about a Multani mango, Lahori tamarind or Kashmiri chilli, we are talking about landscapes, communities and generations of expertise. These names should never become just a marketing label detached from the people and places that created them. While developing one of my own condiment recipes, I noticed many products across the UK using the word "Kashmiri", yet there was often no connection back to Kashmir itself. The place had become associated with a flavour, but the story behind it was missing.When choosing ingredients for my recipe, I deliberately selected Kashmiri chilli rather than varieties from elsewhere in Pakistan because I wanted to bring attention back to the region. The recipe is my own creation, but the ingredient carries its own identity. From the artwork on the label to the final jar, I wanted to create a product that encouraged people to think about provenance, not just taste. I wanted them to think about Kashmir.

How do we celebrate food from home without turning it into nostalgia that erases the people still growing, harvesting, preserving and carrying it today?

By allowing culture to move forward. Sometimes diaspora conversations can unintentionally freeze food in the past, as though traditions stopped evolving when people left. But the communities who grow and make these foods are still adapting every season. Celebrating food from home should not only be about remembering what was. It should also be about recognising what is still being created today and supporting the people keeping those traditions alive.

Sometimes diaspora conversations can unintentionally freeze food in the past, as though traditions stopped evolving when people left.

People usually meet your work at the very end, when a jar is opened or the table is set. What is one moment much earlier, in the field, in the harvest, in the sourcing, or in the kitchen, that you wish they could see, because it might change the way they value what they’re eating?

I wish people could see the moment an ingredient is harvested.There is something incredibly powerful about seeing the care involved in picking fruit, sorting produce and making decisions based on years of experience. It reminds you that food isn't simply grown and delivered; it is guided by knowledge.That changes the way you see what is on your plate. A condiment is no longer just a jar; it becomes the meeting point between land, people and craft.

Once food reaches our tables, what responsibility do we have to the people, land and labour behind it?

We have a responsibility to pay attention.

Every ingredient has a journey before it reaches us, involving people, environments and systems we often never see. That means asking better questions: where did this come from, who produced it, and what impact does our consumption have? Food connects us to places far beyond our own kitchens.

Recognising that connection is the first step towards valuing the people and landscapes that sustain us.

Shop the story

Discover the condiments shaped by the ingredients and places discussed in this conversation.

Photograph courtesy of Chef Sal

Pakistani Bus Condiment Gift Box

£24.00

Multani Mango Chutney

£8.50

Kashmiri Chilli Oil

£8.50

Lahori Tamarind Chutney

£8.50

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