Simon Majumdar is an author, food writer and broadcaster. He has written two best-selling food memoirs, Eat My Globe and Eating For Britain, and contributes to a wide range of newspapers and websites including a column on food for AskMen. Simon Majumdar, some of us, the foodies may know already, is one of the two brothers behind the famous Dos Hermanos food blog.

Since October 2010, Simon was one of the three recurring judges on The Food Network’s hit show The Next Iron Chef.

How it all began
When Simon Majumdar turned forty, a middle of life crisis realization hit him--that there had to be more to life than a desk job, even a highly paid one at that. All was not lost as serendipity would have it and he found his long ago written list of things to be done; this escape list was done years ago and had been put aside for many other ‘priorities’.

When he retrieved the list, the first goal that caught his eye was the last one that he had written, it said: Go everywhere, eat everything. He had found his purpose.

A 12-month venture into the unknown, a search for food, and travelling all over the globe and which could or needs not be delicious. This made to order trip is chronicled in his best-selling book ‘Eat My Globe’.

In this book, Simon flies down to thirty countries in twelve months, give or take a few weeks, experimenting with local cuisines which reflect the culture as varied as those of America and Iceland. What makes Simon’s wry sense of humour and a keen eye for detail has the reader trip along with him on the pages of his books.

Simon Majumdar was ranked 44th in the foodie section of the Evening Standard’s list of the 1,000 most influential people in London, On the hoof in Budapest, Simon Majumdar tells Deepa Srinivasan how it is to travel and taste food, about wearing the chef’s hat at home and gives a quick fix five-minute dish

Tell me a little about yourself. Where are you from?
I am from the UK, now living in Los Angeles. I am of Anglo India descent, with a Bengali father (from Calcutta) and a Welsh mother. I was brought up in the steel & mining town of Rotherham in South Yorkshire.

What’s your educational background?
I graduated in Theology from King’s College, London and also have a post graduate qualification in Marketing.

What are your general professional and non-professional interests?
My whole life revolves around food and travel and I am fortunate that my wife has the same passion. So, we spend as much time on the road as possible. When not eating, cooking, travelling or writing about them, I love to read and spent twenty years as a book publisher.

How did you become a food writer?
I began a blog called Dos Hermanos, for no other reason than I wanted to keep a diary of all my meals. By some strange quirk it became popular and then influential. Offers to write professionally sprung from there.

How did your relationship to food and cooking, when you were growing up, influence the place of those things in your life now?
I would not have the passion for food I have now if it was not for the influences of growing up in a family with the same passions. They remain even to this day and most, if not all of our family conversations are about food, meals we have just eaten or are about to eat. My Welsh mother was, ironically, a sensational cook of Bengali food (a talent she learned in the family compound kitchen in Calcutta in the late 1950’s)

What is your favourite aspect of being a food writer?
Meeting people of a similar passion. On my travels in the last five years, I have met farmers, distillers, brewers, cheese makers, butchers, mixologists, bakers amongst many others and, of course, I have met dozens of chefs. I am not a chef groupie, but I do have great respect for people who can create fine ingredients or turn them into something remarkable.

What are you working on at the moment?
I am working on an idea for my third book, which will also hopefully be accompanied by a TV series. I am also working on some new TV shows, about which I cannot talk right now. Suffice to say 2012 is looking like it might be quite busy.

Where did the idea for ‘Eat My Globe’ come from?
It sprang from an idea I had when I turned 40 and made a list of the things I wanted to do with the second half of my life (run a marathon, have a suit made on Saville Row etc) At the bottom of my list I wrote four words “Go Everywhere, Eat Everything”. After a particularly grim day at work one day, I decided that I needed to just go and do it. I began making a list and quit my job the next day. The name “Eat My Globe” came to me on the same day.

How long did it take you to complete this book?
The journey took a year and a half (including planning time). The writing, I did as I went and completed at the end of the journey as I spent three months in Southern Spain.

What is your favourite city to eat in?
There are too many to name one. But if pressed to pull out a few, I would offer up New Orleans, Mumbai, Manila, Dakar and Madrid. If pushed to choose one, I think it might be Madrid.

On eating unfamiliar foods
I don’t go out of my way to eat weird food, but inevitably, people around the world eat things that might seem unusual to you. I think you should try everything once. There are some things (rotten shark meat in Iceland, fermented Mare’s milk in Mongolia, Dog in China come to mind) that you should only ever eat once.

On vegetarians/vegans
I could never be a vegetarian let alone a vegan, but food is a personal thing and people are free to make their own choices. Some vegetarian meals have been among the best of my life (at a monastery in Chengdu and, of course, in India where vegetarian food to my mind reaches an art form). Also, my desert island meal is a simple dal of red lentils and lemons.

On sending dishes back at a restaurant
If a dish is not prepared correctly (overcooked steak etc) then I never hesitate to send it back. I also send meals back if I don’t like them, but never expect that the restaurant should have to pay for that. It is my decision. The key is to always be polite. There is never any reason to be rude to staff. As my grandfather said “if someone is nice to you but rude to a waiter, they are not a nice person.

On wine
I adore wine and am lucky enough to have visited to some of the world’s best wine regions. I am not an expert, but a passionate amateur keen to learn more. It is a never ending world of surprises.

Is there anything that you refuse to eat?
I can’t eat oysters or coffee, unfortunately. I am also not desperately fond of pizza. An odd thing I know and a purely personal preference. I just have never met a pizza I didn’t dislike, be it in Italy or the US.

On technology
I love technology, even though I don’t claim to understand it all. I use Facebook and twitter a great deal and I am rarely without my smartphone and laptop.

Do you have a foolproof go-to ingredient or recipe?
I always have red lentils in the house. When cooked with some spices, a little ginger & garlic and some onions, it can make a meal that nourishes both body and soul.

Your quick-fix five-minute dish
A bacon sandwich. Fry good British smoked bacon until crisp, serve on thick wedges of buttered white bread with a dollop of HP sauce on top. Unbeatable.

Your favourite restaurant
If I had to pick out one right now, it would be Hearth in NYC. Chef Marco Canora has astonishing technique, but makes food with real soul.

Three ingredients that everyone should have in their kitchen
I can’t speak for anyone else, but if I have onions, garlic and green chili in the house, I am usually good to go.

Where and when do you prefer to write?
At home, I write on the sofa, but I am lucky that I can zone out allowing me to write anywhere.

What do you listen to when you work?
I usually like to work in silence when I am at home, but noises don’t distract me too much.

Share your experiences of being a judge on ‘The Next Iron Chef’
It is a genuine privilege to work on this show. Not just because of the food the chefs prepare, but because my fellow judges and the host, Alton Brown are hugely fun to work with and teach me a lot every day. The crew & producers are also very special and I have made many new friends. Of course, eating food from some of the best chefs in the world is none too shabby either.

On wearing the chef’s hat at home
I would never wear a chef’s hat at home. It would look silly.