The Toronto-based cookbook author and food historian received a Lifetime Achievement Award on October 25, 2026, the first recognition of its kind for Parsi cuisine in Canada’s culinary literature.
Our dear friend, fellow Zoroastrian and culinary icon Niloufer Mavalvala has been inducted into the 2026 Taste Canada Hall of Fame and received a Lifetime Achievement Award. She was honoured at the Taste Canada Awards Soirée at the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto on October 25, 2026, alongside fellow inductee Jennifer McLagan.
The Taste Canada Hall of Fame is sponsored by the Culinary Historians of Canada. In the organisers’ words, it celebrates “the personalities who have shaped Canadian culinary writing and made a lasting contribution to our culture.” The honour recognises Canada’s culinary heroes who, through their books, have shaped or influenced the country’s food culture in a significant way and have had a lasting impact on Canadian cuisine.
Through her dedication, Niloufer has helped preserve and share the culinary traditions of the Parsi community of the Subcontinent. Her work goes beyond recipes. It captures the stories, memories and cultural identity that connect us to our roots.
From a Karachi kitchen to the world stage
Niloufer was raised in Karachi and settled in Canada. She comes from the Parsi community, which arrived from Persia more than a thousand years ago and grew into a small, widely scattered community in India and beyond. She started baking at the age of eight and taught her first cooking class at 17, as she told us in our Everyday Parsi profile. In 2013 she started a blog, Niloufer’s Kitchen, to share family recipes with friends and relatives. It quickly found a much wider audience.
The blog led to her first book, The Art of Parsi Cooking: Reviving an Ancient Cuisine. It was followed by The Vegetarian Parsi, The Route to Parsi Cooking: From Pars to India, and The World of Parsi Cooking: Food Across Borders.
Her books have been recognised internationally many times. The Vegetarian Parsi won a Gourmand award in Umeå, Sweden. Last year, at the 30th Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in Cascais, Portugal, the jury described The World of Parsi Cooking as a “bridge between generations, cultures, and communities.” It awarded the book “The Best of the Best – Food Culture in 30 Years,” and named her four books together “Best Series in the World.”
Readers may also remember her Huffington Post column, her appearance on Outside and In with the Cook’s Cook, and most recently her collaboration with Zara Contractor on the 2027 illustrated Parsi food calendars.
“Archives of lived experience”
Dr. Shernaz Cama of the Parzor Foundation described Niloufer’s achievement this way:
“Through her remarkable body of culinary writing, scholarship, and cultural advocacy, [Mavalvala] has made an enduring contribution not only to Canadian culinary literature, but also to the preservation and celebration of one of the world’s most ancient and distinctive food traditions: the cuisine and heritage of the Parsi Zoroastrians … She is a cultural historian, who has understood multiculturalism, embodied in the story of Canada, bringing together the historical multiculturalism of her roots into her present life… capturing the intimate relationship between food, migration, ritual, memory, and belonging. Her books … are archives of lived experience and cultural continuity.”
In her own words
From Niloufer’s acceptance speech in Toronto:
“I am neither of the East nor of the West; no boundaries exist within my breast,” Jalaludin Rumi declared in his poem, emphasising that we all belong to this universe. Food culture remains the one true chain link to this belief.
Let us remind ourselves at this time that food has no borders, no boundaries, and no limitations. But more importantly, it carries with it stories of an era gone by, of history that emulates our roots, where we come from, and our ancestral cultural heritage. It is the very soul of who we are. And we can only be grateful to belong. Thank you, Canada, for embracing our food culture in the best way possible.
My passion is with purpose. To tell the world all about the ancient Parsi cuisine. To raise an awareness of our very existence by sharing the stories of our customs and traditions, of how we cook, eat and thrive, and of being hospitable.
It was neither about fame nor fortune but about a question I wanted answered: why is our cuisine not on the culinary world map?
It is with humility that I stand here to receive this prestigious honour tonight. But I feel a greater pride for my Parsi community as we celebrate our place on the global culinary map. We are as distinct, intriguing, and diversified as our food culture and cuisine. I hope those of you who are here tonight are curious enough to Google it, ask questions, and come try it someday.
Thank you, committee, for this honour and recognition. It is a badge of distinction that I will proudly wear as a Canadian.
Hearty congratulations, Niloufer, from all of us at Parsi Khabar. Her question was why Parsi cuisine is not on the culinary world map, and this honour helps answer it. We hope readers will take up her invitation: cook a dish from one of her books, ask your elders for a family recipe, and share our food with a friend.