Your Last Meal | Comedian Zarna Garg on the beauty of onion breath

Four years after her first open-mic, the mother of three got an Amazon special. Now the vegetarian dishes on why she doesn’t believe in vegetarianism.

Comedian Zarna Garg

Zarna Garg immigrated to the United States from India alone, at 16, without a penny to her name.

Fast-forward to 2018: She’s a stay-at-home mom with three kids and bored out of her mind. At her children’s insistence, Zarna got on stage at an open-mic night. Five years later? She has her own comedy special on Amazon, “Zarna Garg: One in a Billion!”

Zarna loves to top many of her meals with a big ol' pile of raw onions, but laments that Americans are sensitive to onion breath. I chat with a cognitive scientist who researched whether smell preference is cultural, personal taste or universally disliked among humans because of its chemical compounds.

And we’ll learn the fairly modern history of masala chai with Indian-American food writer Leena Trivedi-Granier (click for her recipe) – just don’t call it chai tea! We’ll tell you why.


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About the Hosts

Rachel Belle

Rachel Belle

Rachel Belle is the host of The Nosh and host and creator of Your Last Meal, a James Beard Award finalist for Best Podcast. She is also an editor-at-large at Cascade PBS.