Nadiya Hussain has revealed she has “really struggled” with some aspects of Bangladeshi culture.
Speaking to Fearne Cotton on her “Happy Place” podcast, the former Great British Bake Off champion explained: ”In our culture, you don’t use your husband’s name because he’s a man.”
Hussain said that if she is around other family members, she will refer to her husband, whose name is Abdal, as the father of her children.
“I have to call him Musa’s dad or Maryam’s dad,” she said, referring to two of her three children. “So he’s the father of my children, but I can’t use his name.”
The 35-year-old added that she sometimes calls her husband by his name in front of her father simply to rile him up.
“I have never known any woman family member to use her husband’s name,” Hussain continued, adding that she might refer to Abdal by his name in front of her sisters, but never in front of her grandmother, who is in her 90s.
“It would kill her,” Hussain teased before adding ”it’s so ingrained.”
The British-Bangladeshi chef went on to discuss another aspect of her culture she found difficult growing up.
“Did you know there’s no actual word for being pregnant?” she asked Cotton.
“So you have to kind of say, she’s sick, wink wink. You don’t actually say the word because it would mean that you were admitting that somebody had to have sex in order to get pregnant.”
Hussain added there “definitely” isn’t a word for sex, either.
“It’s little things like that which I think lots of people are surprised by,” the chef and author continued.
“Because if you don’t talk about these things, people don’t know about them.”
