Doing so I pass two Chinese restaurants, one Indian, one Thai, one Japanese, two pizzerias, an Italian trattoria and George and Niki’s Golden Grill (“Traditional English Food”). Paul Smith is as big in Tokyo as he is in London; American and Chinese children are brought up on a similar diet of Nintendo and MTV; it costs as much to e-mail Cape Town as Clapham; a downturn in the Japanese economy leads to job losses in Galashiels. Lunch is served punctually in the kitchen: Christopher gets hungry around 1 o’clock, Adam eats and runs, “but we sit around the table chatting, even though it’s not terribly comfortable”.. A new word has entered the political vocabulary in the last decade – “globalisation”.

It has become the accepted shorthand term for the way local and national practices are being wiped out by the onward march of all things modern. Shahrukh also made borani, deep-fried aubergines in yoghurt, and gobi bhaji – “lovely south Indian cabbage with mustard seeds, cumin and garlic”. As a diabetic, she seldom eats or cooks pudding, but made an exception with shahi tukra, an Indian version of bread-and-butter pudding. There’s 18 months to two years between writing and publication, with cooking you can produce something at the end of a few hours.”For her family, husband Christopher Shackle, son Adam, 16, and daughter Samara, 11, she cooks Indian food about once a week; European pasta and fish the rest of the time.

“Adam’s completely Anglicised but he says the only food that fills him up is Indian.” This Sunday, the first the family had had in their house after several weeks’ building work, her mother, Sabeeha, joined them for lunch. Chicken, murgh musallam, was pot-roasted whole with spices, potatoes – dum aloo – were deep-fried then cooked in yoghurt. “I’ve cooked ever since; I love the instant gratification – the pleasure of watching everyone’s faces enjoying it.” When her latest book, Temptresses: The Virago Book of Evil Women, was published, she made all the food for the 80 guests at the launch party “It’s a wonderful balance with being a writer. Victoria’s son Peter, who lives in London, describes her stifado (meat stew) as “blinding” The meal began about 2pm and the guests left around 5pm. There was still plenty left over for Peter to take home with him.Pakistani with Shahrukh Husain”My father was one of the most spectacular cooks in creation, and my mother is still a marvellous cook,” says Shahrukh Husain, who was born and brought up in Pakistan, and began cooking at 18 when she was living with her parents in southern India. I can cook three or four meals together.” And she already has some ingredients to hand which she saves from trips to Greece, such as cod’s roe for her taramasalata – “very nice the way I make it”.”Since the boys left home, I don’t do this kind of thing every Sunday,” she says “If it’s just me and my husband I’d replace the leg of lamb with chicken. But I still invite relations or they invite us.” This week she invited the priest, Father Pavros, and his wife Elenia, with whom she works in Birmingham, teaching Greek children, her relatives Effie and Anthony, and friend June and her husband Christos.

The lamb is studded with garlic, served with potatoes which are roasted with mustard, lemon juice and olive oil for piquancy, and her oven-baked macaroni cheese. After this there’s fresh fruit, and an hour or so later coffee and something sweet: “You never serve coffee without cake, and we leave feta on the table.” On this particular Sunday, Victoria made three traditional sticky cakes. Only one wine, usually retsina, is served.Cooking on this scale takes preparation, but she has no difficulty getting everything done in time for her guests: “I’m very quick. “It’s very important to have a good lunch on a Sunday,” she says. Victoria follows a well-rehearsed pattern: a starter of avgolemono soup (“the most popular in Greece”) of chicken and lemon, and a meze including dolmades, meatballs, roast peppers, salad, her special taramasalata and other dips for people to help themselves to before, during and after the roast lamb “Greeks fill the plates with everything,” she says. “I’m very privileged having so many family who live close and others who visit, that’s what this is all about,” says Diane.Greek with Victoria Paphides”Greeks love good food,” says Victoria Paphides, who provides a traditional Sunday lunch after church on the occasions when she has more people than just her husband Chris to cook for. This was an undeniably Jewish meal, although it involved almost no cooking.

They had bagels, smoked salmon (“my grandchildren adore it”), herrings, and falafel made by El Hanan in pitta bread.Guests started arriving at midday; at 1pm her son-in-law arrived with the fresh coriander for the falafel. Her sister-in-law brought egg and onion (chopped egg and spring onion filling for the bagels). Living in the centre of Leeds’ Jewish area, Diane had already bought herrings (rollmops, sweet, pickled, and in tomato and olives) and the salmon from the Kosherie, and bagels, challah and kuchen, a sweet bread cake, from the Chalutz bakery. “Sunday brunch is a brilliant meal because you don’t have to cook it, it’s more of an assembly job, and it can expand according to the number of people who are coming.” Eating carried on from 2pm to 5pm, with orange, apple, and grapefruit juice and lots of tea and coffee.