Ranji Thangiah, founder of TootingMama, is a recipe creator, writer and food photographer known for her home-style Sri Lankan cooking inspired by the food she grew up with and now shares with family and friends. Beyond her work in food, she is also an advocate on adoption, having adopted two children with her husband, Sam Taggart.
In conversation with Asian Voice, Ranji reflects on her experience of navigating the UK adoption system, the importance of support networks, and raising a family shaped by both love and complexity.
As a food writer and photographer, how has your creative work influenced the way you document and express family, culture and identity in your personal life?
From a food and photography perspective, I’ve used both as a way to explore my heritage and cultural identity, growing up in the Sri Lankan diaspora in the UK. I haven’t visited Sri Lanka often, and with family spread across countries like Canada and the US, that sense of connection can feel distant. As my parents have grown older, and especially after losing my father, food has become a way of anchoring myself to that identity. Like many in the diaspora, I’ve often questioned where I belong, not fully British, yet not quite Sri Lankan either. Living in that in-between space, I’ve turned to food to explore what being Sri Lankan means to me. I didn’t grow up speaking the language, and with a Christian background, food has become my strongest link to my roots, a lasting, tangible part of my heritage passed down through my family.
What led you to choose adoption, and how did your personal experiences shape that decision?
After fertility treatment didn’t work, we were very open to adoption. My husband is adopted himself, so we had a close, personal understanding of what that journey can look like, which made us even more certain. We were clear that we wanted to adopt through the UK system rather than go abroad, even though international adoption was still quite common at the time. Our children have now been with us for around 14-15 years, and looking back, that decision feels right. For me, adopting children born and raised in the UK felt important, it wasn’t a sense of duty exactly, but more a reflection of where I grew up and where I felt we could provide a stable, grounded upbringing.
What were some of the biggest emotional and practical challenges you and your husband faced while navigating the UK adoption system?
When we first entered the adoption system, I realise now how naïve I was. There was a strong message encouraging more adopters from Black and Asian communities, so we came forward expecting to be welcomed. Instead, we were told it would be unlikely to find children who matched our ethnic and cultural background, my husband is Mauritian, I’m Sri Lankan, and even our religious identities were seen as barriers. It felt like the door was quickly closed on us. I then had to work hard to prove our suitability, drawing on our wider family experiences, my brother’s mixed-race children, and my husband’s own experience of being adopted into a white family with an Afro-Caribbean sister. It often felt as though simply wanting to be parents wasn’t enough; we had to justify ourselves far more than expected before we could even be considered.
How important was finding a support network of other adopters during your journey?
That support has been vital from day one. Raising adopted children is a very different experience from raising birth children; the family dynamics, challenges, and day-to-day realities can be completely different. Having a group of women who truly understand has made all the difference. There’s no need to explain, they simply get it, creating space for honest conversations, especially on the hardest days. Yet there’s still a perception that once children join a loving family, everything falls into place.But early trauma doesn’t disappear, it continues to shape their lives in complex ways. The challenges are ongoing, and having a support network that listens, advises, and stands by you through it all has been absolutely invaluable.
What changes would you like to see in the adoption system to better support multicultural and mixed-race families?
I think there needs to be a shift away from misconceptions about prospective adopters. Too often, there’s an overemphasis on factors like a child’s original religion or rigid ideas about cultural “matching.” Instead of pigeonholing people, there should be a more open-minded approach to what Asian families, and adoptive parents more broadly, can offer. The focus should be on their ability to provide a safe, supportive home, rather than expecting them to fit a narrow set of criteria. At the same time, there’s a real need to build stronger connections between adoptive families. It can feel like a very isolating experience, so creating spaces where families can support one another and where children can meet others with similar backgrounds, would make a meaningful difference.
