Iyer was born in
Chidambaram,
Tamil Nadu, India in 1961. He grew up in
Mumbai. After using his background as a French teacher to find work in the field, he eventually became a chef and cookbook writer. His first book, published in 2001, was ''Betty Crocker's Indian Home Cooking
, an introduction to Indian food aimed at Americans with limited previous experience with it. The Betty Crocker book was the first of a number of popular cookbooks on the subject; as the New York Times
reported, he "has by some estimations taught more Americans how to cook Indian food than anyone else." In 2016, he won a James Beard Foundation Award for his video series Indian Curries: The Basics and Beyond
. His final major project was a crowdfunded enterprise called The Revival Foods Project: Global Comforts That Heal''. ==Personal life and death==