How Delhi restaurants are serving India's biodiversity on a plate
Indian chefs are infamous for waking up to global trends just when they seem to be going out of fashion — as in the case of molecular gastronomy, for instance — but the practice of sourcing local produce and eating seasonally (or the farm-to-fork experience), which Alice Waters made fashionable since she opened Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, in 1971, and whose more recent proponents have included Michelle Obama and Jamie Oliver, is something that we Indians can relate to without much effort.
We have for centuries been practising what the standard-bearers of the organic food movement in the West have been propagating, for long from the fringes and now increasingly from the mainstream, for the past half-century. The Indian middle class, especially young single men and women living in the cities, on the contrary, have been flirting dangerously with a diet rich in refined sugars, processed carbohydrates and saturated fats.
The purchase policies of our hotels work against traditional produce because they are more expensive and more perishable than their chemically and genetically manipulated competition. As a result, a possible alternative market, which is now mushrooming in the West, is still in its infancy.
And although it is becoming fashionable in the Indian hospitality sector for employers to send their young chefs for an exposure to iconic addresses such as Noma, Danish Chef Rene Redzepi’s much-feted restaurant in Copenhagen that is temporarily shut because it is moving out of its present location, the recipients of this knowledge do little more than prettify their presentations with edible flowers and other such Instagrammable gimmicks.
In my recent experience, I have only come across Fire at The Park New Delhi, Pluck at the Pullman and Novotel in New Delhi Aerocity, and Annamaya at the just-opened Andaz New Delhi attempting seriously to set the standards for the rest of the industry by either sourcing "planet-friendly produce" (Fire), or growing its own vegetables and herbs inside the hotel to make "zero-carbon footprint food" a reality (Pluck), or creating a menu centred entirely around traditional local produce.
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| We have for centuries been practising what the standard-bearers of the organic food movement in the West have been propagating. |
The Roseate, formerly the Dusit Devarana, gets its vegetables for a dedicated farm literally across the road (actually, the NH-48), and The Leela Ambience Hotel, Gurgaon, has sealed an exclusive tie-up with an organic farmer in Ropar, Haryana, even as its executive sous chef, Abhishek Gupta, develops his signature dishes using only locally sourced vegetables and herbs.
Ayesha Grewal, the city’s first purveyor of 100 per cent organic produce, The Altitude Store, has launched her own cafe serving nothing but natural food, and the one run by the enterprising CAARA trio of Ambika Seth, Alice Heim and Kevin Rai at the British Council, has quite a buzz about it, especially its promise that its seasonal, chemical-free vegetables are harvested just 24 hours before they are cooked.
Are these scattered efforts good enough for a city teeming with people and upcoming hotels and restaurants? Not much seems to be happening in the other cities as well except occasional tributes to "organic"/ "healthy"/ "carbon-neutral" food staged by hotels and restaurants, whose clientele could turn into a vast year-round market for healthy, seasonal food.
All that restaurant owners and chefs have to do is read the two First Food series of books brought out by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) — the second, Culture of Taste, was released a week ago — to borrow ideas, or just exchange recipes among themselves.
In the last six days, for instance, I have had a delectable bajre ki khichdi and parantha stuffed with sattu prepared by the Old World Hospitality chefs led by Rajiv Malhotra to celebrate the book launch. Chef Abhishek Basu of The Park New Delhi had us licking our chops after we dug his organic achari barley risotto with Ladakhi black peas, seasonal vegetables, kurkure karela and desi cow’s ghee.
And a little before I started writing this column, I had the most delectable ragi (foxtail millets) dosa at The Carnatic Cafe in GK-II. We have the collective knowledge, but we have to tap into it and celebrate what the CSE director-general, Dr Sunita Narain, calls “India’s biodiversity on our plate”.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)