| Fasting, feasting | 12-SEP-09 |
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| The attention that we give to food during days of fasting never ceases to amaze me. |
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| Be polite, have a bite | 29-AUG-09 |
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| Viv Richards in his autobiography complains of an Indian peculiarity that many foreigners visiting the country are rather foxed by. It has to do with our concept of “cocktails and dinner”, at least as prevalent in north India. Unlike in the West, where formal sit-downs involve civilised drinking with dinner (and conversation), in India, these affairs are known to stretch on and on, with the gentlemen downing copious quantities of “Scotch”, stuffing themselves silly with cardiologist-phobic snacks, before the dinner is finally brought out. By then it is usually past the witching hour and no one can taste anything. As Richards vividly notes, in one instance, his hosts, having tanked up, clearly forgot their duties and rushed to the buffet table as soon as dinner was announced, quite forgetting that there were starving guests too to take care of! The West Indies team was left to fend for itself. |
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| Youngistan chefs | 15-AUG-09 |
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| One of the biggest changes in dining in India, since independence, has been in the idea of the chef. No longer the “khansama” or “maharaj” of the past, today’s chef is an infinitely more savvy creature. With owning a restaurant topping young India’s aspirations, being a chef has become glamorous too. You can see it reflected in our films and even in books by our younger authors. |
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| Food from Himachal | 01-AUG-09 |
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| Trying out exotic new cuisines — often laden with so-called “luxury” ingredients — can turn into a rivetting game of upmanship for the snobs among foodies; rivetting for them, boring for the rest of humanity. And you don’t need me to tell you how such snobbery is only increasing by the day. |
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| The perfect risotto | 18-JUL-09 |
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| The first time I tried a risotto, many years ago, it was at a lunch with the energetic Bina Modi, who had just launched Ego in Delhi, and who was even then not just another industrialist-wife. She pointed out, “it’s khichdi”. |
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| Fake vegetarian | 04-JUL-09 |
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| Despite the prevalence of “Jain” Chinese and Thai (particularly in Mumbai), Udupi restaurants, Gujarati thalis and vaishnav bhojanalays, it is a truth universally acknowledged that vegetarians do get a raw deal when eating out. |
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| Late-night pangs | 20-JUN-09 |
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| Late-night snacking is just emotional eating, says Dr Shikha Sharma, the “nutritionist” (“weight loss guru” can be so politically incorrect), whose words I pay heed to but do not follow. Sharma is right. Nothing else can explain the quantities of Pringles (and beer) consumed in our house watching the tragi-comic T-20 saga. |
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| New summer foods | 23-MAY-09 |
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| Think of summer in the Mediterranean and images of a cold gazpacho soup over lunch automatically float into your mind. In India too, there has been a long tradition of summer foods. The mango panna, for instance — tart, spicy and aromatic with mint — has long been favoured to ward off the heat. Similarly, there is little to beat the lightness and wholesomeness of a meal of curd-rice. |
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| Degustation bites | 09-MAY-09 |
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| Degustation menus, the kind you find at smart restaurants in all the gourmet capitals of the world (and now, because of the global recession, at bargain prices), have gained recently popularity in India too. Till about two years ago, diners were, in fact, hard put to even pronounce the word —Degu… what?, wrinkling up their noses at a whiff or something bad. But today, chefs are increasingly presenting tasting menus (there, that’s less of a tongue-twister, isn’t it?) with aplomb, and hopefully there are enough takers for these. |
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| Value for money | 25-APR-09 |
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| Last week’s cover story in BS Weekend on big restaurant launches in the midst of a global recession got me reactions, not entirely unexpected. Instead of celebrating the so-called insularity of our F&B industry, diners were only — and naturally — concerned about the outrageous prices that restaurants continue to charge, compounded by high taxes. |
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| Modern accent | 11-APR-09 |
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| Indian (and Indian-Chinese) cuisines have always been the moneyspinners in the restaurant biz. And it is easy to find representatives of these genres in all our neighbourhoods, doing brisk business regardless of the recession or our own dalliances with newer, global flavours — European or Brazilian or Mayan. So it is an irony that when it comes to more formal or stylised Indian dining there are such few options to choose from. |
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| Luxury dining | 28-MAR-09 |
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| As I write this, I have been listening to corporate bigwigs from some of the world’s biggest luxury brands ponder over the subject of “sustainable luxury” at a conference in New Delhi. No one can pretend any longer that luxury is, and can be, aloof from the general environment — “it is, after all, not on some another planet,” as the Hermes VP quips. |
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| On the menu | 14-MAR-09 |
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| One of the most abused terms in the world of fine dining has to be “fusion”. It may now be acceptable to cook your pasta with a dash of cumin at home — and admit as much. Or to raid your refrigerator at midnight to come up with your own versions of sandwiches, hummus with paranthas, or even spaghetti bolognaise — using Maggi noodles and left-over mutton curry, as Mumbai-based restaurateur Riyaaz Amlani, who owns the Mocha café chain, admits to rustling up. |
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| Tricky treats | 28-FEB-09 |
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| For all those who have sniggered at “halwai-Chinese”, chaat masala- or curry leaves-infused chowmein, here is news: A chef from Hyderabad I met this week tells me of a secret “masala” now being used to enhance flavours of restaurant-biryanis — and here I will differentiate these from the authentic version of the kachche gosht ki biryani. |
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| Nothing 'authentic' | 14-FEB-09 |
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| Despite the number of recipe books that continue to be churned out every year, food writing in India is a grossly underrepresented genre. |
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Content Guide
