Food is sacred in India and being the diverse amalgamation of cultures that we are, we also have the privilege of being exposed to multifarious delightful cuisines. It is food that binds us all, breaking all barriers of creed and community; its aroma beaming through happy smiles, its varied tastes surviving through eras and thereby bridging historical gaps, and its art of presentation building the base for creative, culinary discourse.
Food is both a necessity and luxury, and bears testimony to the shifting paradigms and dynamics of history. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call culinary culture a narrative of multiple stories that, in turn, define who we are. With a pleasant cross-cultural exchange, it also helps global tourism grow. For example, food was a major key player in colonialising Africa and Asia; in stark contrast, food is also what fuses Turkey and Greece at the Aegean coast as their fusion food has catered to the taste buds and bliss of the growing immigrant population there. Even for the tourism industry, food is a major crowd-puller. It continues to be an indispensable catalyst in the culture industries.
Therefore, popular chef Ranveer Brar goes a step ahead and writes an account of how the perfect food can be created. He believes that notions of culture are almost inseparable from the art of cooking. Food has its own unparalleled history and represents the socio-cultural landscape of different regions in different ways.
As he released his first book, Come into My Kitchen at Junglee Billee in Greater Kailash, Delhi, the 38-year-old said he decided to be a chef when he was just 15. “My decision to be a chef was also an act of rebellion as my family was initially hesitant towards my choice. I come from a Punjabi family of zamindars in lucknow. My grandfather was an Army man and father was an engineer. As my family objected to my being a cook, I ran away from home to actually pursue it,” he recalls.
Brar found refuge in Ustad Munir Ahmed, who was one of the oldest kebab vendors in lucknow at that time and who ran a shanty behind Odeon cinema where he sold his stuff.
Brar’s book provides an amusing chronicle of lucknow’s famous food culture. He talks about hierarchy and protocol in a traditional lucknow kitchen — daroga (kitchen manager), khansama (bulk cook), rakabdar (elite cook), hakim (doctor using traditional maladies), masalchis (masala grinders) — as well as briefs his readers about how he learned essential lessons on how to make the right cuts for meat, grinding and handling the spices as well as the taseer — the consequence of food, viz warmth, coldness, hotness, on one’s body after consumption.
He fondly talks about learning from old kaarigars and studying the making of Awadhi cuisines. The book also has occasional glimpses into Brar’s early life through funny and engaging anecdotes. He recollects that one of his earliest experiences with food was sincerely observing langar being served at the Hudson lines Gurudwara at lucknow Cantonment area as a five-year-old. At 13, he was made to dutifully cook sweet rice for the numerous devotees who visited the gurudwara.
Although Brar clarifies that serving at the gurudwara was not exactly where he found his calling; this humble beginning also brings back memories of another immensely popular (and Punjabi) chef, Vikas Khanna’s initiation into cooking.
Khanna had a rolling pin that was dearer to him than life itself. One day when he misplaced it as a kid, tragedy struck the little boy. It was his grandmother, biji, who then took him to the Golden Temple in Amritsar (where they lived) to show him how the people making langar for lakhs of visitors did not bring any magic rolling pins from home. One needs to have the caliber from within.
Brar’s book’s opening line also mentions how his biji was vehemently against wasting food. For her, food was barkat. Both super chefs seem to have come from a space where nurturing was cultivated as a precious ethic. After all, cooking is an effective medium of attaining catharsis. Food empowers us to both acknowledge as well as repudiate complexities. It furnishes an array of hope and harmony. Both chefs also judged the fourth season of Master Chef India.
In the same spirit, Brar also talks about his stint with the cooking reality show, where he and Khanna were joined by one of India’s most loved chefs, Sanjeev Kapoor. Along with that, his television shows would include Breakfast Xpress, Homemade, The Great Indian Rasoi, Snack Attack, Health Bhi Taste Bhi, Ranveer’s Cafe, and Thank God It’s Fryday.
There is also a detailed account of Brar’s work and the lessons he learned at some of the finest hotels in the country. He eventually pursued cooking formally at the Institute of Hotel Management, lucknow, and topped at the national level in all three years.
On how the book differs from other books on food, Brar says it is through his explanation of what a perfect dish is. Quite meticulously, the chef divulges, “See, when we make a dish, our concerns are in a certain order. The first is the taste — we focus on how to make the dish delicious, followed by the flavour — we contemplate what we can add to enhance the taste, texture — how it feels in our mouth. For example, I write about how pani puri without water will leave a mono-textured taste, which is frail and dry, but nuts on butterscotch ice cream, on the other hand, enhances the original texture. The last two concerns are appearance, that is, the presentation of the dish, and lastly, aroma. But when I make a dish, I imagine it from the consumer’s point of view. In which case, this order will be reversed. The aroma will be the first thing to reach the eaters, then they will notice the appearance, and lastly move on to actually tasting it. Keeping this in mind, I make my dishes.”
Distributed into six sections, the book also contains around 50 delightful recipes of items that could be a part of breakfasts and brunches, small meals, main courses, and finally desserts.
At the same time, his profession is also highly competitive and one needs to be extremely thoughtful and creative to keep up with the pace. That doesn’t seem too hard for Brar as he says, “People change too, you know. Their opinions, preferences keep changing, and with changing times and priorities, changing ideas for food too keep occurring.”
That’s indeed true and food cultures have witnessed the change in people and times. On one hand, Italian and Chinese cuisines have influenced modern Indian, American and latin American food consumption, while on the other, by perceiving food through a prism of culture, history and space, a profound worldview of how the global food system is formed can be created.
Ask about what is that one ingredient that he abhors, he says, “Truffle oil. Its pungent smell isn’t really encouraging and it’s overdone.” And what is the ingredient he absolutely lovesIJ Pat comes the reply, “Dhania (coriander leaves). I am too Punjabi that way!”
Come into My Kitchen by Ranveer Brar is published by Harper Collins, Rs 599