In the last one year, chefs from across the world have parked themselves along the Indian coastline to dig out lesser-known community cuisines and secret spices. Iknoor Kaur traces the popularity of coastal food
Be it Amrute uncle’s farm, Joshi aunty’s cucumber cake, Rupali Joshi’s puran poli, Goa’s bebinca or the famous Parsi dhansak, the coastal belt of India was full of surprises for chef Vikas Khanna. He was shooting for his show Twist of Taste on Fox Traveller. Rocky and Mayur, too, had similar experiences while shooting for their show Highway On My Plate (HOMP) Coast to Coast. They were surrounded by thousands of recipes while they travelled from Gujarat all the way to West Bengal following the coastline.
Indian coastal cuisine is not just about prawn curry and rice but a lot more than what we think. “The cuisine changes every 100 kilometers when you travel along the coast. The dish may be the same but the recipe will be different,” says Rocky Singh of HOMP. Khanna adds, “In India nothing is ‘the end’. The road to discovery is limitless.”
With the increase in coastal restaurants around the country and travel shows on air, the coasts of India have become the highlight. Restaurants like Zambar are a big hit in North and West India and attract huge crowds on a daily basis. Chef Arun from the restaurant shares, “People are getting more aware of the food they eat and are experiencing an all new interest for coastal cuisine because they think it is a healthier option.”
Discoveries on the coast
Though the awareness about coastal food is increasing day by day, there is one big misconception that a lot of people have about the cuisine — that it is 90 per cent of sea food. “That is a myth,” says Khanna. “What happens a lot of times is that cuisines get stereotyped because of one dish. The same has happened with coastal cuisine. The normal reaction of people when we say coastal cuisine is, ‘There will be so much sea foodIJ’ But no. There are so many vegetarian dishes and the cuisine is known for its sweets. People will be shocked to see places like Daboli because of the abundance of cuisines and flavours it has,” he elaborates.
According to Rocky, India is a nation that hosts a lot of non-vegetarian, who atleast once in a week don’t consume non-vegetarian food. He says, “It is not possible for a country like ours to not have vegetarian food in a cuisine. And coastal cuisine has some of the best veg dishes simply because of the spices that grow and come into that region.”
On the other hand, celebrity chef Kunal Kapur feels that even though coastal cuisine is an equal mix of vegetarian and non-vegetarian, sea food is an integral part of it. “Coastal food means food that is made in regions along the sea, so it is not wrong for people to associate the cuisine with sea food. However, people are slowly getting introduced to more sub-community coastal foods that are purely vegetarian and substantially coastal,” he explains.
Pick and choose
To say that coastal foods have a great variety is one thing but to actually explore this variety is another. Kapur feels that “any coastal dish basically uses chilli, coconut and a souring agent. These are three main ingredients in the cuisine.”
The coastline is full of interesting recipes. There is a cuisine called byari which came from the first group of Sufis who set base in Mangalore. They have a biryani which is made out of imli. There are also a lot of cuisines that are of Arab influence like pathkali from Karnataka and the arakal cuisine of Kerala. Arakal comes from one of the oldest Muslim dynasties that ruled the country and has a unique fish biryani that is synonymous to the area.
The ingredients used in the cuisine define it, adds chef Velumurugan P of Dakshin, Sheraton. “For example the Moplahs like their food hot. So there’s a focus on spices in their cuisine. Similarly Malayalam-speaking Kerala Muslims have food which is largely non-vegetarian and a fusion of Kerala and Arab cuisine,” he shares. Arun seconds the thought and feels that coastal cuisine focusses deeper into recipes that are specific to communities.
The popularity of coastal cuisine has led to a lot of foreign and expat chefs move base to the country. “Indians love adding masala to everything and don’t like to use a rulebook when it comes to cooking. That is what makes our coastal cuisine different from the rest of the world,” says Kapur. Rocky adds, “Every country in the world has a limited amount of recipes that come from their coasts. However, India manages to offer much more than all the countries combined. The number of recipes we churn just from our coastal belt is phenomenal. This attracts the foreign crowd.”
Out of the box
Travel and food shows on television are also playing a big part in bringing the coastal cuisine to the forefront. Debarpita Banerjee, vice president, marketing FOX says that the entire experience of travel intermingled with food attracts people’s attention to the cuisine. “If a mother watching television sees somebody in Ratanagiri making a cucumber cake on the gas and sees the same person having fun while doing it, she will want to make it. So such travel and food show help in increasing awareness about a particular cuisine,” she adds.
Rocky elaborates that when he started the Coast to Coast series very few people knew what the cuisine is like and “after the entire series so many people have come and told us, ‘Wow, we never knew that too was a part of coastal cuisine’,” he shares.