Sanjeev Kapoor’s latest show is his travelogue based on African countries. He spoke to K Bhardwaj
We have seen him sharing recipes and gyaan on food for donkey’s years on TV. But of late, well-known chef Sanjeev Kapoor has been trying his hands on variety of things. First, he became entrepreneur with chains of hotels and then took a giant leap with his channel called Food Food. latest, he is doing a new show, Out of The World Series-Africa, which is basically his travelogue video with food in the background. “I have been associated with food for long. But this show is more about the African culture, music and destinations,” he tells us. For this show, Kapoor has travelled across three countries in Eastern Africa — Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. “People associate Africa with its wildlife only. But they have fascinating spots which many other countries may not offer,” he says. The 49-year-old chef has shot for 15 days in these nations. He says he was surprised to find tremendous Indian influence in African cuisine.
“like everywhere else, food has evolved in Africa too. It is similar to food in India in many ways, since many of our people have migrated to Africa. They have influenced the basics of African cuisine and local food. They also use curries like us. Most of the ingredients like spices — cloves, cinnamon, cumin, coriander — are used like we use in Indian dishes and their cooking style is also similar. They have a dish called ugali which is comparable to our upama. They prepare it with white corns and mix it with curry. Beans like lobia and rajma are prominently used in Africa,” he informs.
Kapoor says his foray into business was a natural progression. “Everybody is gifted with some corporate knowledge. Since childhood, we deal with exams, marks and rewards. We are very particular of our inputs and what we get in return. So running a channel is not that difficult. In fact, it is like food only. like we are careful about ingredients and their quantity, we have to be careful about our content and programming on the channel,” he says.
How he entered into food is rather more interesting. “I always wanted to do something different. I had pursued hotel management and could have been a manager. lekin kuch alag karna tha…jo padosi ne na kiya ho…dosto ne nahi kiya ho… (I wanted to do something different, something that was not done by my neighbours of friends). I was a brilliant student. My banker father was interested in food. Since my mother is a vegetarian, my father would only cook non-veg stuff at our home. Cooking was my brother’s hobby too,” he shares.