Pablo Naranjo Agular and Saransh Goila take on their chef’s journey and discuss the challenges they faced in their profession. By Riya Sharma and Shrabasti Mallik
They are both chefs but they rule in their own kitchens. While one masters the French cuisine, the other has the Indian kitchen at his finger tips. Pablo Naranjo Agular, from Colombia has travelled across the world and insists that he does not pick up recipes but instead learns the technique of the cuisine of each new place. Saransh Goila, on the other hand, has toured the entire length and breadth of India, digging out lost recipes, traditional methods of cooking and learning about the cuisine of the place that he visited.
Recently, these two chefs came together to share the stories of their journey at the ongoing three-day creative festival The Coalition. We spoke to both of them who told us about their affinity towards food, the challenges they faced and what they have taken from their journey so far.
Agular lives to cook for people and his only satisfaction is to see everyone around him smiling for the food that he prepares. He doesn’t believe in feeding them, he believes in making them happy. A meal for him is about sharing. “I am a Colombian, my father comes from a very traditional Colombian family and mother from a very traditional Hungarian family. So I grew up with this very united family where I always had a meal at my grandmothers on Saturdays and with another grandmother on Sundays. And my first memory of the meal was with both my grandmothers in different families. We spent hours in the kitchen talking and sharing about everything and I was charmed with the feeling around the table. For me it is not about eating but about sharing how you feel and taste things. My dad made a lot of efforts when we were kids to have lunch with us. He used to go to work three hours before so that he could come back three hours earlier to have lunch with us — me, my mom, sister and him. I used to go to school which was quite far and used to take only a sandwich and by four o’ clock I used to sit with my family to have lunch together. So everything about sharing food is important to me. I am not cooking to feed you, I am cooking because I want you to enjoy food. I live for other’s happiness,” he chose to elaborate.
On the flip side, Goila likes to call himself a celebrity chef. So much so that he even took acting classes for the same. He believes that no matter how glamorous the job may look, a person must be so passionate about food that everything else becomes secondary. “There are a lot of young people here so the idea is to tell them that how a glamorous an industry may look, it is a lot of work and hours that you have to put in. “Though I am a chef mostly on television, I would like to tell people that it is not as glamorous as it may look. There are no festivals that you can celebrate and also you are underpaid. It is something you should pursue only if you are very passionate about food so that everything else becomes secondary. You have to completely be madly in love with the idea of cooking for others,” he pointed out.
But as we listened to their stories, we realised that both of the chefs love their job so much that they don’t mind walking that extra mile for it. So while Agular mentioned that the job is like enjoying pain to make other people happy, Goila told us that he was clear of what he wanted to become right from the start. “My first job was at The leela in Bangalore and that is the only job that I have done. I wanted to do TV as a chef. I knew I could write and talk and also understood Indian food and wanted to have a similar profile like Sanjeev Kapoor. A lot of people think that I was driven by fame but in my case, fame was secondary, I loved the camera. I loved acting and talking. You could be a popular chef working in the kitchen as well but the real question is what you like doing,” said Goila.
“It’s weird that I am describing that I enjoy suffering as there are times I wake up six in the morning, go to the market it is always like a race where you are running to get things done. It is always like a challenging experience,” added Agular.
Talking about the change that Indian cuisine is undergoing, Goila told us that in few years, the cuisine is certainly going to take over. “It is going to take over. People are happy having a taco in a thepla, they want to have butter chicken where the sauce comes separate from the chicken. Asian cuisine is already on a rise even lesser known countries want Indian food. So I thing Indian cuisine is going to take over very soon,” he wrapped up.