The Palate Fest showcases organic products which range from food and drinks to breakfast cereals and energy bars. Dieticians, health freaks and parents are making a beeline. Shrabasti Mallik reports
Nilufer N Dhondy finds it a tad difficult to cater to numerous customers flocking to her petit stall which claims ‘kitchens’ secrets’. Surrounded by tiny jars of guava jelly and white wine mustard, the lady probably in her 50s says, “Whatever you will find here are some of the best kept secrets of my family kitchen which I have inherited from the ancestors of my husband’s great grandmother.” The unique product that one will find at her stall is the white wine mustard which she says is, “made with cottage cheese, cream, garlic and herbs.”
Her little display has home-baked crispies, pari dhansak masala, sambhar masala and home-whipped liver pate to boast of. “I run my own little business from home and use no preservatives. But people can store the liver pate and the mustard in the refrigerator,” adds the Parsi lady. Nilufer is one of the 80 participants in the Palate Fest at Nehru Park. The first of its kind, this festival has roped in few of the big names from the hotel industry (The Park, The Oberoi), some of the well-known eat out joints in the NCR region (Fat lulu’s, The Hungry Monkey) and also small scale marketers like Nilufar. The biggest attraction of the fest is live demo classes from chefs belonging to the top restaurants.
Organic produce is the next big thing and with most stalls at the market section displaying an array of organic products. Visitors are showing genuine interest and the products are generating a lot of attention. Organic food, drinks, energy bars and even breakfast cereals are attracting dieticians, health freaks and concerned parents. Nourish Organic Foods perhaps has the widest range of organic products. “Every product of ours is manufactured with lots of fruits, nuts, seeds and seed mix,” says Rahul Prakash, COO. We saw a few youngsters sampling the company’s health bars. “This is the first time I am coming across health bars which come in three types — focus, relax and detox. I will try the focus bar and see if it helps in my studies,” says Shreya Saini, final year student of a city college. Rahul feels that the bar is expected to work because it has herbs like ashwagandha, brahma and tulsi among others.
It is not just food and health supplements that have turned organic. A few stalls ahead, Antidote is ready to serve coldpressed organic juices. Carol, co creator of Antidote, tells us about the coldpressed process, “It is basically a system in which we manufacture our juices without any intervention of light.” Two little bottles on the stall are titled as Skinny Down and Anti-Ageing and we find a few women polish down a few bottles. “The Skinny Down drink is made from good herbs and vegetables like ashwagandha, moriya, courgette, parsley and lemon. All our fruits and vegetables are locally sourced,” Carol adds. And since these drinks don’t have preservatives, they have a shelf life of only three days.
The more decorative and aromatic part of the fair is the area lined with food joints and restaurants from some of the city’s famous hotels. The aroma from the Kebab Factory and the whiff of the chicken shawarma grilling at Habibi is sure to render one clueless about what to eat. And not just food, restaurant owners have also taken great care in setting up their stalls in a way, befitting the cuisine they serve.
One will come across a vibrant outlet of Fat lulu’s with bright and bold colours, which perhaps accounts for the largest number of customers that are visible there. Habibi on the other hand has set up a few cabanas to lend the Arabian setting to their stall along with embroidered and embellished curtains. While all the restaurants have a canopy covering overhead, Amour from Town Hall has decided to keep it natural. Underdoggs has brought their beer kegs shaped in the form of a soccer ball and a baseball helmet which is attracting a good number of foreign customers.
The Palate festival is not just restricted to food. There are Segway — iRIDEs, play areas for kids, benches for people to sit and eat and also musical performances lined up till tomorrow.
photos Sanjeev Kumar