International Chef's Day

It is interesting how cookery shows have evolved in India. One of the first path breaking cookery shows that I remember was Khana Khazana where the suave Sanjeev Kapoor confidently presented fancy recipes in his posh kitchen. Be it restaurant-ka-khana type of Indian recipes or exotic dishes with fancy ingredients, all his recipes were equally interesting. His poise, knife skills, fancy tools and the way he tossed things in his frypan contrasted sharply with his Punjabi Hindi and his ability to connect with the most ordinary Indian. That was probably the secret of his success. A chef had made a grand entry from a star rated restaurant into a household!

Other chefs followed suit; some came from culinary schools, some came from contests that adjudged them chefs, and within a decade there were many “celebrity chefs”. In the initial few years after Khana Khajana, cookery shows were largely similar- a chef with a very impressive screen presence, a carefully crafted-for-the-camera kitchen set up, and a scripted show that went in the set order of ingredients, method and recap. The shows must have raked in good TRPs. But what proportion of those recipes made to real kitchens and real meals is something that I have always wondered.

Youtube brought in a new crop of chefs - cooks who cooked thrice a day inside their homes for their families, but never had the credentials to call themselves chefs. They had worn out kitchens, greasy kadhais that they reused for all their recipes, normal tools, and ordinary looking skills. Nisha Madhulika, one of the earliest on this scene, I believe, was hugely successful with her down to earth approach to cooking. Interestingly the content of these shows was exceptionally unoriginal but the audiences loved these as much as they loved the celebrity chef shows! Clearly there was as much demand for the “Gawar phali ki Sabzi” as was for “Restaurant style Paneer Butter Masala”. It goes without saying that these traditional and necessary recipes must have reached thousands of real kitchens! However, the format of these shows was still the same - ingredients, method, recap!

Around 2016 Hebbar’s kitchen and the like brought about a revolution of sorts. Bite sized videos customised for decreasing attention spans started appearing on social media. Videos befitting an increasingly time-constrained modern Indian kitchen started entering newsfeeds and grabbing attention. The cluttered cooking space on cookery shows that used to be strewn with a multitude of bowls, pans, tools, décor, and a human who talked incessantly, was reduced to two hands, an induction plate, a pan/kadhai and one tool at a time - a whisk or a spatula or a rolling pin! A discreet piece of music in the background, captions where required, and super crisp editing gave all the information that was necessary but nothing more. Ah! Minimalism! There was a huge psychological shift and cooking suddenly seemed absolutely doable to anyone!

And then came another such crop of cookery shows - with the efficiency of the bite-sized shows, the flamboyance of celebrity chefs in the decor and presentation, relatable and often very ordinary recipes like the YouTube shows, but with camera work and visuals that gave the viewers a glimpse of textures and colours of food in a way that had never happened before! Food became more important than chefs!

Cookery shows – a no-commitment entertainment! Wonder how many people watch them for learning recipes and how many for the sheer experience they accord! There would be hardly anybody who doesn’t watch them – regardless of whether there’s any intention of cooking!