WHAT’S CHANGING Even as we speak, the days of finger-licking home-cooked thalis , eaten on the floor of grandma’s kitchen with extra dollops of ghee in every conceivable katori are fast becoming a novelty, or an indulgence restricted to the holidays.
* It’s all available: Precooked, just-add-water, take-aways and mircowaveable food packs and restaurant delis, are mushrooming across the metros. While semi-processed and processed foods were at one time a novelty, according to an online survey by investment researchers indiainfoline.com, these are increasingly becoming the norm.
* No guilty conscience: While the masses still adhere to the principle that processed food is bad for health, or eating out makes you feel bloated and unhealthy, an increasingly mobile urban crowd is beginning to believe in their own tastebuds — and we’re not talking just yuppies here. You only just need to walk into a Delhi resto-pub to see hoards of once homebound homemakers dining totally guilt-free with their families or friends.
* Increased hygiene and health consciousness: Attribute this to the hospitality industry’s urgency to deal with matters concerning hygiene and health. ‘Low-fat’ is a tiny sticker on a packet that many are willing to pay a premium for.
* More money: Yes, yes the economy is bad, the recession looms and the gloom hangs in the air, but more and more people are dealing with it by treating themselves to a fine meal out, as a way to relieve their stress. Recent studies say, people are ordering food upto a breathtaking four times a week!
* New avenues: Earlier, if dad didn’t really take the whole family out every fortnight, it was probably because his choices were limited to the Taj, or that hole in the wall way beyond where moms weren’t fit to be seen! Now, one only has to pick up a newspaper to find the food festivals of the fortnight, the new joint round the corner or the wonderful new concept eatery everyone is talking about. Add to that microwave ovens, hot plates, OTGs and barbecue options!
BEING DIFFERENT In an interview with the American R & I Magazine , chef Floyd Cardoz, formerly of the Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai, who recently launched the inspired and happening Tabla in New York, said in reference to his penchant for fusing flavours and trends in cuisine, “One of the chefs at home told me I was crazy, that it would never work.”
Today Indian pizza, Indo-Chinese cuisine and American-Japanese cooking are flying off the shelves at convenience food stores and in restaurants. Mussels steamed with white wine and curry leaves, charred rare beef with chickpeas and mint in Cardoz’s kitchen are creating waves, where in a different age and time, they would have evoked more than just a shudder on a confirmed gourmet’s palate.
THE NEW PALATE With traditional kormas and parathas off the average dinner table, heavy stews and four-to-seven course meals are almost a misnomer now, so what’s the new palate like? You’d be surprised — while most would assume that the taste for the new and the exciting conjures up the image of a ravenous gourmand, the reality is that the foodies are a generation turning away from the fats, the fanciful and the frills.
The palate is veering towards the simple and the elegantly-garnished, with distinct tastes and bold new flavours as opposed to the bland preparation smothered in a sinful, piquant sauce.
This is one of the main reasons why Indian food, with its 21 spices and all their combinations in various masalas are wowed the world over. The sheer ability to rearrange the flavours and come up with exciting new options, all equally refreshing to the tongue, is their USP.
* Bold flavours: If you’ve travelled to at least two different continents in the past year-and-a-half, so have your taste buds. A day will come when you’re relaxing and longing for the clay pot duck in black sauce you savoured in Hong Kong on that blissful vacation last year. And chances are, you’ll get up and make it, or find a restaurant that will serve it up.
* Cross-culturalism: Ethnicity rules. India is hot ( Balti chicken in London, anyone?), not only because we’re the most amicably mixable, but because, frankly, we’re everywhere! And as the pizza and the neighbourhood Italian was to the average American, Indians and Pakis are to the Brits, Japs are to the Ozzies, Algerians are to the French, and so on.
Photographs: Shashi Nair
All in the family