Authenticity, local flavours have taken a front seat: Sanjeev Kapoor

Traditional authentic food, local flavours, healthy ingredients and responsible living is trending today, says celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor.

On his visit to Lucknow, he says, “Out of need, compulsion and behavioural change, I see a lot of good happening in the food world, which, in the larger picture, is going towards our roots and tradition.”

Connecting food with buzz-words eco-friendly and sustainability, he says, “Definitely, authenticity and local flavour has taken a front seat. I have noticed that buyers are supporting small food businesses that are struggling due to the pandemic and are ordering from them directly so they can save on the food aggregator’s delivery commission. Today, this is a need of the business but actually it’s the people who are driving this responsible living trend.”

Kapoor is elated to see behavioural changes like doing away with plastic packaging, ordering or pick-up directly and supporting local food.

“Since the pandemic, healthy food has gotten a big boost. Our basic foods have become superfoods and people have started consuming millets (coarse grains), oats, seeds, seasonal fruits and vegetables much more than ever before. It’s slow but people have at least started discussing and advocating it. I was happy to see raagi and maize laddu served to us in our hotel room instead of cookies! These ‘out of home’ trends, which are created by chefs, when they trend online, come into our homes and become a part of our daily life.”

On the trend of fusion food, he says that earlier it used to be an international thing but now is being Indianised as well. “Fusion food is happening within Indian food. For example: rolling thepla in cone style and stuffing with prawns or you make a biryani but in butter chicken flavour! These too are fusion but within our own Indian dishes. Someday, these fusion dishes will eventually become original dishes.”

For the festive season he says, “We have lost many things to this pandemic, so we can at least try and save our parampara (tradition). Like namaskar is back, thanks to the Coronavirus, so, we must try to go back to our traditions as much as we can and celebrate delicacies that our oldest living member used to make in their young days — one at a time and recreate them in a traditional way.”