The smiling chef is busy. Life, for Kunal Kapur, happens when others are still making plans! Challenging the borders of normalcy, Kunal always comes out with something inspiring, like he did when he cooked up a meal for German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minister Narendra Modi when they came to Bengaluru for a summit — A Satvik meal!
“It was a purely Satvik meal, vegetarian unlike a German one that is mainly meat, so there was a funny moment, as Ms Merkel kept looking for the next course, probably waiting for the meat... which was, of course, not on the menu, and then when she had tasted it all, she looked up surprised and said, ‘I’m surprised, it’s not spicy at all, and I kinda like the food,’” chirps Kunal who will be in the city for a food camp of a different kind, one that takes off where curriculum stops, to give students a peak into what’s new in gastronomy, “My new initiative is to organise food camps. The workshop is open to IIHM students, and others. While curriculums at colleges are not outdated, it is not possible to change them every time something new comes along. Thus, the camp! We did Pune on January 12, and there’s Bangalore, Jaipur and Kolkata in February,” says Kunal.
While there is a sense of immense pride at the meals he stirred up for leaders, Kapur brushes it aside, “Cooking for Obama or Prime Minister Modi is inspiring. For my parents, it is a matter of great pride, as I come from a humble family — mom and dad are thrilled to see what I have done, they are proud, this matters more to me.”
In a pickle now, Kunal is scouring the country for his new book on Pickles of India, which also brought him close to forgotten ingredients, “I am travelling from state to state to document unique pickles and ingredients. Nagaland and Meghalaya has a lot of vegetarian pickles — one, a mixture of fermented leaves of mustard, mooli that are dug into pits to protect from winters, it increases its umami. In Darjeeling, there is Gundruk, an old Nepalese style pickle. The Khasi tribe’s pickled bamboo which the community wanted to ensure is not forgotten has been incorporated in a dance form which couples sing and dance to, it has the recipe, saved for posterity,” says Kunal who has also initiated the Pickle Tickle, a campaign to enable home cooks to add their unique recipes on his website.
Chancing upon a world of new ingredients which makes the chef extraordinaire chuffed, the excitable boy also encountered different types of honey, “There is a stingless bee in Nagaland from which a khatta meetha honey is made, which could make a great honey vinaigarette. There is a bitter honey as well,” says Kapur, who cooked a meal for the first ladies at the African summit and in his itinerant style, charmed the 42 leaders’ wives, “Many were curious about rolling a round roti! We did a demo on how to make a lachcha parantha,” smiles the travel and photography buff.
Energetic, inspired and committed to authenticity, Kapur does agree that food has become a some what overdone pastime, but quips, “Isn’t it better than watching some inane reality shows?” We tend to agree. Rising at 4 am to go to Tiger Hill, “Sunrise dekhne,” this chef who works with United Ways Charity and street vendors, and has won many accolades — the Sir Edmund Hillary Fellowship 2012 from New Zealand, is restoring the dying art of pickle-making, be it the “chuk amlo” a lemon grown on the hills, the juice of which when reduced, is akin to balsamic vinegar. In that itself, Kunal crosses a barrier to explore Indian ingredients that find their place on the world stage. If that’s not a thinking chef, we don’t know who is?
