Victual World

The food is usually community specific: there are special sites for Tamilians,Malayali vegetarians,Maharashtrians,Kashmiris and Telugu speakers— even Anglo Indian food. Of course it’s all written in English. The trend has caught on with housewives,grandmothers and a scattered few male householders who do not mind discussing food over bikes.

Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal,a gastronomy writer and content consultant,believes that things became easier with the advent of the weblog. “A blog is an online dairy and everyone as likes to talk of their specialties online. It’s popular among housewives and is an outlet for expression as it takes away the drudgery of cooking three meals a day,” says Ghidiyal whose blog,a-perfect-bite.blogspot.com,has been awarded the most successful blog by ABC Australia. Ammini Ramachandran’s peppertrail.com is a treatise on vegetarian food from Kerala. It has even been published as a book.

Foodies like Nupur Mitter,whose blog nehotstove.blogspot.com is considered an authority on Maharashtrian cooking even though she lives in Missouri,USA. validate both viewpoints. “This blog is a chronicle of my adventures in home cooking. It features my ongoing fascination with Indian regional food,as well as little tastes of new flavours from around the world,” writes the blogster.

On a more low-key note,Sanghi a foodie who believes in sharing her gastronomic tips,started her blog sanghi-tastybites.blogspot.com,because of her husband. “I have a great passion towards cooking and towards people. I love to cook new dishes to surprise and please my husband. Hence I landed here to present my experience and learn new dishes from you,” says the enthusiast whose blog has links to a whole network of savvy housewives. From Aparna who shares pomegranate remedies to Rekha who loved Sanghi’s crispy potato recipe,the ladies who lunch are busy putting their kitchen online.

The online phenomenon is not reserved only for super moms. An 80-year-old epicure,Indira Ramachandran has her own site for avva’s (granny) recipes at sarasv.com.

The matriarch lives in Chennai, with six children,nine grandchildren and four great grandchildren. She has no dearth of techies to help her update her website. Avva advises to use less turmeric in South Indian dishes as opposed to food from the North. Bridget Kumar rules the roost with her Anglo-Indian food blog called Eat and Dust.

Ghildiyal is spicing things up with a recipe contest. “We are having an Indian-Italian fusion that involves experimenting where I feel the most interesting recipes evolve,” says Ghildiyal who has tried kheema pasta. The winner takes home hampers by Nature’s Basket and the bloggers will crack open a bottle of wine.