Chef to Presidents Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee, who brought Maharashtrian cuisine to Delhi power corridors, no more
Under Machindra Kasture, it was after nearly 250 years, when Marathas were ousted from Delhi, that simple Maharashtrian food was once again cooked in the highest citadels of power in the national capital.
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Machindra Kasture was the executive chef to former Presidents Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee Machindra Kasture, executive chef to former Presidents Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee, died Tuesday night of a heart attack. He was 60.
His body is being taken to Pune for cremation. Kasture is survived by his wife, Hemlata, a Marathi news reader, daughter Vedvanti, an assistant film director in Mumbai, and son Vaishnav, a management trainee with a leading hotel chain.
Under Kasture, it was after nearly 250 years, when Marathas were ousted from Delhi, that simple Maharashtrian food was once again cooked in the highest citadels of power in the national capital. Kasture was chosen by President Patil to serve her simple fare of amti and pooran poli and adhere to her strictly vegetarian diet.
Before that, each president would bring their own cooks to Rashtrapati Bhawan. Kasture was brought in on deputation from the Indian Tourism Development Corporation, where he was serving as the executive chef at The Ashok in New Delhi. Kasture modernised the President’s kitchen and brought in combi ovens, which could bake, cook and steam simultaneously and in big quantities. Patil used to take special interest in kitchen and in deciding recipes, leading Kasture to conjure up special dishes like anjeer kofte and dal Raisina, a variant of maa ki dal, using simple black salt. Kasture accompanied Patil on foreign trips and took care of her vegetarian palate.
Though he liked exotic food and loved his fish, especially hilsa from Bangladesh, President Mukherjee retained Kasture. The story goes that President Mukherjee returned from a trip to Sweden and demanded caviar. For Kasture, it was not easy to find it in Delhi, but he somehow did, and presented it at breakfast in three different dishes. President Mukherjee relished the caviar and said he would like to have it for a week as part of the lunch menu.
As a member of Le Club des Chefs des Chefs, representing India, he met President Barack Obama at the White House, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at the UN headquarters in 2013, and Queen Elizabeth II on a private visit to Buckingham Palace in 2014.
Kasture was the go-to person for Maharashtrian cuisine in Delhi. The annual Ganesh Chaturthi dinner for members at India International Centre (IIC) was done by him and organised by the Maharashtra Sanskritik ani Rannaniti Adhyayan Samiti along with IIC was a sellout each time. Every year would have a different theme. One year, it would be delicacies from royal kitchen of the Holkars of Indore; next it would be the turn of the Gaekwads of Baroda; the year after the Peshwas of Pune; followed by the Bhonsles of Nagpur and Scindias of Gwalior. During the pandemic, when it was not possible to have sit-down dinner, take away street food of Mumbai and Pune was served.
(The writer is the Convener of Maharashtra Sanskritik ani Rannaniti Adhyayan Samiti, Delhi)
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