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Journalism of Courage
He is as unlikely a cookbook author as fashion and food are likely to be bedfellows. And yet for Sumeet Nair, the Stanford alumnus whose brainchild is the Fashion Design Council of India, food is everything. Nair, along with co-authors Meenakshi Meyyappan and Jill Donenfeld, launched The Bangala Table: Flavors and Recipes from the Chettinad, a book that celebrates the cuisine of the Chettiar community of Tamil Nadu. The launch, a sit-down feast of 18 dishes on a banana leaf for just 200 guests, took place at New Delhi’s Park Hotel, on August 26. The foreword has been written by noted New York Times journalist Guy Trebay.
“Yes, food had been the centre of my existence,” the 47-year-old tells us over the phone, while working on the finer details of the impending dinner. “Both my parents were avid cooks. My father would come home from work and get into the kitchen to whip up something with his suit on.” The Nair household is now a farmhouse in Chattarpur, Delhi, where they grow their own organic wheat, vegetables, fruit, herbs and have cattle that provide compost.
The Punjab-raised and Delhi-based man has an atypical story that introduced him to Chettinad cuisine. “My friends Priya Paul and her husband Sethu Vaidyanathan suggested we spend New Year’s Eve in Tamil Nadu instead of Goa one year. They drew up an itinerary that included their boutique hotel, The Bangala. I had travelled the world but I had never eaten food like this before,” he says.
Chettinad food is among the spiciest cuisines in the world. The Chettiars are a community of rich bankers who moved with the British from Burma and Malaysia to Tamil Nadu. In south India, it is said one is lucky to eat like a Chettiar, so grand are their banquets. Their homes are majestic mansions, with Burma teak pillars, Italian marble floors and art deco influences.
Nair says it took him six months to persuade the family to document their food and another three years to produce it. Up next are more cookbooks, he says, but all in good time.
mumbai.newsline@expressindia.com
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