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Reimagined Bengali cuisine

Any foodie in the house who loves Bengali cuisine? The answer, most likely, is yes! So, do Chingri Malaikari, Mutton…

Reimagined Bengali cuisine

Chef Priyam Chatterjee. (Photo: SNS)

Any foodie in the house who loves Bengali cuisine? The answer, most likely, is yes! So, do Chingri Malaikari, Mutton Kosha, Sorshe Ilish, Bhetki Paturi make you drool? Of course! Now rewind 200 years back.

The delicacies haven’t changed since. Our great grandfathers would relish on the same dishes that we do today. And silently, Biryani and Chicken Sauté walked into wedding menu and we didn’t even realise it. And that’s what enrages Priyam Chatterjee, Chef Patron and Director Restaurant at Qla in the Capital.

Talking at Qla’s open terrace, with a full view of the Qutub Minar, about the evolution of Bengali cuisine since Zamindari Raj of the Colonial Bengal, Chef Chatterjee said, “Has it (evolved)? It hardly has.

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That’s the problem. We are champions in what we do and we are master players on cuisine. But Bengali style of cuisine is a heritage cooking and not modern. Or let’s forget the word modern and focus on evolving. Are we evolved? Are we giving a fresh perspective to the cuisine? Are we making it exciting while keeping our roots authentic? I hardly doubt. We are the same old tape recorder.”

For the chef, who has worked with Jean Claude Fugier from France, Spanish chef Royo Matteo Grandi and the legendary Fauchon, Paris, Bengali cuisine will lose its glamour if we don’t get serious about evolution right now.

Talking about Partition and food habits, Chatterjee said, “The Partition didn’t really play a vital part. It just distinguished the two sections of vegetarian eaters (West Bengal) and core meat eater (Bangladesh) due to its Muslim population as well.

Both the areas were cooking their own distinct style of cooking for ages. Calcutta, being a metropolitan and the Capital, had tremendous western influences in the cooking style, while East Bengal stuck to serious roots and tradition.”

But what bothers the chef the most is inclusion of Biryani and not-very-Bengali food in most wedding menus of Bengal. “We have stopped eating our food!” he exclaimed. “Since when did biryani and pasta become my food? No! It’s not. Kids don’t eat the regional cuisine. It’s the senior generation that still keeps the fire going! Like this we won’t have anything left. The only way to keep this going and growing is making sure we keep the flavours intact but re-image and give the cuisine a perspective for the future ones to cling on to.”

So is fusion the way out? The chef differs. “Well you can’t call modernism fusion. That’s really not true! The idea is to dismantle and then rebuild. And for that we don’t really have to cook a paturi like a manchurian. No pretence business, please.”

If that’s enough of theoretical hypothesis, Chef Chatterjee recently organised Bengal Pop-up at Qla along with Prateek Arora, the talented Chief Wine Officer, to show the people how reimagined Bengali cuisine may look like.

The 11-course meal consisted of deconstructed Bengali dishes to make them unique. The Phuchka does look the same as traditional. However, the tamarind water has been dehydrated, giving it a cracker-like consistency.

So is the treatment with Shukto, where the gravy has been dehydrated. Other highlights of the meal included Daab Chingri that is served cold (like in the fridge) along with a prawn spray to enhance the flavour, Phena Bhaat with egg that has been given a risotto flavour to it and, not to forget, the deconstructed Luchi-Kosha Mangsho.

What is a Bengali meal without paan! And the chef did give that a twist, by adding cheese cake inside the betel leaf to make it succulent and sweet.

The meal was an absolute representation of how the chef wanted Bengali cuisine to be. On how to make Bengali cuisine undergo the postmodern transformation and make it a favourite amongst young people, the chef suggested, “By going deep and frogging emotions, nostalgia, working my way around memories through food and then blending in art and culinary technics.

Giving every single element of cuisine a story. Bringing about the rage and change in the cuisine that is cool, that is fresh, that has a story and that is absolutely flavourful.”

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