DOWN MEMORY LANE

For these individuals, every dish cooked is infused with personal experiences and peppered with wisdom and a lifetime of memories

- ARMAN KHAN

Food lingers. Rolls across generations. Triggers wistful memories. But how does a contemporary restaurateur go about recreating these memories, if at all such a recreation is even necessary? It is easy to be a purist in these hyper-aware times, convenient to rubbish recipes that do not adhere to certain traditional and set standards. More so, when a regional restaurant caters to the cosmopolitan crowd of our urban hubs, things can get lost in translation within days. And when Indian regional cuisines demand a separate elbow room of their own, the challenges are manifold – critics and patrons are filled with disdain, their verdicts unforgiving.

American environmentalist Winona LaDuke once said – “Food for us comes from our relatives, whether they have wings or fins or roots. Food has culture, history, story. It has relationships. It is more than something you just buy at the store, something that just doesn’t have a stamp on it.”

Is it reasonable, then, to judge food from the superficial yardstick of commercial digits and profits? But money needs to be made. In a pandemic world, the F&B industry is in dire straits – every penny counts, and the only language investors understand is the one where RoI numbers are on the upswing. In this light, wouldn’t it be something akin to magic if a golden balance is struck?

Homecoming Blues