For years, Subramani, his brothers and cousins had dreamt of leaving the country and working as chefs in places like America, Thailand or Malaysia.

None had ever cooked even for a roadside eatery. But in southern Tamil Nadu’s Chettinad region — famous for its cuisine with its unique blend of pastes and spices — even the men in many families not just cook regularly but take pride in their expertise and innovation.

Then, in 2018, Subramani and two others from the family saw their hopes dashed when their efforts to secure employment in the US fell through at the last moment. However, amid the gloom came the spark of a bright idea.

“We asked ourselves, why not make cookery videos on the splendorous variety of Chettinad cuisine and upload them on YouTube?” Subramani, who is in his 30s, told The Telegraph.

So began their rural start-up, the Village Cooking Channel, in early 2019, with the participation of cousins Subramani, Murugesan, Ayyanar, Muthumanickam and Tamilselvan— all in their 30s — and their 75-year-old grandfather Periyathambi.

The channel hit 1 crore subscribers last month to win YouTube’s “diamond play button” and left chief minister M.K. Stalin deeply moved on July 4 by donating Rs 10 lakh towards Covid relief.

No cookery group from south India has ever before notched a diamond play button, which YouTube awards to creators of channels that have over 1 crore subscribers.

Subramani credits the surge in subscribers to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who had in January-end this year featured as a guest in one of the group’s videos and participated in cooking “mushroom biryani”.

“Our channel averaged 10,000 viewers for months, but after Rahul Gandhi joined us it suddenly crossed 30,000 subscribers,” Subramani said.

The surge continued over the next five months, with the 1 crore mark attained by the third week of June. This despite the lessons being in Tamil, without English subtitles, and despite the pandemic having forced the group to cut down the number of videos from three to four a week to just one a week.

Grandfather Periyathambi, the main chef of the channel who has been cooking at home for over 50 years, said he felt deeply emotional when the silver-paper-wrapped designer suitcase from YouTube arrived from California in early July, bringing the diamond play button.

“If I can get this recognition at 75, all the credit goes to the viewers of our cookery videos the world over,” he said, voice choking.

“Heartiest congratulations to the Village Cooking Channel for their ever-expanding viewership,” Rahul wrote on his Facebook page on July 5, sharing a link to his interaction with them.

“I also congratulate them for the much appreciated gesture of making a significant donation to the Tamil Nadu Covid relief fund. Looking forward to seeing you all again someday.”

Meals for all

The channel’s videos provide recipes and cooking lessons, with the group’s six members filming themselves preparing various Chettinad dishes under the open sky. They sometimes cook entire multi-course meals in one session. So far, they have uploaded 172 videos.

While they mostly cooked in their village of Chinnaveeramangalam in Pudukkottai district, 420km from Chennai, in the pre-Covid days they often travelled to a different village to shoot their videos, the idea being to change the background visuals and avoid monotony.

If the village was nearby, they carried the large pots and other utensils, ingredients and firewood on their heads. If it was far off — they once travelled to Tuticorin, 200km away — they hired pick-up vehicles.

Whether in their village or elsewhere, the group — which focused on “bulk cooking” for a large number of people — distributed the food among local people and nearby orphanages and old-age homes.

The group cooks both vegetarian and meat dishes. It uses fish, crabs and snails from local streams besides eggs and mutton, Subramani said. During the group’s pre-Covid travels, “we went for lobsters in areas close to the sea”.

In keeping with tradition, they cook only over firewood and use stone grinders in preparing the pastes and powders.

The Covid outbreak, however, not just put a stop to their travels but wrecked the group’s overseas ambitions a second time just when its younger members were thinking of using the channel’s popularity to secure assignments at foreign hotels. But it turned into a blessing in disguise, thanks to Rahul.

The big break

Rahul had been campaigning in Karur in January-end for the April Tamil Nadu elections when the local Congress MP, Jothi Mani, suggested he meet Subramani’s group.

“I was so impressed by the group’s simplicity, enthusiasm and compassion that I mentioned this channel to Rahul Gandhi,” Jothi Mani told this newspaper.

“We thought of taking him to their village in Pudukkottai (172km from Karur) but as Rahul’s election tour had already been finalised, we brought the group for a cookery session to a village near Karur with great difficulty (because of the Covid restrictions).”

“I enjoyed the food; it’s excellent Tamil food,” Rahul is heard saying in the video. He promised to help the group get in touch with his “friend in the US” (Sam Pitroda) to see whether he could organise a cooking event for the channel at Chicago.

“That was how we could not only set up a new benchmark but earn more and contribute Rs 10 lakh to the chief minister’s Covid relief fund,” Subramani said. The group’s earnings come from YouTube advertisements.

After they met Stalin at the state secretariat in Chennai and handed over the cheque, the chief minister told reporters he was deeply impressed at such a small group donating so large a sum.

While Rahul’s backing helped, the channel’s fans believe the group owe their success to themselves.

“Your cooking is very clean; congratulations,” Sujatha, a homemaker, commented on a recent video showing “mutton liver biryani cooking”.

“I like one thing; they are helping poor people. I am proud of them,” wrote another YouTube watcher, Sravan Patel.

“You guys are great ambassadors of amazing India,” wrote a third while a fourth suggested they introduce English subtitles.

MPhil chef

Subramani’s family has 10 acres of farmland but the dry Chettinad climate means it lies fallow six months a year, which made it necessary for the young men to look for greener pastures elsewhere.

Subramani has a master’s and an MPhil in commerce but that he set his hopes on becoming an international chef rather than seeking a regular office job probably owes to the importance of cuisine to Chettinad’s culture.

Chettinad, which sprawls 1,550sqkm across the Sivaganga and Pudukkottai districts, is home to the Nagarathars or Chettiars, traditionally a community of bankers. It’s known mostly for its food and architecture.

While small Chettinad hotels and eateries are common in Tamil Nadu, its cuisine had hardly been explored outside, Subramani said.

“We are now looking at how to improve the quality of our videos,” he added.

Chettinad cuisine is essentially family-based, with the cooking skills passed down from one generation to another, said Sivakumar, who runs a Chettinad restaurant in Karaikudi town near Chinnaveeramangalam.

“What makes Chettinad food stand out is that apart from a lot of masala, we use lots of curd. No synthetic stuff is used,” he said.