On a summer evening in Kolkata, a few strangers — all food enthusiasts — met at a south Kolkata cafe to celebrate the second birthday of their favourite food community. As The Locavore turned two, a pan-India birthday potluck was held in seven cities on April 7. In Kolkata, the event was held at Hindustan Park’s Sienna Cafe and Store, led by their sous chef Ankita Gupta Dujari, who is also a part of The Locavore community as a Super Locavore.
Spearheaded by Chef Thomas Zacharias, formerly of Mumbai’s The Bombay Canteen, The Locavore is a community centred around conversations about food. It promotes hyperlocal ingredients, local food culture and indigenous communities of India, through events, programmes and projects across the country.
All guests came with a dish of their own featuring local ingridients and their own culinary story
The potluck at Sienna featured boxes of delicious and introspective conversations, which flowed once the ice was broken. My Kolkata joined chefs, home chefs and foodies for the chat.
Talking food and eating local
Food enthusiasts got together at the potluck with their own creations that represented their culture or featured local ingredients. Before the feasting began, the group engaged in two interactive sessions.
For the first ice-breaker round, guests sat in pairs and every pair had to ask each other a question provided to them on topics of food, travel, culture etc. The second session was also a Q ‘n’ A round, but this time it was open to the room, and anyone could ask a question to anyone else in the room.
Sienna’s co-head chef (right) Koyal Roy Nandy spoke about how eating seasonal product also has an emotional component
Answering a question on whether sustainable eating was affordable, home chef Swati Bhaduri said, “If you are consuming local and seasonal produce, it is always affordable as the prices are high for vegetables that aren’t in season and not grown locally. Also they are fresh and healthier.”
Sienna’s co-head chef Koyel Roy Nandy added an interesting perspective to the sustainable and seasonal eating conversation, highlighting the “emotional” connect we have with seasonal produce. “Even though things are now available all year round, there is an excitement attached to seasonal vegetables and fruits. Like you wait for the winters to relish certain vegetables like cauliflower and carrots.”
Among the guests was (left) Chef Shashvat Dhandhania of Kolkata’s To Die For
By the end of the two conversational activities, everyone in the room had opened up and conversation shaped up naturally, ranging across topics from sourcing of food, Bengalis’ favourite hilsa, dietary preferences and more personal stories like inherited kitchen tools — the sil nora for most. Participants shared their culture, tales from their travels, their quirky food memories and a lot more.
One of the standout moments of the evening came a little later, when everyone waited for Iftar time before digging into any of the food, since special guest Manzilat Fatima (of Manzilat’s) was fasting for Ramzan. And the feast included her special biryani.
Mazilat Fatima (right) engages in conversation at the event
Flavours and stories
Each participant had turned up with a dish that became a box of stories. Inspired by The Locavore’s Millet Revival Project, many of the dishes featured the millets.
Sayani Sengupta, owner of a venue catering business under the name Gooseberri, and also a team lead for The Locavore volunteer chefs, whipped up a soft pork pitha made using foxtail millet flour. The well-balanced spices were the winning element of this meaty treat. To go with it, she made a tangy raw chutney with mango, chilli, mango-ginger and proso millet (cheena or barri).
Pork pitha by Sayani Sengupta
Next was another pitha by homechef Swati Bhaduri, who explained her dish as Pitha Paturi, which was made with jowar flour and sweet potatoes. Crispy on the outside and mushy and sweet on the inside, this pitha reminded one of Sankranti in April. She also had a foxtail millet pantheras with a filling of mutton.
Jowar and sweet potato pitha by Swati Bhaduri
Yet another millet dish inspired by The Locavore’s Millet Revival Project was an upma made with barnyard millet, known as Shyama chaal in Bengali. Suganya, who is an architect, represented her Chennai roots with this light and mildly spiced dish.
Barnyard millet upma by Suganya
Entrepreneur and foodie Kunal Mandal’s Ghugnir cutlet brought some Bengali flavours to the table. Made with love by his mother, these crumb-coated crispy discs packed a punch of spices in the filling made with chickpeas.
Ghugni Cutlet by Kunal Mandal
Agneev Das, a young aspiring chef waiting to join work, presented the quintessential Bengali shinni, a kind of prasad offered during Satyanarayan Puja. While shinni is usually made with flour, this one was made with foxtail millet and its perfectly balanced sweetness made people go back for seconds.
Foxtail millet shinni by Agneev Das
Chef Shashvat Dhandhania of Kolkata’s To Die For had a unique spread of papads. A platter of Papad Churha, Papad Paratha and regular roasted papads were served with different pickles. The Papad Paratha was the star, with a filling that celebrated Indian spices.
Papad platter by Shashvat Dhandhania
Abhishek Choudhury, co-founder of Earth Story Farm, was there with two tantalising sweet pickles from their collections — the kuler achaar and gur-er mishti aam achaar. The taste and aroma of the pickles were deliciously comforting, reminding one of grandmother's pickles!
The Kooler Achaar and Gur-er Mishti Aam by Earth Story Farm
The celebrations continue
The second anniversary celebrations kickstarted the series of The Locavore events yet to come. The Locavore volunteers in the city will be arranging a get-together every month at different locations led by a volunteer. Super Locavore Ankita Gupta Dujari, who hosted the potluck, handed over the baton to chef Shashvat Dhandhania at the end of the event.
Super Locavore and Sienna sous chef Ankita Gupta Dujari mentioned that she admires how The Locavore is bringing together food communities from all ove
Speaking on the sidelines of the birthday potluck, Ankita said, “Celebrating The Locavore's second birthday potluck at Sienna was very special for us and we admire the way in which Chef Zac is bringing together food communities from all over. I’ve admired every bit of his work since my days at the university and then finally got an opportunity to intern at his restaurant a couple of years back. To be a part of The Locavore team as a Super Locavore from Kolkata was a great opportunity.”
