Over the course of the pandemic, cooking has emerged as a trend where gourmet meals made a debut in many Indian kitchens. Cooking seemed like one of the favourite pastimes for many during the lockdown. There was a flurry of posts on social media of homemade delicacies. Dishes like Zingy parcel, tart, ravioli, tiramisu were flooded on social media.
The 90’s Gourmet trend
The only gourmet food 90s kids had was sausages; not many options were available at that point in time. Cheese meant only Amul Cheese and fruits meant mango, apple and banana. But now, fast forward to 2021, we have a list of varieties available for a single item. Going to a pantry and selecting wines, cheese, olives, meats and fruits can be a big task now, as you have a lot of options according to your taste and dish.
During the lockdown, when restaurants were shut, food lovers found a secondary means to satisfy their craving for gourmet food which is usually only available at high-end restaurants. People took up the challenge and prepared gourmet food in their own kitchens. What came in handy to the in house Masterchefs are the youtube recipes and cook books.
“We make masala chicken every day. There is nothing new about it. But if I say I am making Vietnamese lemongrass chicken, it is definitely. I had seen the recipe on YouTube. It required ingredients like fish sauce which I couldn’t find in my area so eventually I had to make it at home during the lockdown. My followers were elated with the dish and were asking the recipe”, said Anshika, a 22-year food blogger.
The Hustle for the Perfect Ingredients
Before lockdown, most of us didn’t even have an idea of gourmet meals that could be easily prepared at home. For desi parents, a gourmet meal is chapatis with shahi paneer. But for those who are highly influenced by MasterChef USA, MasterChef Canada and MasterChef Australia tried to recreate the dishes they watched on TV.
But the ingredients are not easily available. From filled fishes to sauces like Tabasco, Worcestershire, Hoisin, Romesco sauces, so difficult to pronounce and more difficult to find in the market. Meanwhile, a few grocery apps rose in demand due to the availability of gourmet food ingredients.
Will the love for homemade Gourmet last?
To cook gourmet food at home, videos are available all over the internet from how to boil water to how to make a mezze platter. A Google India report showed that overall recipe-related searches grew by 20 per cent on YouTube in the past few months. But will this sudden craving for a gourmet meal continue? Food bloggers believe that people are now going for Italian, Lebanese, Chinese, Thai restaurants rather than going to an Indian restaurant. So when the lockdown was imposed, food lovers ran out of options to eat a gourmet meal, so they created their own cuisine at home. Japanese and Korean stores came to light during the lockdown. Japanese sausages, Asian herbs and Pickles became an instant hit. Peri-Peri is now being used in everything like peri-peri fries. People got accustomed to global cuisine. But is it a genuine interest in experimenting with the cuisine? or just a trend that people will be bored of after some time?