A chocolate creation by Fantasie
The Culinary Chroniclers Conclave offered a platform for influencers in the food space to come together
When Vikhroli Cucina hosted The Culinary Chroniclers Conclave at Godrej One, Vikhroli, it brought together chefs, food bloggers, cookbook authors and other experts for some truly fascinating conversations and master classes. Who would imagine that in this age of Youtube cooking videos and thousands of recipe blogs, there would be 4,000 cookbooks published here annually, as one of the speakers observed? And did people really need a special master class on, say, how to photograph a chicken curry?
Food writer, gastronome and consultant Rushina Munshaw-Ghildiyal’s inaugural chapter of The Culinary Chroniclers Conclave, however, turned out to have quite a few enthusiasts who were interested in the art and craft of documenting and chronicling food. As experts such as Ankiet Gulabani, Antoine Lewis, Marryam H Reshii, Dr. Mohsina Mukadam, Ruchi Shrivastava and Saee Koranne-Khandekar, among several others, got together, they discussed cultural aspects, the quality of cookbook production, and the development of food over the decades, among other things.
There were also some fascinating exhibits to do with food, such as Layers of a Tiffin by Sonal Ved and Shirali Tyabji and an eye-catching installation, Story of Chocolate by Zeba Kohli, who also generously laid out her Fantasie chocolates for sampling.
The conclave ended with a felicitation ceremony to honour outstanding contributions in the fields of food art, literature, media and photography. Jiggs Kalra was unanimously voted a Living Legend for pioneering contributions in food literature and media while the Sarawat Mahila Samaj’s initiative for collecting and publishing their iconic community cookbook Rasachandrika was voted as a Legendary Initiative.
Celebrity chef Ranveer Brar and Zeba Kohli
Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal, founder and Managing Director of A Perfect Bite Consulting, who conceived and designed the conclave said, “Food has always played an important role in all our lives. And there have always been people, who have taken it upon themselves to record the diverse facets of food consumption, using whatever mediums are available to them at the time. Their chronicles about what their people eat, when they eat, how they eat, and where they eat, become important windows to understanding their cultures, and sometimes through that, to our very own. I conceived the Culinary Chroniclers Conclave as a common platform for all our modern chroniclers from various disciplines to connect with one another, share divergent perspectives and hopefully weave a wonderful new narrative around food.”
Sujit Patil, Vice President and Head – Corporate Brand and Communications, Godrej Industries Limited and Associate Companies added: “Vikhroli Cucina is an initiative by Godrej to create an ecosystem where key influencers in the food space engage with each other, cross-pollinate ideas and discuss trends for the betterment of the industry.”