Food and the Fundamentals of Storytelling

[Applause]

when i started off

um on on television or in the food media

you know people would watch food videos

for information

right recipes for information you’d

watch those food videos for information

and and and you would just take that

information back

cook that food and you’d say hey you

know what i cooked this today

and there were these packets of

information floating around you could

in today’s world you definitely can

choose your packet of information and

and just go for it i sort of believed in

the city i come from

food is not information at all you know

i come from the city of lucknow where

food is not

information in fact uh calling it a

recipe

or calling it at the face value calling

it out at the face value is actually

insulting food you know

uh you cannot have food without stories

you cannot have food without

a deeper connect you cannot cook food

without a deeper connect

and so i was initially i felt

like a misfit i felt like a uh

like you know um i always wanted to take

the long

way out in this world of short form

content where recipes would like finish

in a minute you know

i was trying to create stories

uh for 16 17 minutes

and and and the only thing that i had

was

belief in the power of storytelling

especially in context to cuisine

and i think that’s what came through and

and uh

today if you see uh uh the uh

the the limited success of my youtube

channel

you know you would realize that

uh you know we’ve broken uh the

three to five minute food video format

and stretched it to

17 18 minutes and that’s fortunately

happened across

uh other channels as well so i you know

we take great pride in sort of

allowing uh food to shine for longer

again i think the learnings typically

were uh

that you know for all of us uh food

once you treat it as an information you

know there’s really not much you can do

but once you treat it as

an inspiration once you treat it as

something that you can connect to

at a much deeper level once you treat it

as a medium that has

the power to touch move and inspire then

you realize that

because people can’t eat your food you

know the best way would have been to

for them to eat your food and the

touching moving inspiring would have

happened they would have just said

i’m gonna i’m gonna go cook it now how

do you create that connect

how do you create that connect uh to

your food and that happens through

storytelling

that happens through um

through getting people to go

inwards and find their own connect with

what you are

cooking because when uh

when they go out there the necessary

objective might not be

that they want to cook it the objective

might also be or the end result might

also be that they’d want to

go someplace and eat it which is just

fine you know or

they’d want somebody at their home to

make it which is also just fine

the objective is that conversations are

bigger are way way way bigger than

um than a few plates of food

right conversations last longer

than a few plates of food and especially

in our

uh context in the indian context when

we’ve

all gotten stories that have passed

down generation to generation just by

word of mouth

we uh you know

there’s no reason why we should not

believe in the power and the

perenniality

of storytelling in our country and uh

you know the funny thing is most of

these food stories have also passed down

a generation by generation by word of

mouth

and once you realize that that hey you

know the food will finish

i consume it it’s over what’s left is

conversation

right i was speaking uh with his

holiness

what uh was said uh struck me

you know um in india we we

eat everything thrives you know we wake

up in the morning and we

tell ourselves the story we we we create

an anticipation of what we’re going to

eat you know

you wake up in the morning and say today

i want to have you know

i want to have that paratha which is

cooked that way just like i had there

you’re telling yourself the story

building uh the anticipation

when you’re consuming that food then

you’re telling yourself the story that

you want to tell

because you just don’t eat right you

you also have to tell a story you also

have to have a conversation

around what you ate so and then

you tell your story again when you meet

friends in the evening saying you know

what

i had this amazing breakfast at this

amazing place and that is how we are and

that is how we are

as a culture we cannot isolate

food and storytelling because food is a

story

that we tell ourselves every moment you

know every meal

is three stories and that is what i

strongly believe in

in the content space or in the

television space and

um and that’s why i i believe

uh that that in in the food space

you know the unspoken the unsaid or as

they say the pauses

have more power than the projections

you know what you’re saying is powerful

but the pauses have more power

and that’s what we are trying to change

we are trying to create space for those

pauses because

that’s when it hits you that’s when you

go back that’s when you internalize

the basis of storytelling is curiosity

right we’re all we’re all curious

uh um curious human beings

or hum sub uh we are looking for stories

and gossip to sort of satisfy that

curiosity

it is what the stories do to us

you know that is is the beauty of it

do they touch move and inspire us or is

just

a fleeting thought that sort of passed

by

and for me i think it’s really really

important that we believe

that food is an art form we believe that

food is the only art form

which you can actually consume which

becomes a

part of you you know uh

every they say right we are

all made of food we are all just food

and that is why um if you’re having

a food and a connect with that food

whether it is a story you heard

somewhere

whether it is um a memory that is stuck

with it

or whether it is that moment that got

created for you

you’re also consuming that moment

and that moment then becomes a part of

your subconscious

forever you know food is the body and

food stories are are the subconscious

you know

and that’s how assimilation happens

that’s how

our growth happens and it’s not just

physical growth like i said it’s also

the subconscious growth so while food

gives us physical growth

the stories along with food they just

get stacked and give us that

subconscious subconscious growth as well

and i think that’s very important and

that’s what we’ve believed in

uh as as as a team and that’s what

um a lot of us chefs now believe in um

i you know when i was i’ll give you a

small example of when i was

learning you know i used to be extremely

extremely extremely frustrated because

learning is a slow process and

especially if you’re learning from those

old masters

they will treat you the old slow way

which can often be painful for

youngsters

and and i used to i used to

sort of get angry and upset and one day

um

one day munir star the the the

gentleman that i learned from he said

what happened

um i said yeah nothing i said okay i get

where you’re coming from

let me tell you a story and then he told

me a story of how

a cook came to the nawabs

palace and he said i have i will feed

you something after a year

but you to give me 365 gold coins

one gold coin every day and you have to

be

right here sitting under this so there

was a

uh there was a dead tree you know just a

stump

a dead tree in the courtyard he said you

have to sit

under this dead tree at uh three o’clock

exactly at three o’clock in the

afternoon and have what i will cook for

you

and the nawabs uh were curious

so uh they they decided to

he decided to give him uh a gold coin

every day

and after a year uh the cook

placed and

he placed that bowl under a tree the

same stump

and then uh what what uh

uh he waited for the nawab it was

way beyond the time that was agreed uh

the nawab came and the cook said

well don’t come here you’re late and he

threw the dal on to the

the dead tree the stump of the dead tree

then got really angry for two reasons

one

is you took a a year and one gold coin

every day

only uh to give me a dal

right and um

two how dare you throw it and

he he arrested the cook the cook was

rested

uh you know time time passed by and

after

seven odd months one of the one of the

servants came running to the nawab

saying the the dead tree is now blooming

and got really curious and he said uh

well well call the cook and the cook was

called

and the cook uh was asking what was in

that dal

uh that it took a year to make he said i

put the essence

the extract of 365 gold coins it had the

power of

um of gold and the rejuvenation

uh rejuvenating ability uh

and and and you just uh you know you

were late for it and

i and the tree sort of came to life

and then my uh my teacher looked at me

and he said well i don’t know what

you’re being impatient for if uh

if food can bring a dead tree to life

while you’re alive

you know have patience uh you you’ll

bloom too

and and that’s how um

that’s how i’ve learned cooking you know

i can never

i can never forget that and i can never

not say that story every time i get a

chance to speak about food and

storytelling

you know and again the moral of the

story was

was left open for you to take forward

but the important

part was that the moment got frozen in

time along with the food

you know and as storytellers about food

it’s very important for us to

to freeze that moment and not just the

recipe remember

um cooking is not technique you know

the technique that’s involved in cooking

it’s a 150 000 year old

technique which is basically the

application of heat to an ingredient

and the the ingredient sort of cooks

that is the only technique to food

application of heat to an ingredient is

called cooking you know

uh accidentally some meat probably fell

on fire it got cooked human beings ate

it

and they said well this is great so and

that’s how cooking happened and then

after that you know between the fire and

the ingredient we just kept changing

uh the materials you know we just put uh

an earthenware pot then we put a copper

pot and now we’re putting steel pots and

everything else

and that’s the only thing that has

changed that’s the only technique and

science behind cooking the application

of heat to an ingredient

beyond that cooking is pure

and pure art and art is

is a function of perception uh and

and and like i said the touch move and

inspire space

does not belong to technique it does not

belong to science it belongs to art

and that’s where um storytelling sort of

sits

right in it sits right in the center

of the belief that food is art

and food is meant to touch move and

inspire

it is not a functional um

skill that all of us need to have in

order to

not be hungry you know it’s very easy

light some fire put something on top

put put um anything to cook

the fire’s gonna cook it might not be

tasty but it’ll be nourishing

so that’s that’s where the sign sends

right beyond that is is is the beauty

of art the beauty of storytelling

remember we started by saying

the only art form that you actually

consume

the only art form that becomes a part of

you

and that and that is food

and that is why i always say

if you’re chasing a recipe

you know come watch a few of my videos

you will not get the recipe but you’ll

get a hook

to the recipe you’ll get a reason to

maybe cook that recipe look for that

recipe have somebody cook it for you

you will find a a connection to that

recipe

from within yourself which touches moves

and

inspires you and that

is is is the objective of food all of us

uh you know if you remember the maslow’s

theory of iraqi

all of us all of us in our journey of

life

self-actualize in a lot of spaces right

um food is one

aspect in that maslow’s theory of iraqi

which

actually travels through the entire

pyramid

you know and that i think

um that i think is the beauty of it but

if you choose to keep your relationship

with food

right at the bottom of just fulfilling

your physiological needs

then you know then you got to find that

connect and evolve that relationship

look for those stories that excite you

and even if you don’t look for those

stories that excite you at least make

sure

you’re telling yourself a story every

morning as to what you’re going to eat

about it

and then telling your friends the story

about what you ate

how you woke up and what you felt about

all of us all of us are storytellers

especially when it comes to food

because all of us

have the ability to be touched moved and

inspired

and when you do that you automatically

touch move and inspire others

this is my time thank you very much and

like i said food is not just

a recipe a recipe is just the beginning

of how you start connecting with

all the best