The hand that feeds

When you sit to eat a mealmdashbe it in the comfort of your home at a fancy finedine or a chaat thela on the streetmdashtaste is all that mattersBut does it A recent online discussion titled Festivals beyond the plate Conversation on food in the arts by Mumbai British Council and Arts and Culture Resources India in collaboration with Serendipity Arts Festival is goading us to look beyond tastebuds The approach is to see how food can be used in the art space to communicate a visionA traditional coastal meal comprising rice fish and spiced coconut curryPanel moderator Elizabeth Yorke cofounder of Edible Issues a group that promotes dialogue about Indiarsquos food system says the objective of the panel was to view foodrsquos power in a completely different light ldquoFood in the festival space has largely been transactional You cook buy taste and maybe learn about a new food culture But there is so much more to food There is an array of forces that affect how we eatmdashagriculture human labour environmental sustainability politics trade ethics policy culture business and one element of food taste or in thought can be an excellent vehicle for having these discussionsrdquo says YorkeAruna Ganesh Ram is an immersive theatre creator who runs Visual Respiration Her work revolves around engaging the audiencersquos senses Shedding light on two of her works Stand On The Street and Memory Recipe at the panel she says ldquoImmersive theatre is about looking at art as a sensory experience that engages all the sensesmdashtouch taste sight smell and soundmdashof an audience The same logic applied to foodrdquo she says adding that it is also a communal experience ldquoItrsquos about the hand that prepares hand that serves and hand that eats Food narrative also revolves around nostalgia and memory Eating itself is a performancemdashsharing sitting across a table and making eye contact One way to approach food is to see how it is made and the ingredients that go into it The other is to look at the stories of the people who make this food This has been my engagement approachrdquo Ram explainsStand On The Street a theatre performance by Aruna Ganesh Ram The artists wore commedia dellrsquoarte masks to tell the storyFor her work Stand On The Street which was commissioned by chef Manu Chandra for Serendipity Arts Festival in 2019 looked at street food of India and what goes into making it ldquoFor example if there is a litti chokha maker in Bihar what is the struggle of the vendor what is the politics he is exposed to In Kolkata how does a vendor prepare the jhalmuri or the chickpea snack sundal in Chennairdquo Ram creates the set to support the narrative using signages in various languages and sounds of the streets Actors don commedia dellrsquoarte masks to serve the food tell the stories and perform the act The idea is make the audience take a pause and reflect on the story rather than treat a plate of food as a transactionOne of the panellists is creative producer and entrepreneur Virkein Dhar In 2019 Dhar founder of a genreagnostic creative studio Poppy Seed Lab produced an immersive performance titled Table Radica a biographical narrative of Habib Tanvir a stalwart of Modern Indian Theatre with an audience of 30 people seated across a long table ldquoAs you listened to his Habib story parts of his life came alive with archival photographs and documents being passed around the table original music from his plays forming the background and a sevencourse tasting menu The food was inspired by moments of his life that were either documented or creatively interpreted and was utilised as a tool to immerse the audience into the storyrdquo says DharIn 2019 Virkein Dhar founder of a genreagnostic creative studio Poppy Seed Lab produced an immersive performance titled Table Radica a biographical narrative of Habib Tanvir a stalwart of Modern Indian Theatre with an audience of 30 people seated across a long tableWith the lockdown the delight of sharing an intimate table with strangers was no longer as welcoming and audiences could not come to a performance such as this ldquoWhen I started thinking about how we could be in peoplersquos homes instead we began thinking about a format of a show in a box While experimenting with this idea I realised that food in itself was a strong tool that allowed me to tell the stories I wanted to tellmdashof food places people and cultures that define India And if I could get an audience to engage with food in a way that was beyond consumption but also the process of making the impact of the stories would be similar to the intention of the performance formatrdquoShe launched Sundooq in February this year which offers readytocook recipe mixes inspired by regional Indian cuisines The mixes are preproportioned in packs that include everything except the fresh produce and oil which allow you to recreate otherwise complex dishes that take experience and expertise to make ldquoFor me Sundooq is a platform to share stories and food of the many different worlds that make up what we call Indiardquo says DharElizabeth Yorke and Aruna Ganesh RamThe Sundooq recipes are not the popular ones you see often on supermarket shelves or restaurants These are unique to communities and are often considered family heirlooms Each mix is accompanied by a recipe card which apart from simple instructions also takes the maker on a journey of where it comes from and its significance ldquoWe want to push the boundaries of cultural stereotypes by bringing the food of communities often hidden from each other to experience flavours outside their own What happens when a dish like the Dohneiiong a black sesame curry with pork ubiquitous to the Khasi tribe in Meghalaya is made with potatoes by a young boy in Mumbai In the experience of making and eating can we build a certain curiosity and tolerance for the otherrdquoDhar believes that regional food holds the key to building sustainable food futures in India and hopes to be the bridge between culture and business rooted in our inherent diversity and that upholds the values of camaraderie and careThe question then is how do we make these experiences more accessible Prahlad Sukhtankar managing partner at Goabased restaurant Black Sheep Bistro says festivals and art festivals are not necessarily ldquomassyrdquo He has always believed that the restaurant or hotel has the responsibility of owning the tale ldquoWe have access to a larger number of people We like to present the story of food as a craft not as an art form where you practise your profession on a regular basis Then at some time it transforms into art We want to tell the story of how the craft came to beThe strategy has been to start the dialogue and then let the chips fall where they mayrdquo says SukhtankarThe team at the restaurant has done it by concentrating on components and creating a story in a very minimal way ldquoIf we know there is an ingredient that is highly sustainable and cultivated properly we silently introduce it on the menu without much fanfare Usually a restaurant would ask the farmer to grow more of it and the entire process falls flat on its face and becomes unsustainable This puts strain on the environment to grow that ingredient We take a different approach For example we follow the seasonal cycle for our seafood In November we highlight seasonal fish Mahi Mahi on our menu then once its season ends we move to rainbow runner which is similar to Hawaiian salmon We also offer sustainable beach shark We donrsquot do crabs in off season eitherrdquo explains SukhtankarLast year they collaborated with OOO Farms who connected them to the tribal belt of Sahyadri valley ldquoThey assisted us in connecting with the tribal community We worked with local ingredients such as ancient grains and other relics They also duplicated all of their cultural delicacies exactly as the tribe would prepare them on a tuna can not on gas As a result a discussion about where the ingredients come from how they are lost to future generations and other issues of equity aroserdquo says SukhtankarThe interest in knowing where our food comes propelled Yorke to create a conversation around it ldquoWersquove seen a lot of focus on who feeds us and how to prevent food waste So in this way wersquore hoping that this conversation will serve as an intriguing stepping stone to see what might come next when we move food out of the digital realm and place it in various festival locationsrdquo