What does a ‘dhokla’ which has undergone a Michelin-style makeover look like? We don’t know yet, but the Indian diaspora across the world has their keen eyes trained on Modi’s planned dinner for September 24, which is today, at the Waldorf Astoria in the US hosted for CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Business and the promise of FDI aside, interests run high in this dinner to see what kind of fare will be served on a table presided by a vegetarian, Gujarati food-loving Prime Minister with guests whose only knowledge of Indian food may be limited to butter chicken and naan.
Michelin-star chef Vikas Khanna has been chosen as the man for the job, reports the Times of India. Khanna, who owns the award-winning restaurant, Junoon, in New York, has been labouring over a seven-course meal for a month and will be presenting a range of dishes themed on the festivals of India. Among the dishes on the menu are sevaiyan cakes and rolls inspired by the Jama Masjid, coconut chutney mousse, pongal and bisi bele bath served as rice porridge and Parsi patrani fish.
“It will be a mix of Indian cuisines. The meal will not only focus on treats from Diwali, Eid and Christmas, but also other festivals like the Hornbill festival of Nagaland and the Bohada tribal festival of Maharashtra,” says Khanna’s representative Deepika Bansal. Khanna was not available for comment.
Despite all these rather exotic dishes, the centerpiece of the entire meal, the position of honour, goes to every Gujarati’s favourite ‘national’ food – the Dhokla. Styled and modified with ‘Michelin-starryness’, this humble ‘nashta’ will now be served at the banquet tables of New York’s Waldorf Astoria in the form of corn dhokla molten cake served with a berry compote.
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We have got to ‘handvo’ it to Modi for his enterprising abilities in putting Gujarati cuisine now on the world map. He will finally be ‘fafdaoing’ the glass ceiling of global desi cuisine imposed by the butter chicken and the Punjabis.
Although, truth be told, he has already served a full Gujarati fare to Chinese premier Xi Jinping and his wife. But what goes in China stays in China (just ask their news media). On the other hand, serving it to the Americans might just oust the butter chicken from its place of solid comfort in the western world to make room for the Khaman Dhokla.
We also hear that kokum and black coconut jaggery have been flown to New York from Goa, along with fiery Kolhapuri chillies, which will be used in “chilli pearls”, and other ingredients like edible gold foil, for the meal tomorrow.
Khanna, apparently, has already been prepping for more than 250 hours at Junoon. Desserts include Diwali mithai, Goan dodol served with caramel custard, cardamom milk and Kashmiri qahwa. “Indian food is more than chicken tikka masala. That’s the message we will be sending across,” says Bansal.
Perhaps, for guests who’ve had far too much of food ill-suited to the delicate phoren digestive system, there may be a counter stocked with many varieties of churan.
Image Courtesy: Reuters/ BCCL
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