India’s chefs have set up something called the Indian Federation of Culinary Associations (IFCA) which is an umbrella body for chefs associations all over the country. Every two years or so, IFCA organises a National Culinary Congress at which chefs from all over the country get together to discuss food trends.

   I have been fortunate to have been invited to participate in all four Culinary Congresses that have been held so far. This year, they asked me to moderate a discussion on where the food scene was headed in our country. Because I thought the chefs have a lot to say, I did not restrict it to the panelists but opened it up to the audience, encouraging interventions from the floor.

   Here is a summary of the points that emerged from that discussion:

Overall impressions: Compared to the other Culinary Congresses I have attended, I found the chefs at this one much more confident and sure of their positions within the business. At the very first Congress, chefs had spent a lot of time moaning about the influence of food and beverage managers and complaining that hotel managements did not give them the importance they deserved. This time nobody even bothered to make these points.

   I guess things have changed dramatically over the last decade. Chefs are now Page Three figures. Some appear on TV. Restaurants are built around individual chefs. And most hotel chains give their chefs pride of place. At the Taj Group, no general manager will dare contradict Hemant Oberoi. At ITC, as senior an executive as Gautam Anand is entrusted with the task of looking after the chain’s master chefs.

   This is a welcome trend and it seems set to continue.

High profile chefs: I asked the chefs how many of them admired Page Three chefs. There were hundreds of chefs in the audience but not one hand went up. Nor did they have any respect for the chefs who run cookery shows on TV.

   I tried to find out why this should be so. The consensus within the profession was that chefs who appeared on Page Three did not spend enough time in the kitchen. Other chefs respected professionals within their fraternity. They had contempt for publicity hounds.

   As for the cookery shows, I think they simply believed – reasonably enough – that the skills required to demonstrate the making of gobi Manchurian for a mid-afternoon audience of eager housewives were not necessarily the same as the skills required in a high-pressure kitchen job.

Authenticity: Two of my panelists – highly regarded chefs who worked in Singapore and South Africa – said that the global trend was towards authenticity. I asked the audience if Indian punters wanted authenticity in cuisine as well. Most seemed to think that they did. I then asked them whether they thought authentic Chinese food could work outside of, perhaps, a score of five-star hotels in all of India. They were unanimous: no, it could not.

   I asked them to explain this contradiction. Some said that they didn’t even like authentic Chinese food themselves and they were sure that most Indians wouldn’t either.

   To the extent that we arrived at any kind of consensus on Chinese food, it was this: Sino-Ludhianvi is now a full-fledged school of Chinese cuisine on par with Sichuan or Cantonese. So, just as it is valid to say “Sichuan will do well but nobody will like Cantonese” it is fair to say “Sino-Ludhianvi will work but other regional Chinese cuisines will fail”.

   In some twisted sort of way, it makes a certain amount of sense.

   We discussed Italian food next and here too, there was a degree of unanimity. Pizzas will continue to do well. So will pasta. But that’s it. Indians are not wild about Italian cuisine outside of those two staple carbohydrates.

   I asked again: how can you say that guests want more authenticity?

   I think the chefs had changed their minds by the end of the discussion.

   Funnily enough, nobody brought up Japanese cuisine which has been the surprising food trend of the last five years. The sushi rolls that do well in India are not particularly authentic but the success of sushi suggests that Indians are willing to be more adventurous.

Indian food: I had a distinct sense that chefs were floundering when it came to Indian food. There have been massive developments on the Indian food front over the last decade. The most significant of these is that Indian food is now far more pan-national than it has ever been. Thirty years ago, there were only a handful of places in Delhi where you could get dosas. Now, they are a staple of virtually every canteen. Till ten years ago, most north Indians had no idea that south Indians ate meat. Now, non-vegetarian south Indian cuisines are widely known all over India.

   Similarly, there has been a boom in the coastal cuisine of Goa, Maharashtra, Karnataka and of course Kerala. Fish suppliers from Cochin and Madras air-freight crabs all over India. Such fish as Kane, which were unknown outside of their regions 20 years ago, are now widely available all over India.

   But the chefs seemed to me to be obsessed with presentation. When we talked about changes in Indian cuisine, they focused on ways of presenting it in a manner that approximated Western restaurant presentation.

   My big problem with an emphasis on presentation is that it is essentially inauthentic and goes against the whole principle of Indian food. Like Chinese or Thai - and unlike Western – Indian meals consist of a large number of dishes served at the same time. Western-style presentation works because the cuisines require a single main course which can be served in a plate. Once you plate the food before it comes out of the kitchen, you can do all kinds of poncy things in terms of presentation.

   But to do that with Indian food, you would have to undermine the very basis of the cuisine. I said to the chefs that this struck me as being a pointless advance. Just because some Indian restaurants in London do it, it does not follow that we should copy them.

   I could have given other examples. The Australian chef, David Thompson, has taken Thai cuisine to the next level. But he does not necessarily plate his food. Modern Chinese restaurants – think Hakkasan in London – do not see the point in plating everything.

   Why then are we so obsessed with plating Indian food? I think we should move away from this kind of blatant mimicry.

Wine: I was depressed by the lack of interest the chefs displayed in wine. They really didn’t give a damn what wines their restaurants served and stuck to the traditional view that wine only worked with Western food.

   I told them that Indian and Chinese restaurants in the West had proved that this was a misconception. In fact, many Oriental restaurants in Europe and the US require wine sales to remain profitable. Chefs work closely with sommeliers to think of wine pairings.

   John Sloane, one of the chefs on the panel, said that chefs should think beyond wine and focus on beverages. Perhaps sometimes it was tea that went better with the food. Sometimes it was beer. But a chef needs to think in terms of the beverage that will be consumed with his food.

   This cut no ice with the majority of chefs. As one chef from the audience summed it up, “We do our job in the kitchen, and the sommelier does his job in the restaurant.”

   I reckon that this ostrich-like approach to wine emerges out of a lack of exposure. Another of the chefs made the valid point that no chef grew up drinking wine in India. It was completely alien to his experience. And even when he was taught about wine at catering college it was only in the context of French food. Given that he did not know how different wines tasted, how could any chef be expected to conceive of pairing his food with wine?

   I concede the point. But I think the chefs may have a problem. A whole new generation of Indians is growing up drinking wine. It is only a matter of time before this generation starts asking for wine with meals. At that stage, the chefs will seem hopelessly out of their depth and ill at ease in a world where food and beverage

   Pairings go beyond whiskey and tandoori chicken.