The biggest difference between how chefs function in the West and in India

What’s the difference between traditional Indian chefs and top western chefs?

I would imagine that there are many differences. But here is the big one: Secrecy.

 

Sharing is not part of the Indian tradition when it comes to professional kitchens. Most great Indian chefs of a certain generation will never reveal their recipes. North Indian and Avadhi chefs are the best example.

 

   The most famous Avadhi chef of our times was the late Imtiaz Qureshi. Such was his influence in the decades he spent with ITC hotels that many, if not most, of the Avadhi dishes served at upmarket Indian restaurants (the biryani in particular) here and abroad follow Imtiaz’s lead. They are rarely as tasty as Imtiaz’s originals because not everyone has his talent. And, most crucially, very few chefs have the real Imtiaz recipes, just approximations or the censored versions he agreed to divulge.

 

   Imtiaz believed that secrecy is integral to how Avadhi chefs have always functioned. Very few of them will reveal the exact spice mixes they use. If a hotel asks an Avadhi chef to come in for a festival or a pop up for a few days, the chef will either insist on making his masalas on his own or will come to the kitchen with spice mixes he has prepared earlier.

 

   But why single out Avadhi chefs? This is an all India practice. Urbano Rego is the greatest Goan chef of his generation and in the years when he cooked at the Taj Holiday village many young chefs who went on to find fame later worked with him. But most of them, however much they venerate Rego, do not know all the secrets of his recipes. He would always leave one or two crucial details out!

 

   It’s the same with many chefs in South Indian restaurants. I once shot a TV show at Muthu’s, the famous fish head curry restaurant in Singapore’s Little India. They proudly told me that a member of the family came in early every morning to mix the masalas because they did not pass on the recipes to the cooks.

 

   The tradition is that recipes are held within the family. This ensures employment for future generations and indeed Imtiaz’s descendants still dominate the kitchens of Avadhi restaurants outside Lucknow. (Every other Avadhi chef who is not descended from Imtiaz has promptly added Qureshi to his name to give the impression that he has access to the family recipes.)

 

   Obviously, in terms of the development of a cuisine, secrecy is not healthy, but I have some sympathy with chefs who treat recipes as family wealth. Business people create assets which they pass on to future generations. For traditional chefs, the recipes are their assets. Why should they give them away for free?

 

"Perhaps Oriol’s willing to share his secrets is part of a western tradition that goes back to centuries ago."

   I was thinking of our chefs and their secrecy when I attended a master class by Oriol Castro, chef-owner of Disfrutar, a Barcelona restaurant which is number one on the 50 Best list of the world’s top restaurants and has three Michelin stars. Before Disfrutar, Oriol was head chef at El Bulli, the legendary restaurant that re-invented gastronomy. Along with Ferran and Albert Adria, he created many of the techniques that modern chefs now use regularly, often without being aware of their origins.

 

   Most great chefs are known for their imagination which allows them to create stunning dishes which they must train their kitchens to faultlessly recreate night after night. There is no modern tradition of recipe secrecy in the West so, if you want to know how, say, Massimo Bottura makes his iconic The Crunchy Part of the Lasagna you can easily find the recipe and Massimo himself will tell you how the dish is put together.

 

   If you watch a master class with the average three-star chef, while you will come away marvelling at the chef’s genius and skills, you won’t necessarily learn very much that you can’t find on the net.

 

   With technique-based chefs, it’s different. If you had worked in the El Bulli kitchen and seen Ferran and Oriol up close, you would have discovered how the new techniques El Bulli popularised should be applied and learned how to incorporate them in your own cooking. (The Adrias taught many of today’s great chefs, among them Rene Redzepi of Noma and our very own Gaggan Anand.)

 

   When Oriol came to Delhi last week, he demonstrated how to make ten of Disfrutar’s most famous dishes. They are great dishes, of course, but what is most significant about them is that they all use techniques that were either created or perfected in the Disfrutar kitchen. Any chef who watched them (and 23 of the Food Superstars list of India’s 30 top chefs flew in for the opportunity to learn from Oriol) didn’t just learn recipes. They learned about techniques that are still new and unfamiliar in professional kitchens. (The class was free.)

 

   The chefs were gobsmacked, of course, but I was intrigued. Why was Oriol giving away the secrets? Wasn’t he worried that everyone could now make dishes that were once exclusive to Disfrutar?

 

   Short answer: No. He wanted people to learn.

 

   I have wondered about that. Perhaps Oriol’s willing to share his secrets is part of a western tradition that goes back to centuries ago. The great Auguste Escoffier is best remembered for codifying French cuisine and creating the definitive recipes for every classic dish. He had no interest in secrecy. He wanted to spread knowledge.

 

   Similarly, when El Bulli and The Fat Duck revolutionised gastronomy two decades ago neither Ferran Adria or Heston Blumenthal had any interest in secrecy. They wanted to share what they had discovered. People eat triple cooked chips all the time now without caring that Blumenthal invented the technique. Chefs use liquid nitrogen routinely without knowing that it was first used in The Fat Duck’s kitchen. Spherication has become a cliche and a new generation of chefs has no clue that it was first perfected at El Bulli.

 

   That I think is the biggest difference between how chefs function in the West and in India. They spread knowledge. We hoard it.

 

   Whose way is better?

 

   Well, on this one, I am on the side of the West.