Poriyal dons French couture

Magicplateman Feeds

The world around us is shrinking at an alarming pace and so are our tastebuds. We live in a time and space where we get to pick and choose from a plethora of food options. The confluence of cultures provides for the inevitable fusion of cuisines, ingredients, cooking techniques and food presentation.

Food fusion has revolutionised the culinary world for the past couple of years. It has become a popular form of cooking these days. It combines contrasting culinary techniques and traditions into a single dish. It offers freedom of expression and a unique identity and recognition to the chef creators and also brings in more colour to mainstream cuisine. Some popular fusions are Indo-Chinese, Indo-Portuguese, French-Vietnamese and Malay-Chinese.

Though the roots of fusion cuisine are ancient since we have been having cultural exchanges for centuries, it became a popular concept in the 1970s. It started as a form of pop-culture experimentation and a dissent of the rigid lifestyle practices back then. As it evolved, it gave birth to many more food innovations at various contemporary restaurants around the world. In time, it offered the perfect solution for novel ideas and experimentation in an industry that is always craving for something new every day.

Ashwin Iyer

Fusion food experts point to three main types of culinary fusion. First is combining ingredients and recipes of one culture or region with the cooking and plating techniques of another. One of the most 0sought after dishes today that stems from this style are tandoori momos. Second is mixing of two different styles of cuisine to create a new version of a dish. This kind of fusion is most popular across the globe. Some of the dishes that have originated from this form are the famous Gobi Manchurian, Bánh Mì, California roll and Laksa. The third is blending multiple cuisines and cultures into one huge melting pot. This is typically seen in countries with a huge number of immigrants like the USA and Australia and is gaining popularity in India and Europe these days. Mod Oz cuisine is the fusion cuisine characteristic to Australia that falls in this category.

Being an abstract artist, food for me has always been a medium to express myself and my South Indian roots. I have always felt that Indian cuisine has not been given its rightful place in the fine-dining world yet. Through my culinary experiences, I have gathered that one of the reasons for this is the lack of visual appeal. We do not give as much importance to the presentation of the cuisine as much as we do to preparing it. Food fusion has given me a beautiful canvas to bridge this gap.

My tryst with fusion food started with the humble cabbage poriyal. A side dish of stir-fried cabbages that is part of every elaborate and festive Brahmin meal but is hardly given a second glance in spite of it being rich in flavours of South Indian spices, cabbage and coconut.

I was having some French friends over for lunch and their demand was quite specific and deceptively simple. They had eaten cabbage poriyal at an Indian wedding in Puducherry and wanted to have it again. Only this time they wanted to have a “good looking” version of it. This presented a wonderful opportunity for me to experiment with Indo-French fusion especially with Indian ingredients and French cooking techniques and presentation. I replaced the regular cabbage with purple cabbage and retained the other ingredients to make a consommé and voila the ‘Blue Lagoon’ was born. The indigo blue clear soup garnished with edible flowers stayed true to its South Indian flavours and was gorgeous enough to grace any fine dine table. It was received by excited squeals of “très chic” and “Magnifique” and was a huge hit with the French who ate it with great gusto.

Fusion food is here to stay and is no longer confined to a few select restaurants. It is slowly trickling into our households. A piece of France, a dash of China and a whole lot of India makes one magical plate of food.

(The author is an artist who wears many creative hats. He is a famous food stylist and food photographer and a finalist on Masterchef India Season 5. An avid gardener and Ikebana artist and a model who promotes handlooms and jewellery for men, he is known by the name “Magicplateman” in the culinary circles.)