Australian celebrity chef Christine Manfield tells Rrishi Raote how she combines two of her passions - food and travel.
It is an odd fish, as a food book for Indian readers. First, it is big and heavy and won’t fit on a kitchen countertop. Then, it is full of photos of the kind that foreign tourists appreciate: Rajasthani women in dazzling saris, palaces, temples, marketplaces, piles of flowers and fruit, sadhus, ghats, Kathakali face-paint, railway stations, street-food, mountain villages, Ladakhi monks...
The images come with basic travel-magazine prose that says little that is new to Indian readers — except when the author turns to food, on which she is accurate and detailed. (With a caveat: in her “Introduction” the author says she has eaten just one biryani in Hyderabad.)
No, the author is not Indian. Her primary readership is in Australia — where Christine Manfield is a celebrity chef and owns the Universal restaurant in Sydney. Tasting India (Penguin, Rs 1,999) is her sixth book. She says it is her publisher’s lead title for Australia for the year.
Finally, there are the recipes. From Bengal (“Scholars, Tigers and Tea”) to Mumbai (“Bollywood, Bazaars & Billionaires”), in each chapter the travel-guidery is followed by a number of recipes, some 250 in all. Most will be familiar to locals; most are of homely dishes, a few of festival fare.
One can follow the recipes even in Australia. Australia’s varied climate allows Indian spices, vegetables and herbs to grow there, and its cities have many ethnic Indians. Indian foods are available.
She came looking for the real thing in 1999. It was a practical arrival. Her third book, Spice, had been published. “It’s the spice bible,” she says immodestly. She was high-profile, so she went as an Australian cultural ambassador to an event in Chennai. Then, “I was approached by a luxury brand and travel company in Australia, to host ‘spice tours’. My role was to host people and escort them and have fabulous food experiences. It wasn’t just about spice or just about food. It was about food in the context of everything else.”
For 11 years she has been taking people on her tours — an intimate 10 at a time, two trips a year, to India and destinations like Morocco and South-east Asia. “They’re not novice travellers. They’ve got some expectations, and money.” Thus the group can sally forth for street food, or visit “a workers’ canteen”, before returning to its hotel or luxury tent camp. Research? It’s networking, contacts and recommendations, but she also reads and observes. “You have to be credible and respectful.”
Contacts bring entree into Indian homes, and access to the heirloom recipes which help fill this book; that is, recipes passed down the generations. Standing in someone’s kitchen Manfield can watch a dish take shape, with “a bit of this, bit of that, pinch of this, and taste it... It’s very intuitive cooking, and that’s the way I cook as well.” She turns such instructions into a recipe for the home cook. She tests some in her restaurant kitchen — but not on Indian taste buds because, while ethnically diverse (“I’m oblivious to race”), Universal’s kitchen lacks an Indian.
Universal is her base since 2007. It is the fifth restaurant she has run. “I don’t cook traditional food from any country,” Manfield says, gesturing with her large, strong hands. Her food looks haute-cuisine European but uses spices, flavours and textures she has picked up on her travels. Restaurant, guest-chef’ing, travelling, touring, making books — her plate is full.
