Food: Regional flavours are the rage

When Sarah Todd, fashion model-turned-restaurateur, made 'aloo-gobhi' on the sets of MasterChef Australia in 2014, it made headlines because Indian food was then still a novelty Down Under.

With Justin Narayan, an Australian youth pastor of Fiji Indian origin, becoming the second person of Indian descent to win MasterChef Australia, wowing the judges with his Indian take on chicken tacos, it's now official: Indian flavours have arrived and are there to stay in Oz.

The first person of Indian extraction to top the popular reality TV show was Sashi Cheliah, a prison guard, who lifted the trophy and walked home with the prize money of A$250,000 (a little under Rs 1.40 crore) in 2018.

In the 2021 final, which was telecast earlier in July, Narayan, 27, pipped a challenger of Indian-Bangladeshi origin, Kishwar Chowdhury, who got the judges literally eating out of her hand with her 'panta-bhaat'.

What Chowdhury called Smoked Rice Water is a humble peasant dish, the ultimate summer cooler, of cooked rice soaked in water overnight, served with 'pakodas' and a sour preparation made with 'mourola' fish, lashed with a generous squeeze of the fragrant 'gondhoraj' lime.

Chowdhury served 'paantabhaat' with 'aloo bhorta' (the Bangladeshi equivalent of 'aloo bhaate' -- boiled potatoes mashed with hot mustard oil, onions and green chillies -- served on the Indian side of the Great Bengali Divide). What Chowdhury did was add sardines and salsa to make it a truly a crossover dish.

"Indian flavours are now mainstream, unlike how they were perceived when I appeared on MasterChef Australia," said Todd, who informed a global audience at a recent webinar how 'paani poori' had become the rage all over her country."You can now buy 'paani poori' shells at your local grocery store," she said.

Todd, who now runs the Antares restaurant and beach club in Goa, was speaking to IANS from her home city, Melbourne, as she was returning from dinner at a popular new Indian restaurant named 'Daughter-in-Law'.

According to MasterChef Australia insiders, the show has a bigger footprint in India than in Australia, so the growing prominence of contestants of Indian origin may not be entirely coincidental.

Most MasterChef Australia winners go on to sign up book deals and TV shows, and open restaurants. Justin Narayan, the 28-year-old Fijian-Indian from Perth, the Season 13 topper, is not only doing all this, but he plans to cook and work for the Mumbai-based NGO, Vision Rescue.

Narayan, who first visited India in 2017, now plans to launch a food truck or a restaurant serving just the kind of Indian food he has grown up with. And with the MasterChef Australia 13 cheque, his dream is certainly within his grasp.

Having been a youth pastor with a mission to create a fun and safe environment for teens, working with disadvantaged children is as important for Justin as setting up a food truck or restaurant showcasing popular Indian food.

Vision Rescue was started by Biju Thampy, a pastor and motivational speaker, in Mumbai in 2004, providing vada pav to children living at the Mahim railway station. Since then, the NGO's activities have grown to include counselling for childrenvictims of drug abuse, providing healthcare, running a slum school and a transition home for women rescued from traffickers, and getting school dropouts engaged in sports.

In an interview given to the NRI website, IndiaLink News, Justin touched upon how the reality TV show had made Australians more receptive to global flavours. " This season alone it has showcased Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Indian, Cambodian, Korean food."

If there was one MasterChef Australia Season 13 contestant who had judges and viewers eating out of her hand throughout the just-concluded edition of the reality TV show, it was Kishwar Chowdhury, a printing press owner and mother of two from Melbourne, and one of the three who made it to the grand finale on July 13.

Bangladeshi netizens were outraged over what Dhaka Tribune described as " blatant Indian appropriation of the Bangladeshi icon", but her father, Kamrul Chowdhury who moved to Australia as a student around 1971, met her mother, Laila, who's from Kolkata, in Melbourne.

Kishwar's choice of dishes for MasterChef Australia was a tribute to her mixed parentage: 'khashi' (mutton) rezala, 'machherjhol' (every Bengali's staple fish curry), 'bhapamachh' (steamed fish in mustard curry), 'phuchkachotpoti' (tangy pani-poori), the street favourite on both sides of the Great Bengali Divide, and vanilla and pistachio kulfi, which she described as 'Persian and Vanilla Roses'.

Having lived in Melbourne, where she earned her Bachelor's in Commerce from Monash University, followed by London, where she studied graphic design at the University of the Arts, and then in Dhaka, where she established her printing press, Kishwar considers herself to be very much a citizen of the world.

Her idea of comfort food is "dressed-up soupy ramen" and her idol is Malaysian-born Australian cook Poh Ling Yeow, an artist and author who was a MasterChef Australia contestant in one of its early seasons.