Food – The Good Story Project

Pandemic, lockdowns, and hunger

World Food Day is observed on October 16 with an aim to eradicate hunger across the world. While, by God’s grace, we always had enough food on our plates, even during the pandemic, and most of us were in a position to help others with meals and ration during the lockdowns, there are many families who have not eaten enough since the beginning of the pandemic. Most of these families rely on daily wages or unsteady incomes and the lockdowns dealt a major blow to them. While men were out of work, it was the women who had to bear the brunt as they had to manage with less ration or the parents had to cut down on their intake, so that their children could eat enough. I spoke to five such families.

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Swati Subhedar

Family 1: Rachana Singh and her family

Four-year-old Archit hesitated and looked at his mother when I offered him an apple which was in my bag. His mother, Rachana Singh, 27, hesitated too. I kept it on the charpoy on which I was sitting. Archit took it and ran into the room while his mother went back to chopping onions and tomatoes. “It’s been months we have bought any fruits,” said Singh and apologized to me for not offering me tea or biscuits. I told her she was very kind to allow me into her house and wait for my journalist friend who was roaming around the village taking quotes for a story that he was working on. It was October 2020, and we were in Jata Barauli village, which is in the Barabanki district, about 30 kms from Uttar Pradesh’s capital Lucknow. Singh and I got talking.

There are eight members in Singh’s family – two senior citizens, four adults and two children; out of these only two are earning members. The men worked as master craftsmen before the 2020 lockdown. They did not get a regular income, but it was steady and enough. They could buy a regular supply of milk fruits and vegetables, and sometimes indulged by buying fish, chicken, and eggs. The children would occasionally get their treats of cream biscuits and chocolates. The men could not earn between March and June 2020 when the nationwide lockdown was imposed to curb the spread of coronavirus in the country. The family had to bank on their minimal savings to keep the kitchen running and later had to borrow from a relative when the savings got exhausted. The men stepped out in July 2020 to find work but in the next four months, until October, they could collectively earn only Rs 8,000. The Singh family still had to clear the dues of the local grocery store owner who let them buy groceries on credit during the lockdown.

“These days we mostly eat a curry made of onions and tomatoes and drink tea once a day, in the morning. The adults have cut down on their tea intake so that the two children could be given milk. It’s been months since we bought fruits, eggs, chicken, or fish. We buy two-three vegetables a week. That’s all we can afford presently,” said Singh.

What about their ration cards? In Uttar Pradesh, there are 3.5 crore ration cardholders who receive a monthly quota of 3 kg wheat and 2 kg of rice at subsidized rates of Rs 2 and Rs 3 per kg respectively, through 80,000 ration shops.

“Only the earning members in the family have ration cards. Our names are not mentioned in those ration cards. We have tried so many times, but because of some technical glitch, our names got omitted and the authorities have not been able to fix the error. Besides, that ration is not enough as there are eight members in the house. We still have to buy surplus wheat and rice,” said Singh.

Family 2: Ritu Gautam and her family

“Our diet has reduced to half. If the situation does not improve, we will have to eat less than this,” said Ritu Gautam, 25, who dropped by along with her toddler while I was talking to Singh. Gautams and Singhs are neighbours. There are twelve members in her family — eight adults and four children. Her husband is also a daily wage earner who had to sit at home during the entire lockdown. “It will take us a couple of months to recover from the lockdown. The men get angry at us and tell us to spend less. What they don’t understand is that vegetables, oil, spices, salt, pulses, wheat, rice, and milk are essential food items. When we were financially stable, it never pinched them, but now that money is an issue, they think we are splurging. Besides, if children demand extra milk, chocolates, and biscuits, we can’t say no to them every time,” said Gautam.

During the lockdown, all the state governments had pitched in to help daily wage earners and migrant labourers. In April 2020, the Uttar Pradesh government announced that it will provide an additional 5 kg of ration (rice/wheat) free along with the 5 kg of food grains to be distributed under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) – a government scheme — to each beneficiary in May and June 2020. As many as 14.5 million people in the state were expected to benefit from the scheme. However, both Singh and Gautam families slipped through the cracks did not receive this additional ration.

When I left the village that day, both the ladies were hopeful that the situation would improve soon so that they could eat two proper meals a day. Just a month later, in November, onion prices touched a record Rs 100/kg, and a few months later, in March 2021, came the second wave of coronavirus, more ferocious than the first one. In a short span of time, it claimed many lives and dealt a severe blow to the economy. Both the waves of the coronavirus led to severe job losses and those who took the maximum hit were the daily wage earners who suffered not just during the lockdown, but also after that.

Covid, job losses and hunger

As per the latest report by Center for Monitoring India Economy (CMIE), during the first wave of Covid, India lost 6.3 million jobs. As per the same agency, when the devastating second wave halted the Indian economy, we lost an additional 13.3 million jobs. The impact of these job losses was also felt by the women who had to curtail their food budgets as a result of which most families were not eating enough.

In order to mark the anniversary of the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, every year, World Food Day is celebrated across the globe on October 16. This day aims at tackling global hunger and striving to eradicate hunger across the world. In a research report published in June 2020, Oxfam had mentioned that COVID-19 was deepening the hunger crisis in the world’s hunger hotspots and creating new epicenters of hunger across the globe, and had predicted that by the end of 2020, 12,000 people per day could die from hunger linked to COVID-19, potentially more than will die from the disease itself. Unfortunately, India made to its list of countries and regions where the food crisis had worsened because of the pandemic.

While we belong to the privileged class that always had enough food on our plates, pandemic, or no pandemic, and by God’s grace, most of us were in a position to help others during both the lockdowns, there are many families who have not eaten enough food since the beginning of the pandemic.

Family 3: Rachana Devi and her family

It’s October 2021 and people are shelling out Rs 80 to buy one kg tomatoes. “I bought basics like onions, potatoes tomatoes and a few vegetables two days back and paid Rs 350. There are four members in the family, including two children aged 11 and 14. They are not kids anymore and corresponding to their ages, their diet has also increased. While we have not curtailed our food budget, myself and my husband have cut down on our diet so that our children could eat how much ever they want to,” said Rachana Devi who lives in Lucknow’s Gwari village.

Her husband does two jobs – he works on a contract basis with a local real estate contractor and his job is to arrange for labourers, he is also a priest who visits the homes of people and performs religious ceremonies. Both the jobs took a hit during the first and the second lockdowns. In fact, the family was still coming to terms with the losses incurred during the first lockdown, when the second wave struck. “During the second wave, people were talking about the third wave in October-November. Is that true? I don’t think we are in a position to deal with more financial losses as we are rebuilding for scratch,” said Singh.

**Rachana Devi outside her one-room house**

Covid leads to India’s fall in hunger index

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) report 2020 released on October 14, 2021, mentions that India has slipped to the 101st position among 116 countries in the GHI ranking from its 2020 ranking (94), to be placed behind Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal. The report also mentions that “people have been severely hit by covid and by pandemic related restrictions in India, the country with highest child wasting rate worldwide.” The government, however, was quick to react and claimed that the methodology used to calculate India’s ranking was unscientific. Both the lockdowns undoubtedly worsened the food crisis, and the below case study is the perfect example of this.

**Rakesh Singh along with his mother and children**. **Read their story below**

Family 4: “Manoj ki mata ji” (Manoj’s mother) and her family

“Sab Manoj ki mata ji hi bulate hai,” (everyone calls me Manoj’s mother) said this woman in her sixties, when I asked her name. Brothers Manoj and Rakesh Singh, along with their families, lived in Gwari village in Lucknow until October 2020. Eight family members – the two brothers, their wives, their mother and two children – lived in a one-room house. Both brothers worked as rickshaw pullers and earned daily wages. During the first lockdown, the family had to depend on food packets that were distributed daily in the locality as in the absence of daily wages, it was difficult to buy groceries, milk, and vegetables. In the wake of a severe financial crunch, Manoj and his wife moved to their village in Sandila, a town two hours from Lucknow, where they have a small farm.

Rakesh started earning again in August 2020, however, a few months later, the second wave struck. This time, however, there were no food packets to bank on.

“We went hungry on some days, but thankfully, after a few weeks, we could go to our village home. We have a small farm there and we sow potatoes in it. Every month, my brother and his wife send a sack full of potatoes. In case of a third covid wave, this time we will at least have potatoes. That was our learning from the last two lockdowns. It was tough to go hungry on some days,” said Rakesh.

**Putli Devi does not have money to refill her cylinder. She cooks on the chulha. Read her story below**

Family 5: Putli Devi and her family

In September 2020, just after the first lockdown, the price of one LPG cylinder was hovering around Rs 632. Presently, in October 2021, one LPG cylinder is priced at Rs 922.50. The constantly rising prices of LPG cylinders has burnt a hole in the pockets of even middle-class families, poor families don’t even have the means to refill these cylinders. A few families I met at Mehmudpur village in Barabanki district in September 2021 have gone back to cooking on chulha (wood stove). When I met Putli Devi at her house, the first thing I noticed that the ceiling of the house was covered with black soot. I wondered what cooking on the stove must be doing to her lungs. “Do we have an option? Everything is so expensive. But one must eat basic meals. We can’t cut down on the meals, we have to buy vegetables, oil, spices, wheat, rice and pulses. That can’t be done away with, so we have to cut down on other expenses. Why would I get the cylinder refilled when it costs Rs 800-900?” she asked. Her husband is a farm labourer, who was out of work during both the lockdowns, and she has two children aged 6 and 8.

“Is there going to be a third covid wave?” asked Putli Devi, while I was leaving her house.

Indian men, cooking and kitchen chores – Covid-19 and beyond

Prerna Shah

In May this year, I put forth a question in a food group on Facebook. The group, which has over 155,900 members worldwide, a majority of them Indians, is a space for people to connect over ‘food talk’ but it is not just about food or recipes. As the pinned post about the group’s guidelines informs, this is a place to connect, mingle and share. Very often, you would find that the discussions on the group range from a number of things – from seeking suggestions and ideas on baby names, to sharing decor and festive tips, and sometimes, women would post in a lighter vein – how their spouses had failed to follow the simplest of instructions when it came to buying groceries or cooking rice in the rice cooker.

In my post, I asked if the men did any cooking – participating, and playing an active part in the kitchen. I wanted to hear from men and women both. I asked, because I was curious. On one hand, the pandemic had led to a surge in baking and making all kinds of tasty treats in the home kitchen, and there had been a lot of focus on cooking, trying out new recipes and rediscovering heirloom ones. On the other, I had also heard a lot of women complain that they were caught in a draining routine – cooking meals three times a day, juggling working from home and many other duties, with often little to no help from family members. I wanted to know if there had been a shift in attitudes when it came to Indian men and cooking duties, not just because of the pandemic but also beyond that.

You can see a man's hands holding an Indian device to make string hoppers and in the back are various things - slightly blurred images of a bottle of oil and egg holder

Several comments started appearing on my post in quick succession, and most of them were from women. It appeared to me that I had touched a raw nerve.

Before the post was deleted (since it was deemed off-topic according to the rules of the group), I tried getting back to all the comments on my posts. I asked further questions and sought approval for quoting their answers for this article.

A woman quickly wrote back to me saying that I could quote her and I was so glad that she did so. Sheela Sharon’s comment on my post stood out because of its honesty, and it found resonance with many women, quickly gathering many Facebook likes and loves.

Sharon, who is based in the US, wrote: “My partner never helped me in the kitchen nor household chores for the last 10 years. He was pampered, spoilt and completely unaware. Covid-19 quarantine has been a blessing. [With] work from home, he realized how much I do at home which was unnoticed. Now he is the one who does dishwashing, kitchen cleaning, laundry which has made it so easy for me to cook and manage the house better. He only makes coffee and fried egg. You need passion to cook, and I don’t think he has it or will try to cook. My husband is not proud of himself for not helping me all these years. Better late than never.”

Sharon credited the pandemic for the shift in her husband’s perspective towards household chores and duties, including the ones in the kitchen. Many other women chimed in, some saying that their husbands didn’t even know how to cook rice and were not even interesting in learning how to do so. One comment simply read, “I have given up. He is just not interested.”

This reminded me of two incidents. During my post graduate studies in journalism and mass communication, I had gone for an overnight stay at my friend’s place. In the evening, a neighborhood aunty had come visiting. Suddenly as the clock struck six, she jumped up with a start and exclaimed, “Akshay (name changed) will be home any minute now and I need to make a glass of warm milk with Bournvita for him.”

“Aunty,” I asked, “Would Akshay be back home from cricket or tuition at this time?”

“Why no!,” she said, her eyes widening in surprise. “He is an officer with the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited. He will be back from work, and he always likes to relax with a warm glass of milk when home.” And with that, she bade a hasty goodbye.

I remember being genuinely befuddled. Why would an adult man need his mother to warm up a glass of milk?

However, I knew fairly too well that it was a reality of many Indian households. Men depending on their mothers, sisters, and wives to do even the simplest of cooking tasks for them – be it boiling an egg or making tea.

Indeed, some mothers even took pride in the fact that their sons did not enter the kitchen at all. As one of my mother’s friends had once said, “My son doesn’t even know how to make a cup of tea. Or Maggi. And why should he? I am here, and when he has a wife, she will take over.”

While it is not fair or even accurate to make sweeping generalizations, many women did comment on the post saying that their men never learnt how to help their mothers with cooking and carried on with that attitude after they had families of their own.

However, a lot of women also chimed in with how the men in their families had set an example, and what they were doing as mothers to make sure that their children, irrespective of their gender, learnt cooking as an essential life skill.

Preeti Babji’s comment on the post was in a way, a tribute to her dad. She wrote, “I proudly say I learned cooking from my dad. I remember dad used to help mum in the kitchen 40 years back and [is] still trying new dishes. He is 70 now and during Covid he called me and asked for banana bread recipe, which he had when he visited us.” Another member, Nagashree Manwatkar wrote, “My husband and I share cooking [duties] almost equally. He comes from a traditional business family where men never cook. He is our breakfast guy, can roll parathas and make French toast and pancakes. I love to cook more elaborate food wherein he helps with prep and clean up. He also does our grocery for the week. He has also recently taken to looking up recipes and making brand new recipes. We have a good partnership going.”

Rasana Atreya has ensured that both her children learnt how to cook. She shared in the comments section: “I have a 19-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter. My son will be moving into an apartment in August (at school). I’ve made sure both can cook. My husband can cook, but we all think that his dishwashing skills are more useful for us.”

Many women also pointed out that when their husbands took an equal and earnest role in the kitchen, it had a positive effect on their children. As Divya Mani wrote: “My husband cooks everyday. In fact he cooks more than me. It’s by choice and sometimes circumstantial. And looking at this, my son has also starting showing an interest in cooking and he is only four years old!

It was also important to hear from the men themselves. That is, if they hadn’t ventured into their kitchens so far, what would motivate them to do so and if they were indeed a regular at cooking, what or who was their inspiration?

Dhrumit Sheth, an IT professional currently based in Canada shares, “I have always been a foodie since childhood, and very particular about what I want to eat and how it should taste. While growing up, both my parents went out to work and I have seen my dad cook and help my mother in the kitchen. Also, even as a kid, whenever my sister and I felt hungry in our parents’ absence, we used to make snacks and other food rather than wait for them to return and then eat. So that made me interested in cooking as well, and I strongly believe it’s a life skill everyone should have.”

Sheth, who grew up in India before shifting base to Canada in the recent years, says that there have been some rare occasions when friends or relatives have asked him why he is so active in the kitchen. “If someone asks me why my wife doesn’t cook [as much], I just say that she is not that fond of cooking (which is true) and takes care of other things, while I am interested and fussy about food, so I take care of that part of our life.”

What are Sheth’s favourite things to cook? “I love to make, eat and offer lasagna, veg kurma (a Kerala curry) and shahi paneer,” replies Sheth.

Sometimes, it is also a change in circumstances that leads men to alter their childhood habits .

Shailin Nath (name changed) confides, “I wasn’t very good in the kitchen and to be honest, if I did do something after marriage, my mother wasn’t very pleased with it. She would say – you work full time, leave the kitchen to your wife. My mother always attended to, and still does to this day – every little thing in the kitchen. She doesn’t think it is a man’s job to contribute or even take part in any of these chores. I grew up that way, and amongst that kind of attitudes.”

So, what changed? Nath says, “This was way before the pandemic. When we were expecting our first child, neither my parents nor my wife’s parents could come and stay with us in the United Kingdom. My wife’s aunt came after delivery, but how long could she stay and help? The doctor had suggested that my wife eat a lot of green leafy vegetables and a nutritive diet to get her strength back. After my wife’s aunt left, I started looking up recipes. I realised that it was just the two of us and if I did not help, my wife would not get any respite at all. If the baby was sleeping, I would ask her to get some sleep too, and I would quickly make something for us – mixed lentils khichdi, palak paneer, or even an egg curry. I learnt so much in those months and if I hadn’t, I would have carried a lot of guilt. Because I helped her in the cooking, she was able to look after herself and in turn, our baby’s health and wellbeing.”

Another quote from a father of two, again with a request to let it remain anonymous, was on similar lines. “When we had our daughter, we had decided that we would feed her good, homemade food. The sort of food we had access to when we were growing up. And since we both worked, it was important that I learnt to cook as well. How could I say to my daughter that in order to be fed hot and nutritive food, she had to wait till her mother came home? And that even if I was home earlier, I couldn’t give her a hot roti with ghee (her favourite) because I did not know how to roll one?”

“Even if my initial rotis were misshapen, they were still homemade, made from fresh dough and layered with ghee and a sprinkling of sugar. Just the way she liked it. I learnt how to cook because feeding my daughter was not just my wife’s duty. A hungry child needs food – and hunger can’t wait till mummy comes home.”

Perhaps there is hope. The great Indian kitchen as depicted in the movie of the same name, is changing. One little recipe and baby step at a time. From a father who makes a hot roti for his daughter, a husband who learns how to wash dishes and cut onions after a decade of being spoilt and pampered by his mother, a brother who brushes up his batata poha skills during the pandemic. To a mother who insists that the kitchen and its many duties belongs to, and should be claimed by everyone, and not just by the women in the household. A mother who vows to raise her children differently, ensuring that cooking is not a skill dictated by one’s gender.

And then, there’s always humour. What we cannot conquer by change, we do so with humour.

Like a friend who responded to this potential match who had written to her ‘I want to marry a good cooker.” By which, he meant, a woman who was a good cook.

“Maybe you should try Hawkins or Prestige,” she had emailed back.

Perhaps ten years to that email-exchange, I am hoping the man got a cooker and also acquired some cooking skills. It’s about time. Really.

‘Sharing’ a meal – cooking adventures, recipes, and feasts on Facebook food groups

A lot of us find ourselves turning to food, not just during the long hours of isolation during the pandemic lockdowns, but also as a part of our everyday lives. There’s also something intrinsic about wanting to share what we have cooked. Is that the reason so many of us find joy in our digital food lives?

The food groups on Facebook are a riot of colours – an alluring deep purple of yam tikkis, the virgin white of a thalissari biryani, a mellow yellow of an orange cake, a dreamy rosy-pink of a strawberry and banana milkshake in which little pistachios float like fairies on a magical ride.

These food photographs are from The East West Kitchen Facebook group. Photographs by Sarika Sarkar (First and second one from top left) and Tonoya Barua (third from top and the bottom one)

And the stories! So many recipes and photographs are accompanied with anecdotes and snippets about how the dish came to, or beautiful, evocative memories associated with the particular recipes.

So you would not only have a recipe for the quintessential Tamil dish pongal, but a delightful little story on how the dish and the festival came to be. (It involves a confused Nandi, the sacred bull calf, who mixes up the instructions given by Lord Shiva and has to be sent down on earth to help people grow more food!) Or the recipe for Kara-ma-khechadi (a dish prepared with rice, lentils and vegetables) and offered to Lord Jagannath along with an endearing story of how the Lord would in the guise of a child ask for this dish from an old woman every day!

Delightful, isn’t it? Perhaps it is this mix of recipes, storytelling, sharing, and a sense of community that draws people to these food groups, some of which are more than 50,000 plus members strong and growing every single day.

A safe space, a creative space

Atul Sikand is the admin of a group on Facebook called ‘Sikandalous Cuisine.’ Sikand is also an influencer in the food industry and the director of Asian Hawkers Market Pvt. Ltd.

He says that he created the group — its name a pun on his name and the fact that his opinions can be shocking or scandalous at times — when a journalist friend asked him to do so. “I was always posting recipes about food on my personal Facebook page and that page had a lot of other things as well. My friend said that there must be a dedicated space for food and food alone, and that is how this group came to be. We are now going to be about 50,000 or so members strong and this group is India’s biggest tried and tested recipe group.”

“I am extremely strict about who gets to be a member of the group. There are strictly no business promotions or posting links or just photographs. There has to be a detailed recipe, and members often write feedback posts with accompanying pictures if they have tried out a recipe posted by a member,” explains Sikand.

Sikand himself contributes a lot to the group. “I have over 2,000 recipes now, but I won’t post something that is done to death. Like, matar paneer. I would post a recipe for hariyali kabab instead, but a recipe where I have added basil and lemongrass to give it a pan-Asia flavour and hence is a twist on the actual recipe,” he said.

Sikand’s take on a recipe by Sami Tamimi & Tara Wigley

Tonoya Barua is a banker-turned-qualified-chef and an alumnus of Le Cordon Bleu London. She has been running The Common Table in London, an artisan catering company, and also a pop-up restaurant at Walworth road for over a year now.

She also is the admin and founder of ‘The East West Kitchen’, a food group on Facebook with over 6000 members. From methi kumro, a Bengali-styled pumpkin with fenugreek leaves curry, Italian chicken biryani to steamed bao buns stuffed with sticky chicken and pickled vegetables, you can find a variety of recipes that combine the flavours of the eastern and western world on her group.

Barua says she started the group because she wanted to motivate people to speak about their love for food and what really inspires them. "It also gives so many people a platform to showcase their talent and creativity and to rejoice in finding a community and appreciation for their craft. Small businesses benefit as well. I do not let anyone spam my group with promotional activities, but I do have a day for home chefs and businesses run from home. It gives these home chefs goodwill and branding, and if it helps their business grow, I consider it a good thing,” she said.

Shalini Ramachandran, who is based in the US, is the founder and co-admin of ‘Euphoric Delights,’ which is a food group and more, and believe it or not, has over 150,000 members, with new members requesting to join in every day!

“I started the group (which, in the beginning, was named as Epicurean Delights) because I saw that there was a lot of genuine joy and pride to be had in sharing your food, recipes, and tips and tricks to make food better, with other people. I learnt cooking the hard way and I realised that it is a life skill. However, if you cook day in and day out, it can get boring. How do you inspire and keep yourself interested in jump-starting the cooking process every day? For me, that inspiration came from being able to see what other people were cooking and it was truly rewarding in terms of the diversity of recipes and talent out there,” says Ramachandran.

Even though the group is primarily about food, it does allow ‘off-topic’ posts. Ramachandran explains, “The group started really small. When it grew, I also took into account the needs of the community. While I did not want that members took undue advantage and posted commercial links or ‘vote for this’ or ‘share my link’ in the lure of the viewership of 150,000 people, I also realised that members trusted the community rather than the algorithm of a search engine. If they were going through a situation, they wanted solutions anonymously and turned to the group for these. I, therefore, allow off-topic posts but these are deleted within 24 hours so that those who come to the group for recipes and food, don’t see a plethora of off- topic posts.”

Ramachandran does not allow any posts that seek medical opinions or the like, but along with posts on Onam sadya recipes, bride and bridegroom cupcakes, and chilli guava ice cream, there are also posts which are strictly not about food or recipes.

Like a post showcasing festive celebrations, or handmade birthday decor for a child’s first birthday, and the anonymous ones wherein a member has reached out to the admin team to post a query on dealing with a non-communicative spouse, a break in career, tricky situations with the in-laws, or dealing with a sense of loss or loneliness. One look at these posts and you would see hundreds of replies, with the members reaching out with support, advice, or just chiming in to say, that they are there if the member needs someone to talk to.

Food as ‘digital’ therapy

During the lockdowns in the Covid-19 crisis, as the yeast flew off the shelves and baking products disappeared, you could see the food groups brimming with even more posts – people trying out heirloom recipes, or their hand at techniques and treats that they had never considered before.

Ramachandran believes that her online interactions with her food group gave her a sense of being connected and that was very important during the Covid crisis.

"During these times, I have not felt alone. This is because I have been in touch with a lot of people online. When I discuss food, a recipe, a missing ingredient or simply chip in with a suggestion or answer a query, I know I am interacting with people, even though it is not in a physical space. I keep thinking how lonely we would all have been if a crisis of this magnitude had happened some forty years or so ago, when we were less connected digitally."

A food photograph shared by Ramachandran in her group, Euphoric Delights

Barua says, food, and digital groups like hers were really a source of comfort during the lockdown. “These groups did a lot of things. They kept people busy, sane, and entertained. There were so many of us, who had to shut down our small businesses, whether temporary or not, and cooking, sharing, and finding support of like-minded members was something that most of us turned to. And this was witnessed world-over, no matter where you lived.”

“It also gave a lot of people the confidence to talk about what they were doing. Sometimes their skills in the kitchen went unnoticed at home, lost in the busyness of everyday life. When they posted their recipes and the likes multiplied, followed by comments for tips and appreciation, it gave them a sense of pride and accomplishment. And that is very important, Covid or not,” elaborates Barua.

Barua’s sentiments are echoed by Sarikar Sarkar, a special needs teacher, and an educator who is based in Hyderabad and who is also a founding member of the The East West Kitchen. “People turned to food during Covid because they realised that cooking as a skill, as a mood enhancer never loses its essence. It was like falling in love with cooking all over again. Digital food groups have actually helped revive and regenerate interest in recipes that were either forgotten or lost, and it is with this sharing that conversations, friendships, and a sense of community builds up, connecting people from across the world.”

Sikand says that food works as therapy, even digitally because, “The rewards are there in front of you. Instantly. It’s not like planting a sapling of an olive tree and waiting for it to fruit and flower for 13 long years! These platforms are spaces where you discover your own potential and form friendships, have conversations and indulge in banter and goodwill.” (Sikand has an olive tree at his Gurgaon home and a plentiful harvest of olives now – and that’s where the reference to the olive tree analogy comes from!)

A master course in management

The digital space can be a tricky one. These groups are thousands of members strong and growing every day. How do you manage such large groups with full-time jobs and what does one learn from this experience?

“My biggest learning, and this happens every day, is being wowed by the massive scale and diversity of our cuisine. We have always known it but to see it unfold one recipe by another, even the same ingredients and recipes taking a different form from one village and city to another, even one household to another. It is endless learning. I honestly believe there is no cuisine in the world that equals Indian in scale, diversity, wealth and palate,” says Sikand.

Power admins: Atul Sikand, Shalini Ramachandran and Tonoya Barua

“We may have been limited by our techniques – in the sense, that our grandmothers or great grandmothers’ recipes did not have exact measurements, it always by andaaz – a pinch of that, a fistful of this, but now over the years, we have food bloggers and home chefs refining those recipes, trying and testing them and I see that so much on my group,” continues Sikand.

As for managing a group, Sikand says that most members think of it as a community, and if they see a post which is not in the spirit of the group, they bring it to my notice even before I have had a chance to see it. “Like there was someone posting live Tarot sessions on the group and so many members instantly reported it.”

Ramachandran echoes similar sentiments. “My group is member-run. And by that, I give all credit to the admins, who are also members of the group and put in so much work out of sheer love for the group. They help in flagging and removing promotional posts, spam, and intervene if there is something that needs admin support. And members who aren’t in the official admin team also flag up content that is contrary to the group’s ethos.”

"I can say that my biggest learning is that, one, how important it is to get a trademark for the name of the group. I learnt this when someone attempted to lay a claim over the group's previous name, and in a way, the group itself. And my second big takeaway as an admin is that people love cakes, especially cakes that don't look like cakes. A cake which looks like a puppy, a wallet, a sari! I also feel that people love food that reminds them of something - a place, nostalgia, a memory," says Ramachandran.

Food in an unequal world – plentiful pantries and food banks

As comforting and inspiring it is to share recipes and photographs on digital platforms and to receive recognition for your talent, how does one deal with the inequalities that are a harsh reality of the world around us? The fact that some of us have well-stocked pantries and even when certain ingredients were out of stock during the lockdown, there was always this assurance that these would be replenished. And in glaring contrast, those who have to depend on food banks (in the Western part of the world) and or on government subsidies and ration cards (in India) or charity (just about anywhere in the world) for their next grocery purchase.

“The inequalities are part of our daily existence, and not just limited to the Covid crisis. I think when people share what they have cooked, it is not about showing off or an attempt to showcase their privilege, it is more about exploring themselves and their skills. And so many individuals and organisations rose to the occasion when hunger was a real issue to reckon with during the lockdown. They did in so many ways – be it cooking for the security guards of their society, providing tiffin to the elderly, helping put together food kits or contributing towards making of food kits,” says Sikand.

Barua admits that it is a difficult question and that there are no easy answers, but that one does what one can do. “We all find solace in different things to get us through a crisis. We also try and help because we are aware of the inequalities around us. The cafe space that we rent for our restaurant had sprung into action quite quickly and had organised a scheme in which patrons could donate an amount for every meal that they purchased. They did so by coordinating with the church in the neighbourhood.”

Ramachandran says that she doesn’t believe in guilt-tripping people. “I understand how unequal the world is, and that it may feel that some of us have won a kind of a lottery in terms of our favourable circumstances, however I would say that we shouldn’t be quick to judge people, or finger point. More than ever we need kindness, compassion, and understanding.”

Perhaps that is the secret ingredient too — not just in our digital life, but in almost everything we do.

We loved these recipes:

Sponge rasgullas in pressure cooker – in Euphoric Delights
Dahi ke Sholey – in Sikandalous Cuisine
Pork milanese – in The East-West Kitchen

Tell us what you loved searching for and trying out!