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Smokin' hot

Indians are embracing the American barbecue and splurging on ribs, rubs and grilling paraphernalia, finds Yoshita Sengupta.

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Every evening, Ushma Agarwal grills fresh fish on a Presto hot stone barbecue she bought during one of her trips to the United States in her villa’s kitchen for her developer husband Jatin. At times, she even grills chicken to add to a comforting risotto. Next, she plans to install a wood fire oven in her kitchen. The couple do not live in a picturesque French town.

They are residents of Mundhwa, a Pune suburb, and are one of several thousand Indian families that are fast embracing the barbecue.

“They’re (barbecue grills) becoming a standard feature in most contemporary kitchens in big homes. All clients we build homes for in Pune ask for in-built modular kitchens, which now includes a grill,” says Ushma, director of Konark Karia Builders.

Ask her if, as a developer, she has seen a similar trend in Mumbai and the reply is affirmative. “Mumbai is too hot to be barbecuing everyday. However, a lot of the properties in the city do have a set-up for grilling.”

“My sister lives in (Raheja) One, Altamount road, where there are 4,000 and 8000 sqft homes. All of them have a barbecue,” she adds.

Who else is grilling?
The trend may have picked up first in the homes of India’s rich but the growing middle class is also fast taking to grills, especially in Bangalore and Delhi. In Bangalore, once almost every two weeks, chefs Sarabjit Singh and Faseeulla S host 25 cooking enthusiasts for an entire day and teach them how to cook a fixed menu (called chapters) on a grill. The lessons begin with something as basic as how to light up charcoal without using petrol, setting up a barbecue with a warm and a hot section to cook the meats evenly to making gourmet sauces and the rubs for the meat and even tips on cleaning up after.

The chapters, which began 18 months ago, started with about six to seven people signing up. Today, Singh ends up cutting off the entries at 25. Sometimes, due to popular demand, he has even had to repeat certain chapters to accommodate more people. “Most of our clients come from the booming upper middle class and middle class IT professionals in Bangalore. They are well travelled and are extremely comfortable buying a barbecue set up for anything between Rs20,000-30,000,” says Singh.

Smoke signal

The sudden popularity of barbecued cuisine is a result of growing popularity and viewership of Masterchef Australia and other celebrity cooking shows on lifestyle channels like TLC and Fox Traveller, an increasing number of restaurants introducing gourmet cuisine to Indians and a change of palate of the urban, well-travelled business and executive class. “People are moving on from chicken tikka. They are discovering new meats and are now able to understand different cuts like chops, belly, and ribs. A lot of people investing their time and money in barbecues do it because it’s a lifestyle statement. They want to eat healthy yet delicious food and want to be able to pull off what they watch on television,” says Singh.

Ask Ushma why she invested so much time and money into gourmet grilled cuisine and her response is similar to that of Singh’s. “I honestly started cooking international cuisine after watching Masterchef on television. Also, my husband travels a lot and he prefers eating subtle, less spicy and less oily gourmet European cuisine over Indian food,” she says.

Who is cashing in?
The result of this change in lifestyle choices has resulted in booming sales for kitchen equipment businesses in the country. Several big international players like Weber, an American company that is the biggest name in barbecue equipment around the world, have set up stores across India.

A year ago, based on customer interactions, the team at online specialty store Zansaar.com realised there was an increasing demand for barbecues grills, sauces, rubs, meat tenderisers and other grilling related items. After initial research, the team decided to stock products to cater to the grilling needs of a niche audience. “The initial results were phenomenal and it gave us the confidence to treat this as a dedicated category.

Since we’ve started the section, we have been seeing an increase of more than 100% quarter on quarter. And the sales have been on a consistent upward trajectory, contradicting out own assumptions that it might be a seasonal activity,” says Jidesh Haridas, head of marketing, Zansaar.com.

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