The art of crafting food

From his apartment in Mumbai’s Altamount Road, Karl Kothavala churns out 60kgs of cheese every day. There’s feta, mascarpone, sweet chilli-garlic cheese and fresh green pepper cheese among others. Once the cheese, branded ‘Say Cheez’ and created with business partner Rashmin Sayani, is delivered to his distributor, Kothavala forgets about it. He knows it will eventually reach kitchens at upmarket restaurants like Indigo and Pali Village Cafe, but that’s about it. As Kothavala puts it, he prefers to not “get into it” and trusts his distributor to do the job well. 

Such a clear disinterest in the commercial aspects of production might seem suicidal for anyone in the food business. But that’s something artisanal food makers don’t worry about much. Their job is to handcraft high-quality food.
Success, they believe, will follow suit.

AN ARTISAN’S STORY
The word ‘artisan’ has been bandied about freely by companies in the food business in a bid to appeal to more consumers. A Time magazine article in 2012 explored how over 800 food products had been labelled ‘artisan’ in the past five years, making the word almost redundant because even food giants like Dunkin’ Donuts, Domino’s pizzas and Tostitos chips claimed to offer ‘artisan’ food.

But those serious about good food will agree that there are a few things that make a food product artisanal. It  should be hand-made,  of superior quality and made in small batches. This means artisanal food is not for mass consumption or for keeping indefinitely. It has to be
consumed fresh.

Bereft of preservatives, artisanal food has a low shelf life, says Rushina Munshaw-Ghildiyal, a food entrepreneur. “You should get worried if your bread does not mould,” says Ghildiyal, who recently opened the Lust Pantry at APB Cook Studio in Mumbai that is stocked with hand-crafted, locally-sourced gourmet food.

IT'S ALL IN THE CRAFT
While Kothavala calls himself a food artist, Aditi Handa of the one-month-old outfit The Baker’s Dozen, compares herself to a mother in tune with the needs of her baby.

Handa and her team of five bake and deliver handcrafted bread. She believes that, like a good mother, a good baker must know her dough at each stage of baking. “We use a mixer to mix the dough but do not use a divider, shaper or rounder for our bread. They are shaped by hand. We don’t powder our grains either,” explains Handa. The loaves are allowed to proof naturally on imported cane baskets and are baked in a stone oven.
It’s not easy work
Proofing is a “crazy” stage of baking where anything can go wrong, says Handa. But Kothavala enjoys the surprise element in what he does. “When making my cultured mascarpone, I created another cheese which I made by using another process. I haven’t named it yet, but it tastes fantastic. It is my new, own, personal, hard-earned cheese.”
“A lot of effort and focus into making cheese,” he explains, munching on a cracker topped with cheese. “Cleanliness is next to godliness. External bacteria can spoil the cheese so you must sterilise all equipment.”

DEMAND AND SUPPLY
Given that Indians have been churning out hand-crafted food like papads, pickles and chutneys for years now, what’s the big deal about artisanal food in India and what’s the demand for it?
“There is a big demand for these products, as you can see in the range of locally-sourced products in supermarkets,” says food writer Antoine Lewis. So there are foodies willing to pay good money for well-made, handcrafted food free of preservatives and other additives.

Handa compares the people of Mumbai to New Yorkers who are increasingly looking at handcrafted gourmet food.  People in both mega cities also tend to be adventurous with food and are well-travelled. “They both don’t like too many commercial products,” she says. It was this demand that encouraged Handa to start baking.

Young food entrepreneurs Alfana Khatri and Princee Kalra agree that there is a demand. They started producing their brand of Schezwan sauce called Home-made Healthy Schezwan Sauce, out of an apartment in Juhu because they found there weren’t healthy alternatives available. It helped that both have degrees in nutrition and dietetics. Khatri and Kalra produce 200-300 bottles of their sauce a week and distribute it to a few stores in Vile Parle and Juhu. “Our sauces are made with fresh ingredients. There is no ajinomoto, no artificial colouring and no added flavours,”
says Khatri.

Despite the presence of such artisanal food producers, the food industry still has a long way to go in India. “This industry is at a nascent stage. Unlike in Europe, where there’s a long tradition of making artisanal food and the market is regulated, the market here is not regulated and you cannot guarantee quality. Here, artisanal food has a home-style quality to it,” says Lewis.

One drawback is distribution. “In Europe, products are better known and marketed and people know what they get when they buy these products. But in India, it is more a question of distribution — they don’t have sufficient distributors,” he adds.