The first edition of the Culinary Chroniclers Conclave taking place at Vikhroli Cucina tomorrow will see experts in the field offering keynotes, discussions, lectures and masterclass. 

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Distinguished peers such as Ankiet Gulabani, Antoine Lewis, Vikram Doctor, Marryam H Reshii, Dr. Mohsina Mukadam, Ruchi Shrivastava, Rushina Munshaw-Ghildiyal, Saee Koranne-Khandekar, Saba Gaziyani, Sourish Bhattacharya, Chef Varun Inamdar, and Vir Sanghvi will share their perspectives on the past, present and future of chronicling food. The Conclave will also host unique exhibits and installations, including a Chocolate installation by Zeba Kohli to serve as creative inspirations. The Culinary Chroniclers Conclave will be held on Saturday, 30-June-2018, between 9:00 am - 7:30 pm, at the Auditorium, Godrej One, Vikhroli, Mumbai.The brains behind the one-day long event, Rushina Munshaw-Ghildiyal tells us more about it. 

Why did you think it's so important to chronicle food and the various facets attached to food? Since when has the idea been in your mind?

It's important to chronicle food because it gives us so much about the way we eat, why we eat, who eats what, community cuisines, trends in food. By looking at the chronicles in past we can find out what our ancestors ate, what we eat today will be the chronicles of tomorrow, there is so much that can be inferred from the chronicles of food from everything to what was cooked or not cooked in a certain period to how it was cooked, who ate it, what was the diet and traditions all sorts of things. I think it is very very important especially in the country like India where we have got so much food knowledge that we have inherited but it has always been passed on orally which is why we have very limited documentary food history. Hopefully, this culinary chronicle conclave will create a platform where we can start documenting food of today for the chronicle of tomorrow.The idea of bringing everybody together on a platform has been around for a really long time, its finally happening. Some of the greatest names in the area of culinary chronicling will be at the event tomorrow. When I originally started I dreamt of an event where we would celebrate food writers and journalists but I realized today its not only traditional writing for chronicling, there are more mediums.

There are so many aspects of chronicling and documenting food, in more ways than people imagine. Can you comment on that?  

There are lots and lots of ways of chronicling food and documenting it. We see people use all kind of mediums like art photography, video, podcasting and all of these work as different mediums of chronicling. I think its lovely as different mediums allow you to capture food and its related aspects in different ways, so today we have not just written word but imagery, illustrations and podcast which gives you different ways of consuming food in a world that is constantly changing.

How did you go about curating it? Who were the people you wanted to be associated with? 

Basically when we started discussing the concept of the culinary chroniclers conclave, we concluded that today there are many new mediums that people are using for chronicling so while I originally wanted to create a platform for people who write on food I realized that today chroniclers are anybody. It could be chefs, it could be food photographers and stylist, it could be people who make video and podcasts, it could just be anybody who is documenting stories on food in anyway is a chronicler. Today they are stories, tomorrow they are going to be chroniclers. 

Can you take us a bit through what the day-long event will comprise? Is there any talk or discussion you are personally looking forward to? 

I wanted to be associated with people who stand for impressive bodies of works in the spaces that they occupy in the world of chronicling, so if you look at the line up of speakers we have got some of the most important, respected names in the space of food chronicling all on one platform for the first time.

What is the ultimate aim of the conclave? What do you hope comes out of these discussions/masterclasses etc?

The days event are going to include a conclave in the main auditorium of Godrej one in Vikhroli, through the day we are going to have key note, lectures by some very very eminent names. We have got Dr. Mohsina Mukadam who is one of India's food historians who is going to take us through chronicling that exists in history, we have got Marryam Reshii who will be talking about how to be a successful food writer, we have got very interesting panel discussions between Saee Koranne-Khandekar with Lalita Iyer, Shubra Chatterji on oral formats that have recorded food, so songs, food trail stories that we hear and the food mentioned in those.

Side by side we also have the conference which also has a panel where in Vikram Doctor, Antoine Lewis , Chef Ranveer Brar, Chef Varun Inamdar and Vir Sanghvi will be sharing a key note. We have all really respectful names in the food chronicling industry.

The ultimate aim of the culinary chroniclers conclave is to create a platform for people who are documenting and chronicling food in different mediums, to bring us all together whether we are food bloggers, food writers, journalists, nutritionists, chefs if we are telling the stories of food then we are chronicling for tomorrow and we are all part of this space. I am hoping that this will help us with new narratives and new media.