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Talking Khana Sanjeev Kapoor says regional Indian food is gaining many fans

Ask him about the product (a sugar substitute) that he endorses, he talks with such confidence and conviction that he could convert anyone. As he talks about sugar and energy and how sugar gets converted to fat and what causes diabetes, it is clear that the man knows what he is talking about. He says: “In the last 15 years I have endorsed just about six to seven products, which means one in a couple of years. This in a place where celebrities endorse 10-15 products a year, I would never endorse something that I would not want anyone from my family to use. Prudence has to be exercised while endorsing a product.”

As host of one of the longest running television shows on Indian television “and mind you it is not a serial,” Sanjeev is easily one of the most recognised faces of television. Fifteen years of cooking and he says he’s getting ready to launch a television channel devoted to food. The restaurant business was a logical step for him, he owns restaurant chains such as Yellow Chilli, Grain of Salt. He recently tied up with the Dubai-based Landmark group as franchisees.

Quiz him on what got him into the kitchen, and he says: “When I was a kid I didn’t know this is what I wanted to do. Like there is Playdoh today, then too as kids we were given things such as dough to keep ourselves busy. Going by the time spent in the kitchen, my brother who is a management consultant should have been the chef.” A predilection for the “different” led him to the hotel management course. “I wanted to do something that was drastically different, ‘hat ke’, as filmi folks say. Something bizarre, something that would make people do a double take when I tell them this is what I do. So becoming a chef was the thing to do, nobody I knew (family or friends) was a chef,” he says. This was before the cook became chef.

He was one of the youngest executive chefs of a five star hotel in India, since he peaked his career very young and then came the “What next?” moment and television and ‘Khana Khazana’ happened.

And he has come a long way. Things with a streak of madness is what attracts Sanjeev, which is what he says drew him to go bungee jumping 20 years back in New Zealand when it was just catching up, “I paid $ 80 to jump off a cliff, and people were like ‘what is wrong with you!’”

That same streak of madness led him to the dance-based reality show ‘Jhalak Dikhla Ja’. “I asked a friend of mine what he thought about my participating in the show. I was told if people had two left feet I had 20 left feet. And others raised their eyebrows and they were like ‘naah’. That was it, my mind was made up,” he says.

His theory is that what holds people back is the fear of the unknown, he on the other hand wants to know the unknown and thereby eliminate fear altogether.

He is all set to enter the ready-to-eat market too and he wants to devote more time to television which he says is a favourite medium. Television is not all, Sanjeev has written around seven books on cooking as well.

Although he cooks it all, Indian cuisine is undoubtedly his thing. Of the million kinds of world cuisine that are available in India these days he says: “there was a time when nobody wanted to be seen eating Indian food, there was no pride in eating Indian. They wanted different cuisines ‘foreign food’, but they were unwilling to compromise on the Indian taste. Therefore we have an aloo tikki burger or chicken tikka pizza or ‘Indian’ flavoured noodles. However, today it is hep to be seen eating Indian food. Regional Indian food is gaining many committed fans.”

The craziest thing he has ever cooked? “There is nothing that crazy that I have cooked. Maybe I should try karela-ka-halwa!” he makes up on the spot, and bursts out laughing. The tête-À-tête is almost over and he comes up with a cooking disaster. “A pal and I were on a train from Ahmedabad and my friend wanted to have an after dinner coffee. Now there was only coffee and no milk in the pantry, so I asked the staff to add ice cream to the coffee and serve it. The coffee came and as we sipped it, it tasted strange and we were wondering. I asked the boy what he had done. He said he had added the ice cream as I had requested… only that it was strawberry because the vanilla flavour that he was serving was over.”

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