The Art of Cooking

Updated on: Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Crossword Bookstore was filled with an array of tastes and aromas as chef Sanchayita Bhattacharjee Alam launched her first book, Travelling Flavours’, with a live cooking demonstration at the bookstore on Elgin Road, Kolkata.

Sanchayita showcased two dishes from her new book, while treating the audience to various anecdotes from her cooking experiences all over the world. Using Middle Eastern recipes included in the book, she first prepared cheesy dates with a bell pepper salsa, followed by aubergine bruschetta, both of which were sampled by a very willing audience.

Travelling Flavours contains a wealth of recipes from Africa, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean, all of which can be prepared easily at home using ingredients that are widely available in India. The chef emphasised that it was not exotic ingredients that gives her food its flavours, and that there was no reason why international dishes could not be prepared in the Indian home. She said, “The world has been changing taking food with it, and ingredients have travelled. It is not the ingredients that change; it is how we use them that makes the difference.”

Sanchayita spent time studying both in India and Germany, and travelling the globe. Having opened her first restaurant in 2001, she travelled to England where she gained a place at the Cordon Bleu cookery school in London. She then spent a number of years working at renowned restaurants in the city, before returning to Kolkata where she opened her fine dining restaurant, The Restaurant on the First Floor, in 2004.

Coming from an artistic family and with a background in theatre, it is unsurprising that Sanchayita views cooking as an art form. “Like in theatre, in a restaurant everyday you have new people to touch”, she said, “You are performing in the kitchen and your audience is in the dining room.”

With her first cookbook now published, Sanchayita aims to continue sharing her cooking knowledge she has gleaned from her travels through demonstrations and workshops throughout the city. However, despite her extensive international experience and her inspirations from across the globe, she insists that Indian food will remain in her blood. She said, “Wherever we go in the world, our roots go with us. My flavours from home will always go on travelling with me.”

The Art of Cooking

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