12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
James Beard Award winner's local flavours get global reception
The restaurant, Semma, which took form in 2021, in Greenwich, New York, was built with a tinge of his childhood, a blob of his food culture, where the ingredients — his grandmother's recipes, the freshly ground spices — are served like an unforgettable fragment of his life. Receiving the 2025 James Beard Award is equally a win for the Indians, on many layers. His profound words tower over the food politics, cutting through the differences based on plates and palettes, as at the ceremony, he says, 'There is nothing called a poor person's food or rich person's food. It's food. It's powerful, and the real luxury is to be able to connect with each other around the dinner table. Tonight, the Indian cuisine stands tall, The Tamil food stands tall, my own food stands tall…'
Despite standing on the peak of his culinary voyage, he would never want to erase his humble upbringing. 'When I started cooking, I never thought a dark-skinned boy from Tamil Nadu could make it to a room like this,' his words echo at the award ceremony. The 25 years of his life in the culinary field were always about staying true to his ethics, uncompromised, and unapologetic. His vacations, outings with grandparents, the fishing and hunting sessions, relishing grandmother's food wrapped in banana leaves, were probably where he drew food ideas from, teaching him to retain the raw flavours of nature and resist sophistication. Among the smoky flavours of the beloved Mulaikattiya Thaniya, flavoursome Dindigul Biryani, the crispy Nathai Pirattai, and many other interesting blends served on banana leaves, he mentions the customers' favourites, his signature dishes — Gunpowder Dosa and Paniyaram.
