The taste of Maharashtra

Published in Weekend, 2006

By Francis P. Barclay

It was all about making the eyes bigger than the stomach at the ninth Kitchen Carnival of the VLB Janakiammal College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore, which completed its 10 years stint in hospitality education.
This time the Coimbatoreans had the opening to taste from a ritzy spread of Maharashtrian dishes under the title `Mumbai Mirchi', and as the name suggested the event was h-o-t and hotter than ever.
It was Sunday, March 19, and the sun was trying to veil itself in the billows of the west, when the gourmets of the city flocked to the college grounds. To welcome them were the students of the Department of Hotel Management and Catering Science of the college, all dressed in black `n' black with a picture of red chilly stuck on their shirts.
By 6.30 the venue was jam-packed. The students were busy bringing and placing the dishes in the stalls, which ran from one end to the other.
The function was formally launched with the lighting of the kuthuvilakku by M Krishnan, chairman of the Sri Krishna Sweets Pvt. Ltd., Coimbatore. The dias was full with bigwigs in the profession from across the country as Ajeet Kumar Lal Mohan, Head, Department of Hotel Management, welcomed them.
The crowd could not sit patiently to hear the 38-odd dignitaries speak. Soon they scurried to the stalls to taste the sundry dishes. The students had prepared 35 dishes in Maharashtrian style and placed them in separate stalls for families, couples, singles, staff and parents.
Every year, a state is selected and its cuisine is prepared and placed for the Coimbatoreans to taste. This year it was Maharashtra, and the food items included Chawal Ka Mirchi - a spicy stuff made of rice and capsicum and
flavoured with Maharashtrian masala, Ajwain Ka Pulao - rice flavoured with omam and garnished with crispy fried onions, Murgh Kolhapuri Briyani, Romali Roti, Gobi Batata Bhaji and so on from Tossed Salad, Aloo Chaat and Papad to Murgh Makhanwala (butter chicken) and Doodh Peda.
On the other side, a Chennai-based troupe shook their legs for some latest tunes, which relished the crowd even as they were pelting with the plates. Tambola and other games organised for the couples, parents of the college
students and the participants added fizz to the fiesta.
While the college boys, dressed in black and with a red chilly on their shirt, branded well the event, the girls, all in the pink of joy, were galavanting in the crowd.
Sanjay Sharma, general manager, Le Meridien, Kochi, felicitated and presented gold medal to the Best Academic Performance Award in memory of the late Shri N K Mahadeva Iyer, founder of the Sri Krishna Sweets while Joseph Graham, regional manager of HR, Taj Coromandel, Chennai, released the department magazine.
The dignitaries, all from the leading hotels across the country, who participated in the fest include Neeraj Chadha, general manager of Goa Marriott International, Kannan, executive chef of Taj Madras Flight Kitchen, Chennai, Pradeep Shinde, director of the HR, Hyatt Regency, Mumbai, and Sandeep Shenava, HR manager, The Leela Palace, Bangalore.