Canadian chefs get a taste of Indian cuisine at culinary boot camp

Manipal: The cuisine and culture of Canada and India came together during the culinary boot camp organized by Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration (WGSHA). The five day event culminated here recently.According to WGSHA officials, India and Canada share one factor in common, which is cultural diversity. Indian cuisine is steeped in culture and through the culinary boot camp, ‘Indian Cuisine 2016’, the department of culinary arts (DOCA) of Manipal University provided students of George Brown College, Toronto, Canada to get a glimpse of their flavourful world.The camp, a first of its kind, aimed to expose young and budding foreign chefs to the vast and deep subject that is the Indian cuisine and culture. With their trip to Manipal and to Chennai, students learnt a lot about local South Indian food, culture of cuisine and the food philosophy in India. Although they were here only for a week, the young chefs hope to continue their culinary journey with an intense amount of knowledge gained through the extensive culinary boot camp 2016.During the camp, students were taken through cultural usage of spices as well as religious and foreign influences on Indian food. Students also visited Malpe wharf early in the morning to see fishing boats bringing the ‘big catch’ from the Arabian Sea. Chef K Thiru took them around the quay to show them the wide variety of fish that fishermen had just brought in. He also explained how each variety is suited for a particular dish and how people in the region prepare different kinds of dishes.An outdoor cooking session was organized at Kaup Beach by the students and faculty of DOCA, WGSHA. The visiting students were given hands-on training in preparing local dishes like pineapple menskai, dalithove, biryani, chicken gassi and neer dosa. The objective of the programme was to provide budding chefs from Canada to learn more about the Indian cuisine.