'Home Cooking Is Becoming A Lost Art'

'Our recipes come from our real-life experiences and have a story behind them.'

during the lockdowns, Semanti Sinha Ray and Director Amit Mehra turned to showcasing all the delicious food they rustled up at home.

It was around the time when Amit was invited to Germany's Stuttgart Festival as "they needed film-makers who cook, to showcase what they cook."

Amit loved the idea, and it got Semanti and him started off on The Slow Fire Chef, a cooking show on YouTube.

"Our first episode was part of the film festival and was screened there. After that we just continued."

For over two years now, the home chefs have been busy with their show.

Semanti does 60 per cent of the cooking, and Amit does 30 per cent.

"That's mainly because he doesn't trust my camera work," quips Semanti.

They are on their fourth season and have been shooting 3-4 episodes a week.

"We discovered very early on that at one-third the cost you can buy ingredients and create something healthy and fresh in your kitchen," says Semanti.

Amit is Punjabi, Semanti is Bengali.

"Both of us realise that one of the most important things (in a marriage) is food."

Towards the mid-1990s, Amit met Semanti when they were working for a same television network.

He was the director and producer, and she was the head of marketing.

They started living together in a really tiny studio apartment with a tiny kitchen.

It was in that kitchen that their love story with food actually started.

Today, they are championing a movement that hopes to inspire people to cook more often at home, especially in a world where home-deliveries are the norm.

Amit is armed with the belief that if men see someone as clumsy as him cooking, they might take it up as well.

Semanti and Amit speak to Anita Aikara/Rediff.com about their home-cooking journey.

Who inspired you to cook?

Semanti: My mother was a great cook.

In fact, all the women in my family have been superb cooks.

I guess for me the inspiration was more because when I left home, I depended on somebody else to cook meals for me.

I found that the taste wasn't appealing to me at all. If I wanted to eat good food, I had to do it myself.

That's really what triggered it off. Once I started, there was no stopping.

I found that I really enjoyed cooking.

It was not just a stress buster, but a creative process.

Amit: I grew up in Delhi and my dad had a transferable job in the early years of his working career.

So, we were based in Lucknow for a while, Kanpur for a bit, but most of it has been in Delhi.

I'm a Punjabi and a lot of my influences are from North India.

After my schooling, I shifted to Mumbai, because I wanted to do film-making.

I was also doing my graduation at St Xavier's, which also had a film school, the Xavier Institute of Communications.

At that time, I was living alone in an apartment in Colaba (south Mumbai) and the cook I had was terrible.

I was just 19 and had come to study in Mumbai, telling my parents that everything was great over here.

If they'd come to know that I was not getting proper food, they'd revolt against my idea of studying in Mumbai, since Delhi has very good colleges.

I couldn't tell them anything and wouldn't eat that kind of food.

So, I would do several food walks in Colaba, beaches and places where I could see how the food was being cooked.

At that time, in the early '90s, we didn't have YouTube and other online channels to learn cooking.

During the food walks, I'd try and speak to the chefs to understand what they were doing and why.

That's how I learnt to make Pav Bhaji.

What are the dishes you enjoy cooking?

Semanti: I love doing Bengali and North Indian traditional recipes.

I have been cooking a lot of South Indian food as well because I spent around four or five years of my childhood in a boarding school in Ooty.

I have several Malayalee, Tamilian and Andhra friends, and their food is fantastic.

My grandmother had long ago told me, 'If you want to eat certain foods, you better learn to cook it yourself'.

I followed her advice and whenever I find a dish that I like, I learn how to make it.

Amit is more the fusion kind and is very happy pouring vodka, beer and rum into his food.

Though when it comes to eating, he is very traditional. He does not like to mix his palates.

But when it comes to cooking, he's very experimental.

Between the two of us, it has been a very happy North Indian and Bengali attitude to food.

Bengalis eat everything course by course -- we eat things, one at a time, and don't mix the dal and the fish.

Amit picked that up from me, and today he has become the one sabzi sort of guy.

If we are making fish curry, he doesn't need anything else.

Amit: The five-six years before we got married was an entire culinary exploration in our tiny kitchen in Delhi.

We used to work and, in the evenings, on the way back home, we would pick up ingredients and experiment.

Semanti exposed me to Bengali cuisine and the food from the north eastern part of her family.

I introduced her to some of the North Indian cuisine she had not tasted before.

Both of us had a taste for international cuisines like Chinese, Asian and European.

Cooking became an integral part of our lives and post marriage, our food journey continued.

At what age did you start cooking? 

Semanti: I started full-fledged cooking at the age of 21. It's been nonstop since then.

On a regular day, we cook four meals in the kitchen as we love to have our food fresh.

Amit: My cooking started at the age of 19.

Every time I would visit home, I would secretly watch my mother cook.

My mom had a lot of recipes and would read several cookbooks, but she always tried to create something of her own.

Ours was a traditional family, where roles for men and women were clearly defined.

I would just ask my mom to cook my favourite food that I knew I could come back to Mumbai and try cooking.

That was my initial training as a cook and then after that, I kept cooking for myself and my friends.

As for Semanti, she is very methodical. Something I can never be, because I am mostly having fun in the kitchen.

She has a scientific approach to cooking, and it is absolutely brilliant to watch her cook.

In the last 25-30 years that we have been together, she has cooked food from every region.

What's a day like in your home?

Semanti: Nowadays we are majorly into South India breakfasts.

We make dosa with chutney. Depending on the mood, we add a sambar.

Breakfast takes around 30 minutes to get ready.

Lunch is normally a vegetarian one with paneer and roti/paratha, if it's a Bengali meal, then maybe a fish curry.

In the evening, around 5:30-6, when we both get snacky, we make a sandwich with leftover roast, pakoras or bhajiyas or samosas.

Dinner is our main meal and is planned ahead.

Amit is very good at making steaks. If it is pork, it probably would be a roast.

Now that our show has taken off, we end up putting a chicken into the oven with vegetables along with it and making a stock separately on the side.

Where do you get your recipes from?

Semanti: I have it written down in files and notebooks.

I have got recipes from elders in the family, be it my aunts or grand aunts.

My grandmother was from Tripura and belonged to a royal family.

My mom has three sisters, all who are fantastic cooks.

Whenever I like something, I make it a point to ask the person who has cooked how they did it.

I then try to remember and recreate the dish.

Also, when I see some amazing vegetables in the market, I pick it up and do some research on how it is made.

And whichever recipe suits me, I make it.

What's the process when you are shooting?

Semanti: When we are shooting, we decide the recipe, and make sure we have all the ingredients and shoot it in real time.

There are no makeovers and redoing things.

Basically, what you see, is what you get.

Touchwood, till date all that we have cooked has turned out well.

After we finish the shoot, Amit and I are quickly tasting it to see how it is.

So far, we have gone ahead with every shoot. 

Who shoots the videos? Do you have a team?

Semanti: It's just two of us who do everything.

When I cook, Amit shoots and when he cooks, I shoot.

Then I do the editing, and Amit does the uploading.

What keeps you going?

Semanti: The people who are following us certainly keep things going.

They are all sort of equally invested in our journey.

It's like one big family.

It is mostly strangers who we haven't met and have become friends over the last few years.

Challenges of shooting the videos?

Semanti: We are shooting all the videos in real time.

Space is a huge challenge. In Mumbai, the apartments are tiny.

There is not much to do creatively in terms of camera movements.

Now we do more close-ups of the cooking and the food, and the speaking and anchoring are done later.

When we started shooting during Covid, one of us had to manage the camera, and the other would cook.

We used the lights we already had.

As for deciding what we plan to cook, it depends on what we'd like to eat and what's in season.

It's basically food and recipes that both of us have loved.

Why should someone watch your show?

Amit: Our show is intimate and personal.

The recipes are coming from our real-life experiences and have a story behind them.

This is not a culinary school or a cooking class where everything is technical.&

For us it is about how one can connect with food.

We are trying to infuse emotions in the food.

For Semanti and me, every milestone is defined by the food we had at that time.

We have been on a mission to really inculcate and promote home cooking.

Because we genuinely feel that the younger generation (both men and women) is losing interest in cooking.

Now everything is available at the click of a button.

Home cooking is becoming a lost art.

In India, people, men especially, do not realise that cooking is a very important life skill.

All my single years I survived because I knew how to cook.

We do want to inspire people to value their family recipes and have a love for cooking at home.

To keep up with Semanti and Amit's journey as home chefs, follow their YouTube channel The Slow Fire Chef.
They also deliver food from their kitchen all over Mumbai.
WhatsApp them on 8104689703 for more details.