Food Safety Kills Gourmet Kitchens

FSSAI gets Stay on HC Order Quashing Food Law

A well-regarded expat chef of Indian origin said to me the other day that he was going back to Italy because he didn’t see any future for international cuisine in this country.

His hotel, one of India’s showpiece addresses, will run out of rice used to make risotto by December and there’s no possibility of replacements coming in.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has got a stay from the Supreme Court on a Bombay High Court verdict quashing the law. Food imports, from cheese and chocolates to olive oil and Scotch whisky, worth Rs.22,000 crore are stuck at Indian ports awaiting clearance.

“This is seriously hurting Brand India. It is coming across as a nation putting up barriers that prevent legitimate business,” says Samir Kuckreja, President, National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI).

Annapoorna World of Food India, one of two international food shows of any consequence held in the country, will have the dubious distinction of being the first event of its kind in the world where food and drink samples cannot be tasted by the visitors. The elaborate and expensive FSSAI testing procedures were byepassed on assurance that the international consignments would only be displayed, not sampled! Scotch whisky manufacturers are being asked to make new labels that list out the ingredients used and the relevant nutritional information. This enforcement is not for Indian brands or even sales at Duty Free Shops at the airport.

Chocolates turn Bitter

Lindt, which had emerged as the top-selling brand of chocolates during Diwali, has bid goodbye to India after it had to suffer losses because FSSAI did not allow three of its shipments from entering the country. Callebaut, another Swiss chocolate manufacturer whose products are most sought after by top pastry chefs around the world, also had to shut shop some months back after a consignment of 300 tonnes flunked the FSSAI test.

FSSAI has issued 14 advisories, which are in effect amendments, in the one year since the regulations framed under the law - Food Safety and Standards Act of 2006. The Act only the 377 standards in the superceded Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954. Codex of Geneva has more than 11,000 listed but these are not followed by FSSAI.

Bangkok has two restaurants in the World’s Top 50 (David Thompson’s Nahm at No. 13 and Indian restaurant Gaggan at No. 17) but no Indian city makes an appearance even in the Top 100. After this, we wonder why quality tourists shun India.

Gaggan’s original signature dish is the galawat kebab with foie gras, but there is a ban on the import (foie gras is imported mainly from France) and even if, following in the footsteps of Gaggan, he expresses a desire to import Spanish ethical farmer Eduardo de Sousa’s foie gras, he’ll spend more time in government offices banging his head against bureaucratic walls than in his kitchen to turn his wish into a reality.

Few countries are as congenial to mediocrity as India.

Comfort Food is this Season’s New Flavour

The highest-earning stand-alone restaurant in Delhi-NCR today, I am told, is Riyaz Amlani’s Hauz Khas Social, which has regular yet exotic-to-Delhi dishes such as Anda Shaami, Baida Parantha, calorie-intense burgers and all-day breakfasts served at bottom-of-the-barrel prices. 

There’s nothing complicated about them - no spiels on molecular gastronomy, no complications, just good food served in chunky portions. If there’s a trend that has overtaken Delhi’s dining market, which is being powered now by the 20-something generation in revolt against the snobbery of its parents, it is the rise of ‘comfort food’. 

From Monkey Bar’s chorizo naan and other Indian classics with a twist, to Smokey’s burgers and hot dogs - my favourite being its chicken and sausage gravy burger; from Soda Bottle Opener Wala’s Kejriwal Sandwich (no, it has nothing to do with Arvind Kejriwal, but with a fried egg-loving Marwari gent at Mumbai’s Willingdon Club) to Depot 29’s Jackfruit Burger, there not a chef, nor a restaurant that hasn’t succumbed to the ‘comfort food’ wave that is sweeping across the city. 

Even at Farzi Cafe, that altar of molecular gastronomy at Cyber Hub, Gurgaon, the fastest-moving item is the Galawat Kebab Burger with Mutton Boti. If it’s soul-satisfying, why not?