A pop-up queen, known for reinvented Bengali food and quirky desserts, Dyuti Banerjee took the simplest of Bengali dishes to the national platform with MasterChef India Season 7. We chat with the lady, who began her experiments with her cloud kitchen Calcutta Calorie, to know more about her upcoming pop-ups.
What’s your take on Bengali cuisine and your cooking?
I want Bengali indigenous produce to become popular. While Sarson da Saag is going places, our Kolmi Saak will never find a place at a local restaurant. When you think of a Bengali meal, it cannot just be rice, dal, fish curry and mutton curry. The cuisine offers way more than that. Even the places trying to make bhorta are probably not doing it in an authentic manner. The idea is to make Bengali food relevant. If fusion can be done with French cuisine, why not with Bengali cuisine, which is richer in terms of flavours? There are so many indigenous crops, spices or vegetables grown in the state. Even if 50 people try the food at my pop-up, a conversation will start from there.
How have consumer demands changed in the city, when it comes to reimagined meals?
It has improved massively, but it still has a huge room for improvement.
What would be the food trends this year?
I think Japanese and Korean. And it’s a good thing for us, I would say. With
Bengali cuisine, and Asian cuisine, be it South East Asian, Korean or Japanese, we have many overlapping flavours and elements. And the more crazy experiments are done, the better for us.
Could you tell us about your future pop-ups?
I have one in collaboration with Annaja (by Amar Khamar) in March for five days. I have also planned an Enid Blyton picnic menu pop-up, which will probably happen in April.