Eating out gets a twist as homes open doors

PUNE: An informal and intimate dining experience with authentic traditional dishes is what the food lovers in the city are craving. Just like Cesar Chavez said, "If you really want to make a friend, go to someone's house and eat with him... the people who give you their food give you their heart" - there is no fusion, no mix and match just the real taste of Maharashtra, or Himachal Pradesh or Assam or any other state complete with a home-like ambience.
Shreeram Kunte, chief experience officer and co-founder of Connect With Local, a forum that facilitates in-house dining - connecting hosts with guests, says, "Our online marketplace connects home-cooks representing cultures of the world with foodies of the world. The hosts put up their signature menu on the website; the guests make online reservations and on the designated date and time, go over to the home of the host to enjoy authentic home-cooked food."
Kunte says that patrons are excited about the concept because apart from food a lot of other latent needs are addressed too. "To start with, we offer a platform for face-to-face interactions. Secondly, we give the opportunity to widen our cultural understanding. An event with us in which the host is Maharashtrian and the guests are Himachali, Assamese, Kannadigas and Mangaloreans is not an uncommon sight. Thirdly, we offer the opportunity to meet interesting people from other social circles and interests," he says.
Homemaker Zeena Fernandes has hosted three events with Kunte's forum. "I have had as many as 15 guests coming in for the event. People crave authentic home-cooked fare rather than go to a restaurant. At home it is more intimate," says she. It is the love for food and the cultural give-and-take that keeps this concept going, says Fernandes, who has hosted a Manglorean and Goan event.
Saket Khanna, chief executive officer of another such forum, MealTango, says, "It is a wonderful way of preserving lost cuisines. For example, the 'Pathare Prabhu' cuisine is almost lost. But we are working hard with our host in Mumbai, to enable others to try the cuisine."
Alice Syam, a retired banking professional, says, "I have hosted about seven such events specialising in Kerala and Andhra cuisines with Khanna's help. It was a wonderful experience to get to know people from different walks of life. I'm comfortable hosting in small numbers as it encourages personal interaction."
Both Kunte and Khanna say that it is the need for authentic food while travelling away from home that fuelled the idea for coming up with such a concept. And the response they say has been overwhelming.
"We had to upgrade our server thrice since inception to deal with the increasing traffic. We are currently serving meals in triple digits per month and next year we expect to hit meals in the four digits," says Khanna.
"We never thought such a concept will take off so soon in Pune. One sure sign of acceptance is that so many volunteers have come forward to help us promote it. We carefully screen every applicant who wants to be a host," adds Kunte.
The menu and the number of guests and also the price per head are all up to the host to decide. This gives hosts the freedom to choose what they are most comfortable with.
"I have hosted two events with 12 guests catering to Maharashtrian cuisine. Hosting these events made me realise that language is not really important, what matters is being able to communicate. This wonderful concept fulfills the need to interact with a host of people and learn so many new things," says Medha Gokhale, who is part of the Marathi film industry and an avid cook.
It is not always traditional fare that these home-cooks dish out. Sometimes, if a person has had a lot of exposure to a different kind of cuisines and can master the vagaries of the authentic flavour, the forum lets them host such a meal.
Such was the case with Divya Narwani, who runs a pre-school in the city. She had stayed in the Caribbean Islands for 15 long years, so it was natural that she hosts a Caribbean meal. "The food was very new for the guests. I have hosted three events in all of different world cuisines. This concept allows me to fulfill my desire to cook in a limited professional way. Meeting like-minded new people is always an added advantage," she says.