There is a great reverence in the art of cooking and presentation and most restaurants and pubs are innovating new ways to please the palate with nouvelle cuisine, giving the classic dishes and cocktails a welcome twist. Adding to the camaraderie and celebration of various cuisines are food bloggers and influencers, who have emerged with their robust content and visual presentation, luring food lovers far and wide with their huge outreach. The city’s obsession with food is clearly on the rise. Eating is a multi-sensory experience and the blogger brigade is using enticing ways to cash in on how you eat with your eyes. Even research suggests that it is our eyes that lead the way and our tongues merely follow. NAMITA GUPTA meets some of Bengaluru’s top food bloggers and influencers who’re doing their bit to spread the word to the ardent foodies on the lookout for spanking new hotspots to dine in and lounge at.
Name of your blog?
My food blog is called Grubitizer. It is a combination of ‘Grub’ and ‘Appetizer’. I wanted a unique and catchy blog name that had some significance towards food, hence the word ‘Grub’ and Appetizer/Starters is my favourite course of a meal.
One thing you love about cooking and eating?
I generally, eat out a lot and have experienced different styles of cooking. On that context, cooking to me is picking the best dish I’ve had outside and replicating it at home in a very toned down and healthy manner.
How important are photographs and knowledge of food for food bloggers?
In my opinion, understanding food requires three primary things to be in place – visualise the presentation, aroma of ingredients and taste of the overall product. The first aspect (visual) is fulfilled by taking good pictures and the other two aspects, aroma and taste can be conveyed only if the blogger is knowledgeable about food and is aware of the history/origin of a particular dish. Every story a blogger conveys has to have a balanced approach between these aspects of understanding food.
An interesting experience as a food blogger?
I was part of a media table at an Italian restaurant covering a food festival menu. The chef bought a dish and a started explaining about it, a part of his explanation we heard the term ‘Chicken Caviar’. There was awkward silence on the table after the chef left and finally someone popped the question asking what he actually meant by Chicken Caviar. None of us knew and even Google didn’t give out any search results, we eventually had to call the chef who clarified it was Sago soaked in Chicken broth! We all had a good laugh at it.
What else do you do? How lucrative is it being a food blogger?
I’m part of an analytics product team at Capgemini. Being a food blogger is not mere clicking pictures and posting it on various social media platforms. One has to have a website where the commercial aspects of the writing can be materialised. Lately, YouTube has been the go-to media platform as it pays much more than having an AdSense enabled website. Travelling to different territories and understanding the culinary secrets of that place is one of the many things that makes blogging a lucrative profile.
