A Le Cordon Bleu chef with years of experience behind him, Anthony Boyd recently toured three Indian cities, Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai, for culinary demonstrations, student interactions and plenty of good food. After working with numerous Michelin starred restaurants in London, Chef Boyd joined Le Cordon Bleu’s team of Cuisine Teaching Chefs in 2013.
Excerpts from an interview:
What was the objective that you arrived in India with, and how has the experience been?
It’s been amazing, I really mean that and can’t stress that more. We have tried to hit the universities hotels and hospitality industry in the country. I just wanted to plant the seed in the students’ heads about what lies ahead for them in the future. I wanted to show them that they are important and the work they are doing is important. I wanted to give them as much of my knowledge as I could in my short time here.
And what were your observations, when you visited these institutes?
My first impression of these students is that they have a lot of passion. What they showed to me was a lot of care, passion, and wanting to learn. And it was fantastic. As a teacher, that’s the sort of response you want from them.
What I also noticed is that they need to be given an opportunity to express themselves a little bit more. And that has to come from the institutes themselves. I am a firm believer of that fact that we can’t keep putting a blanket over these children anymore. We have to let them express themselves a little more. Who knows, the next best chef might be in any one of these colleges.
Did the trip also expand your own knowledge and familiarity with Indian food?
The perception of Indian food in England is curries, mainly that, which we enjoy, we enjoy the spices and flavours of Indian food. I don’t think we get them as much as we want them. Here, even if you cross the street you find different spices, different flavours, and its amazing.
At one point during the trip, I asked the people showing me around to take me where they’d like to go. This was in Delhi, and they took me to Bengali market, to their favourite place to eat in the market. It was wonderful; they kept ordering food and I kept eating it. Each dish had a different flavour, a different sensation. It was really good.
In an increasingly shrinking world, global cuisines are making their way to India. Did you notice Indian culinary institutes experimenting more, and becoming more open to foreign cuisines?
Yesterday at the IHM we met a class and they were doing Mexican cuisine, learning all about South American food. There is a massive world of knowledge out there and every cuisine can bring something to our vocabulary. Within this country also, you are very lucky. The quality of ingredients that I used in every single demonstration was of Michelin star standard in London.
I was lucky enough to be a part of the London scene when it sort of exploded. And from the passion I have experienced in the Mumbai students, India isn’t far from going through that process. Soon, any type of cuisine you want to eat is going to be at your doorstep. When you think about it, the produce is here, the workforce is here, the hospitality is here; all you need to do now is to get the next generation of chefs to really go for it. And that is the key for me, just letting them breathe.
