This chef takes us back to Sangam era through her dishes

CHENNAI: From being a Chartered Accountant to becoming a self-taught chef, who organises pop-ups regularly at 5-star hotels, chef Shribala is now trying her hand at researching food from the Sangam period and coming up with recipes. “I am researching on Sangam era as well as southern India during imperial rule. There is a lot to learn and it is a continuous process,” starts chef Shribala.

Cooking from the age of nine, Shribala didn’t realise her passion until she started pursuing CA. She found her job monotonous, and authored a novel, titled, Y? Me, which was published in 2013. The lead in the novel is a finance professional, who later becomes a chef. “I never thought that I will be that finance professional who turns into a chef. The novel was a prelude to my journey of becoming a chef,” says Shribala. She started her journey as a chef in 2016 and organised various pop-ups in star hotels that focused on south Indian food.

Exhausted with the contemporary pop-ups that were all the same, Shribala wanted to don a different hat. That’s when the idea of the Chola dynasty struck her, as she is a great admirer of Rajendra Chola. A major turning point was when she visited a college to collect information about ancient food. A history professor whom Shribala met there suggested she look into the Sangam literature rather than the Chola period, which will be even more fascinating. That was the trigger point that is guiding the chef in her research journey.

Talking about her research, she says that there is no boundary or destination. “There are no recipe books that I can refer to know about the food in the Sangam era. I started my research by learning poems from various anthologies of the Sangam period,” explains Shribala. She said that she had to read a lot, only to get one recipe. “In the poems, there will be just mention of someone coming home, cooking a dish, and serving it.

Through that, I got to know the name of the food, but mostly there will not be any hint about the ingredients used or the cooking method. To know that, I did research about the ingredients that were available during that particular period. With that, I create the recipes. I wouldn’t tag my recipes as authentic, as we don’t know the information on cooking methods used. But these recipes are inspiration from the Sangam era,” she adds. She also says that her research is the result of her fascination with the culture.

Shribala didn’t stop with the Sangam and delved deep into the food culture during imperialism. Her focus turned to kings from the Vijayanagara dynasty till the British period. “Research is one field that always fascinates me. The more I learn, the deeper I am getting. I am clear that my food research will not stop,” she concludes.