Chefs of eastern states form association to work on promoting region's food culture

While all other regions of India have their chef bodies, the eastern region was lagging behind with no representative body of its own for a long time. This vacuum got filled recently when a few senior chefs from the region got together to form the Eastern India Culinary Association (EICA) with the support of IFCA, the national body of culinary professionals in India. Within a short time, the association has onboarded more than 150 chefs from the region which comprise 14 states, one of the largest in terms of size in the IFCA umbrella.The launch of the association was marked around a ‘Culinary Kaizens’ event hosted under its aegis at IHM Kolkata followed by participation in FoodTech Kolkata a month back. The launch event was attended among others by Nandini Chakravorty, principal secretary - tourism, West Bengal and leaders of IFCA.

Talking about the mission and vision of EICA, chef Abhiru Biswas, president of the organisation, who is also a bakery consultant and chocolate curator, said that while the region is endowed with highly skillful people, an organisation to bring them together and work for their promotions and recognition was missing in the region. He said that the endeavour would be to pool that skill and power of knowledge together and use it for empowerment of students, women, communities, etc. to elevate the culinary basket of the region and take it to the mainstream.

Chef Sandeep K Pandey, general secretary of EICA and corporate executive chef of Sonnet Group of hotels said that they will be working with culinary schools in the region to promote and bring into the mainstream the tribal recipes which are unique to some of the eastern and northeastern states.

“We have to change the curriculum and we are ready to fight for that change,” he said.

Pandey said that a lot of celebrity chefs from Assam, Nagaland, etc. have already joined the association and their expertise will be utilised in promoting the regional recipes and cuisines.

EICA has also decided to launch a 3-level culinary competition for hotel management and culinary institutes in the region starting from January 19, 2025, Pandey added.