Saaya Vaidya
The woman who revolutionised home cooking in India through her recipes, Tarla Dalal was arguably ahead of her time. The ‘inventor’ of hundreds of vegetarian dishes, Dalal started her career conducting cooking classes at home and went on to publish 170 books and have her own cookery shows on TV.
Dalal was always conscious of how vegetarians were perceived as people who get the less exciting dishes. Her own contribution to Indian vegetarian cuisine was to take recipes from all over the world, and adapt them so that they could be made easily with ingredients that were readily available.
She put together recipes for everything from streetside snacks to the homecooking basics like dal, which would go on to become invaluable to those attempting to cook Indian food for the first time.
The original masterchef had a guru too. In the Sixties, Dalal joined Mrs. Chichkar’s cooking classes. In later interviews, Dalal remembered her teacher fondly and said she “learned how to make white sauce and ways to set jelly and things like that.” Dalal also credited Mrs. Chichkar with inspiring her to be fearless with food.
Rather than making a point about how complicated or difficult a dish is, Dalal’s message was more encouraging as was her demeanour. Smiling warmly and dressed sharply, Dalal projected the kind of modern aunty you want to turn to in your time of need.