Every calamity has a silver lining—a moment for introspection to think about how to make a better world in the new tomorrow. For food and its business, that moment is now. Chefs, restaurateurs and diners like you and I, must all make a course correction, and explore newer ways of dishing out and eating better quality food.
One bright spot that we are seeing is the emergence of small businesses catering to the gap for high quality food. Home cooks and niche start-ups are cooking up a storm with long-forgotten Avadhi recipes, desserts in jars, butter chicken or momo variations and sourdough breads that have become a national obsession this year. This kind of food was not available to us easily off retail shelves or in restaurants before the pandemic.
Most of us, for instance, were quite happy to eat packaged “double roti” (the name is a throw back to…