Top chef Manu Chandra brought his touch to Davos with a catering menu for several high-profile corporate clients that seamlessly blended Indian and Swiss flavours. “My job was to put the best of India forward in interesting formats. It’s peak winter, so there’s only a finite number of things you will get in Switzerland, but given that it’s Europe, there is a large supply chain that flows through. We tried to rely on that and appropriated Indian recipes that would match up to it,” explains Chandra, adding that on different days, the menu was inspired by different regions in India.
Among South India-inspired offerings, a few drew from Karnataka’s favourite treats. “We painstakingly made maddur vadae canapes, rolling them out by hand, cutting them and frying them so that we had that perfect, delicate crunch, and it behaved like a crostini or tostada. On top of that, we had a palya made of white asparagus, as that’s in season right now, and fresh artichokes. We also had an asparagus-bonda soup drizzled with a nice oil I made, which was warm and comforting,” says the founder, Single Thread.
Recalling the challenging circumstances surrounding a high-profile event like the WEF, Chandra, who worked with a three-member team and a small workstation, notes that the key to navigating it was extensive planning, saying, “Traffic jams were a nightmare because there were so many heads of states moving around at any given point of time. So movement of materials was constantly under scrutiny and it took forever to get from point A to B. And of course, US President Donald Trump was present this time, so the security was even more enhanced. Planning was key — from the packing to how we were going to keep the food warm, the menu had to be engineered on that.”
One of the highlights of his days at Davos was meeting former UK PM Rishi Sunak, a moment he shared on Instagram with the cheeky caption, ‘Yes Minister!’, referencing his favourite British shows growing up, Yes, Minister and ‘Yes, Prime Minister’. Chandra, who was also part of the 2022 Cannes, reveals that he served Sunak ghee roast with pulimanch, saying, “He just kept asking for seconds and thirds, like, ‘this stuff is outstanding’. He’s a great guy who is extremely knowledgeable about Indian food flavours. He was curious, asking questions, and that’s what any chef wants when you spend effort, energy, time cooking something.”
Beyond representing his all-coconut brand, Madhu Kargund, founder of Tengin, was carrying the untold story of a women-led collective, rural artisans and placing the humble coconut on a global map. At an event packed to the rafters with policymakers, tech CEOs and global business leaders, Kargund’s samples – coconut chips and chocolate treats sweetened with coconut sugar – all homegrown in the small town of Arsikere, Hassan, where he hails from, caught businesswoman Ananya Birla’s attention. “I told her the backstory of how a women-led collective comprising rural farmers was a core part of the initiative. I offered a packet too but she said she would prefer purchasing it. I thought she would have forgotten but she later shared our story on social media – all of which means a lot,” Kargund tells us from Switzerland. It was quite by chance he ran into Birla. “I spotted Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and wanted feedback about the chips and coconut shell souvenirs I had given him during the G20 Summit in Bengaluru. Meanwhile, someone introduced me to Ananya saying, ‘He’s shy but his coconut chips are awesome!’,” Kargund chuckles. He goes onto add, “Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, who was also present, had already sampled our products; his wife had visited our stall at an event by FICCI FLO in Bengaluru.”
It so happened that Kargund was in Buchs on a longish trip to visit his wife who works in the IT sector. Upon realising that Davos was a short train ride away, Kargund decided to hop on in the hope of a rich pay-off. Beyond networking with many others like prominent politician and TV actor Smriti Irani; Industries Minister M B Patil; he used the platform to highlight topics like how climate change and global geopolitics affect farmers, the importance of sustainable agriculture and women’s economic empowerment.
Incidentally, right in the midst of the pandemic Kargund started his venture after a corporate stint. In those early days he had spoken to CE, even wondering if his move was at the right time considering the uncertain climate. But the answer seems clear with his coconut company going places.
At -10°C weather, a simple comfort food filled Davos’ high-profile visitors’ bellies and hearts with warmth – khichdi. A small counter set up by city-based Naveena Neerada Dasa, executive director of strategy and international relations at Akshaya Patra and World Food Movement, interested visitors as his team provided them with free bowls of the homely dish.
“We served about 1,000 meals every day and 90 per cent of the people who came were non Indians or of non-Indian origin. They loved that it had rice, which is carbohydrates, lentils as proteins, lots of veggies and spinach for vitamins – it’s a complete food, and is piping hot!,” he explains. While serving a free meal may seem like a simple idea, he says the gesture acted as a means of cultural diplomacy, bringing unexpected opportunities for World Food Movement, to expand to more countries and start conversations about fighting food insecurity even in the developed world.
“For me, the greatest satisfaction is that people showed a lot of gratitude and said things like ‘Oh, such food exists in India? It’s such a wonderful country.’ It created a lot of goodwill for India, which is where the work of food diplomacy matters a lot,” he shares.