What's on your grocery list? – Yahoo! India News
What's on your grocery list? – Yahoo! India News
A week ago, Shaina Chowksi (32), invited her friends over to her new home in Mumbai for a fancy five-course meal. On the menu was salmon en croute, seared halibut with sauteed mushrooms, couscous in saffron and lemongrass butter sauce, and a Peking Duck salad with baby organic greens.
Up north in Delhi, Niharika Seth (29) wanted to go on a diet. She needed Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing, frozen raspberries and banana nut muffin for it.
These exotic delicacies weren't ordered off the Internet or delivered from the nearest five-star hotel. Shaina and Niharika simply walked into their local gourmet grocery store, handpicked the ingredients and whipped up the meals.
Like Shaina and Niharika, a growing number of shopping lists in Mumbai and Delhi now feature aloo-pyaaz alongside anchovies, guacamole, scallops, Cambodian sauce and caviar. And the neighbourhood gourmet store is only too happy to oblige.
Call it the gourmet effect. With imports opening up, even the regular kiranawala shop now stocks Philadelphia cream cheese and sometimes even parma ham and chorizo sausages.
Global appetite, local buy Anand Chandok, CEO of gourmet food importers Chenab Impex which supplies high-end products to a number of gourmet groceries in the two metros, says, “Earlier, gourmet ingredients were only imported by five-star hotels and you could get a few basic varieties of olives, olive oils and pasta. Now, in every modern retail store you can see significant shelf space given to gourmet food.
” Nature's Basket COO Mohit Khattar attributes the trend to globalisation and increasing international travel. “Palates have evolved,” says Ashutosh Chakradeo, head of food and groceries at HyperCITY and GourmetCITY in Malad, Mumbai which have been seeing double digit growth in its gourmet section.
“A lot of people even use olives in their daily meals,” he marvels.In fact the market has now become so competitive that people compare prices between different shops before buying.
At GourmetCITY in Mumbai and INA market in Delhi, for example, prices are invariably lower by anywhere between Rs 250 and Rs 400. But that's a relatively small price to pay for a gourmet supper at home.
Tasneem Nashrulla
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