Indian street delicacies at Canada food festival
TORONTO: There’s much more to Indian food than samosas, curries and butter chicken. And a couple from a Canadian town plans to present just that on a platter as they organise what they believe will be the largest celebration of cuisine from the subcontinent not just in the metropolis of Toronto, but in Canada or even North America.
The Taste of India Food Festival, a day-long event in downtown Toronto this Sunday, was conceptualised by Rinku Shah, founder of the School of Flavours, which focuses on the role of food in society. Her partner in this enterprise is Vrajesh Shah, also her husband. They are based in Mississauga, a town in the Greater Toronto Area.
The first instalment of the festival of food was organised last year, and Vrajesh said that was mainly “trial and error” as they tried to gauge the appetite for such a dedicated event among Torontonians. They expected around 10,000 people to show up and ended up with more than 30,000, resulting in vendors running out of food to serve to the hungry hordes. This year “will be massive”, Vrajesh predicted, hopeful that the number of visitors could double, making it the largest event of its nature in Canada and even the United States.
Nearly four dozen vendors will offer their tasting menus at the festival, headlined by celeb Indian chef Sanjeev Kapoor, who has launched The Yellow Chilli chai. But it isn’t just what restaurants offer that will be available, but also the vast variety of street food, something that Vrajesh said is a “relatively fresh idea in Canada”.