PM Modi’s US state visit: Why gastro-diplomacy must be on the table too

Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to the US, a ‘Modiji Thali’ was launched this week at New Jersey’s Mehek restaurant, curated by its owner-chef Shripad Kulkarni which features among other vegetarian delights, khichdi, sarson da saag, kothimbir vadi, dhokla and dum aloo Kashmiri. A Jaishankar Thali may be added soon. And Chef Srijith Gopinathan’s Copra topped the Robb Report’s list of the 10 best new restaurants in the US, also released this week.

These two events bookend the fact that Indian cuisine is finally coming into its own in the US, forming the perfect backdrop for PM Modi’s landmark visit. And many eyes will be focused on the White House State Banquet as well as the “private dinner” being hosted for him by the Bidens the night before, as PM Modi only had lukewarm lime water at President Obama’s similar dinner for him at the White House in late 2014, because it happened to be during Navratri.

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It had been rumoured that the Obamas were planning an all-vegetarian meal, but as he was fasting, they added the crisped halibut with ginger carrot juice alongside the saffron basmati rice and goat cheese and baby bell peppers for the other diners. Nine years later, much has changed in the US and India, and our cuisine has certainly risen in profile there since then, giving the Filipino-American White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford plenty of food for thought.

A glance at the White House menus since the first ever visit by an Indian PM—Jawaharlal Nehru in 1949—shows that the US is more mindful now than earlier about the palates of foreign leaders. Back then, President Harry S Truman’s chef had actually decided on oxtail soup for the state dinner. Luckily the faux pas was averted, but only at the 11th hour as the typed menu in the presidential records shows ‘Soup Juliene’ (sic) written by hand, crossing out the bovine broth!

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The White House chroniclers also may not like to remember that during the State dinner for President S Radhakrishnan in 1963, the Kennedys offered a distinctly French menu (as they did for PM Nehru too in 1961) featuring salmon in aspic, followed by roast spring lamb with ‘rice a l’orientale and spinach a la crème, ending with bombe glace aux peches. As even icecreams used egg yolks for richness, what our vegetarian president ate that evening remains unknown.

But White House chefs played it safe thereafter, sticking to fish and fowl including pheasant breast for Mrs Indira Gandhi’s first visit as PM, though she had attended three other dinners previously as “daughter of the Indian PM”. Curiously, she was served pheasant again when she was hosted by her bete noire Richard Nixon in 1971. The only red meat to feature on White House menus for Indian PMs since that oxtail blunder has been lamb. Lessons have been learnt.

In 2000, for the official dinner that the Clintons hosted for then PM Atal Behari Vajpayee, the menu included Darjeeling tea smoked poussin (chooza), chilled green pea (matar) and cilantro (dhania) soup, marble potatoes, wild salmon, red kuri squash and rice, bean ragout (lobia) young greens and herb salad and for dessert, “mango and banner lotus, litchis and raspberry sauce” or a mysterious “majestic tiger’s delight”. Attention was clearly turning to Indian palates.

By the time PM Manmohan Singh was hosted by President George W Bush in 2005, more Indian accents were very evident. Not only were the tablecloths made of saffron and gold silk and the chrysanthemum flower arrangements resembled trumpeting elephants, but the fish main course was accompanied by a rice dish that seemed distinctly pulao-like: basmati dotted with pistas and raisins. And the dessert was “Lotus Blossom Mango, Chocolate-Cardamom and Cashew”.

And when Dr Singh went for a second state visit in 2009, the Obamas offered very American-desi fare: potato and eggplant salad (aloo-baingan) with onion seed (kalonji) vinaigrette, red lentil (masoor dal) soup with fresh cheese (paneer), aged basmati, potato dumplings (batata vada) with tomato chutney, chickpeas (chana) and okra (bhindi), green curry prawns with smoked collard greens (saag) and coconut, ending with pumpkin (kaddu) tart and cashew brittle (chikki).

Going by this progression, the 2023 menu for PM Modi should be even more Indian, given that the Biden Administration’s tally of Indian-American officials is also now the highest ever. And Comerford’s appointment itself was said to have been the result of her excellent handling of the first White House dinner for Dr Singh in 2005. If she can pull off, say, an all-vegetarian meal using elements of both US and Indian culinary traditions, she could start another new trend.

In the past decade there has been a veritable explosion of high-quality desi cuisine outlets in the US. This has resulted in Michelin stars for Indian restaurants there, including most recently, the south Indian cuisine focused Semma in New York. Moreover, Chef Meherwan Irani’s Chai Pani café in obscure Asheville, North Carolina was also declared America’s Most Outstanding Restaurant in 2022 by the James Beard Foundation, widely regarded as America’s food Oscars.

And now Chef Gopinathan’s Copra in San Francisco and Chef Sujan Sarkar’s Indienne in Chicago have had dream debuts on the US food scene thanks to their listing in the latest Robb Report. And Indian names in the culinary world are no longer rare, from the late chef Floyd Cardoz, Suvir Saran, Chintan Pandya, Vikas Khanna and many other chefs to restaurateurs like Ashok Bajaj and Roni Mazumdar, TV foodies Aarti Sequeira and Padma Lakshmi, and more.

Yet Indian food still lags behind Chinese and Italian in the US, unlike in the UK where curry colonised the British palate before Indians began to dominate the culinary scene—and now the political arena too. Though big US companies and even the World Bank have Indian-origin bosses, Hollywood has Indian stars, the US Vice President is part Indian and high-quality Indian cuisine is making waves, there is still a way to go before our jalebis rival donuts and chaat takes on tacos.

That is where gastro-diplomacy by PM Modi’s can give a fillip to smaller Indian eateries. In May the PM exhorted the desi diaspora in Sydney to get his Australian counterpart to taste chaat and jalebis. In Washington DC, PM Modi can persuade the Bidens to try desi food, though not necessarily Modiji Thali. Biden has chatted with Indian restaurateurs before but not tasted the food. He and many Americans already love quesadillas and churros; why not parathas and jalebis next?

The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed are personal.

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