Celebrating Indian Food Diversity

Copenhagen: Indian Vegetarian (Regional & Home Cooked) Food Festival has become a regular annual attraction in Denmark. Thousands of Danes and international residents from Denmark look forward to attending this fest. HSS-Denmark started organising this Vegetarian Food Festival with the primary objective as an outreach programme to involve the local community and educating them about the wonderful diversity of India. This year the festival was organised on June 15.

The prime if the annual event was to educate the people about the nutrient value of Indian meals and promoting vegetarian food habits. Vegetarian food doesn’t need to be only Salad; Indian cuisine offers great variety and scope for Vegans and Vegetarians. Since it is home-cooked food, it gives many homemakers an outlet for expression of their natural skills. Many of our cooking participants get such a large sample size for the first time and get amazed that their food is liked by so many. Many have opened catering services, and some have opened restaurants too.

The food festival displays a great diversity of India and has helped in the promotion of South Indian cuisine, as Denmark used to have only North Indian food restaurants. Each stall representing a home state of India was asked to decorate their stall in theme, and this generated good curiosity about India’s diversity in locals and internationals.

Different South Asian neighbours are being brought under the food festival umbrella. This year there were teams from Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan in the food festival. Indian team’s from neighbouring countries like Sweden also participated and represented their home state’s food. The event organisers collaborated with the local municipal authorities for the event and it strengthened their relationship with them over the years. Local authorities see this as a good cause to promote, so this creates a win-win outcome for both.

Since the prices of the meal are kept at a bare minimum level, it acts as a natural filter for this event not being a commercial enterprise and only service-minded people participate as cooking participants. The event also helps in increasing awareness about HSS and has a direct impact on the Shakha activities.

The 2019 food festival witnessed a great footfall and also had Dhol-Tasha cultural performance. This year, there were 22 different teams representing different states of India. The event was inaugurated by TCS country head Ruchikar Dalela and Coordinator for Municipality Maria Franz.

HSS Vegetarian food festival is now inspiring many other Indian associations to organise similar events. People have asked the HSS to increase frequency of the festival to two-three times a year. It shows the increasing popularity of the idea. This year the organisers used bio-degradable disposables for serving food.