Avinash Patnaik is a former Agricultural Officer, Home Chef, Food Researcher and Recipe Curator based in Odisha. In the 2023 season of MasterChef India, he made waves for his unique style in cooking traditional cultural recipes. He made it to the Top 12 and out beat a thousand others who had auditioned to participate in India’s biggest culinary show.
With a Master’s degree in Floriculture & Landscape Gardening, he brings a wealth of knowledge about plants and gardens to the kitchen. His six years of experience as an Agriculture officer in the Government of Odisha have given him a deep understanding of farming and agriculture.
He is also a skilled home baker and a passionate food blogger. His culinary creations have not only delighted his followers but have also been featured in various print media, showcasing his talents to a broader audience. Moreover, he is a talented artist with a diploma in Fine Arts, highlighting his creativity and keen attention to detail.
In his conversation with Icy Tales, Avinash Patnaik opened up about his culinary journey, his experience in MasterChef India 2023 along with some advice he has for upcoming home chefs in the country.
Q) Why did you choose to pursue the field of food?
Answer- I come from a scientific background; I am not someone who has a culinary background. I was working as an agriculture officer in government for six years and now I’m doing my PhD in agriculture. I never planned that I would be going to a show like MasterChef because a lot of people have the dream of participating in a show like this.
For me, food was always like a survival skill and it is something we all cannot avoid. We need to eat to survive and to satisfy our hunger. As a kid, my father had to travel to different places for work, so I used to travel across India and that gave me exposure to different kinds of food at a very early stage of my life.
So that’s how I got introduced to food and I started writing and documenting about food. Many people get confused with the different kinds of food so I thought I needed to document it and my culinary journey started that way.
Q) Tell us your experience being a part of the Top 12 of Master Chef India 2023
Answer– A lot of people want to be there in Master Chef India and it was never on my cards or on my plans to audition. This year, a lot of people pushed me to participate because they know that I keep on documenting food. It just happened that way and that journey went a long way.
I auditioned in Bhubaneswar and then we had the mega audition in Kolkata, which was seen on television. It was a very different experience and I was feeling good about it because there are so many contestants thousands of people who had a vision to be there so I tried to be more honest to my work and eventually things happened.
I was lucky to meet so many people from different states because I got exposure to celebrity chefs on television. I never dreamt that I’ll be meeting them someday but I was so glad that I could cook food for the Michelin star chefs. They tasted my food and they appreciated it so my journey of having them as your mentor is nothing but a blessing.
It was an incredible journey because as a home chef, you cook for your family and friends. But in MasterChef, it was the first time for an hour that you had to ideate, cook, and plate something good to be part of the game. That was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Q) Where do you think the food industry stands in today’s world?
Answer– When COVID hit in 2019-20, we became more conscious about our choices of food. But at the same time, there is a generation of reels and trends where it is good to adapt. I feel it’s good to adapt to different cultures but at the same point in time, I believe we should be feeding ourselves with our native food more of what our ancestors have been eating.
For a change, eating food of different cuisine or different places is good but changing your complete lifestyle with a different kind of food which doesn’t belong to your native not only hampers your health but also the environment because we are growing something which is not from our climate; so they’re all interrelated.
There is confusion in this generation because we want to eat healthy and at the same point, we want to go towards the funky food. So I believe there is a confusion in which we need to figure it out and make a path for us individually.
In terms of the food industry, I feel there is a mad race of commercialization. Everyone wants to be the best one to be in the game but somewhere there is a compromise of certain basic rules and things that need to be followed; this is my personal opinion.
Q) What advice do you have for upcoming home chefs in India?
Answer– They need to know your roots. I think we come from a country where we have so many different kinds of hyper local cuisine which is culturally so diverse and interrelated. So it’s very important to understand what our ancestors have been eating.
At the same point in time, you need to experiment with not only food from your place but from all over India. You need to explore, travel, eat, and learn as much as you can to see how world cuisine has evolved and how they are interrelated.
This way, you will enjoy the process of not only cooking but also you will learn a lot in this process of knowing the food. Learn as much as you can because if you want to go into the hospitality sector, you will have to prepare yourself to write examinations for different hospitality colleges. Self-learning and Self-Awareness is the best process.
With his diverse skill set and passion for food, Avinash Patnaik aims to expand his knowledge about food and inspire many others like him to grab opportunities in life.
Check out the whole conversation with Avinash Patnaik on our YouTube Channel.
Last Updated on by Sanjana
