Remembering Pia: The first star of the #foodocracyforher Hall of Legends

Radio Finely Chopped by Kalyan Karmakar

The world of Indian food became poorer on the 21st of July 2022 with the passing away of Pia Promina Dasgupta Barve in Mumbai.

There was a spontaneous outpouring of grief from the many lives she had touched. To know about the multifaceted life she led, do read this article by food researcher Pritha Sen...https://tinyurl.com/4eeevr7t

Many call Pia the pioneer home chef. She was baking from a time when most of us were not even born. She was behind the setting up of the iconic Kewpie restaurant in Kolkata. She moved to Mumbai where she was a lone woman working in the meat industry and she had also worked closely with the agricultural produce sector. Her culinary skills spanned not only her native Bengali cuisine, but that of the Maharashtrian side of her husband, whom she called Brave (from Barve), the colonial cuisine of the British Raj, anglo Indian, Jewish, Iranian (she had fed me tahdig once when she read that I had fond memories of it), Asian and what not; but what was most special to me were the eclairs she would make for my wife, Kainaz, because they made K smile like few other treats would.

It is one of my regrets that I was not in touch with her in her last few months. I was going through my own health issues but to be honest, it was nothing that was big enough to stop me from making a phone call or from sending a text.

My little way of making up to her was to reach out to some of the many whose lives she had touched and invite them to speak about her in my podcast. As I listened to Reshmy Kurian, Tara Deshpande, Manzilat Fatima and Mashushree Basu Roy & Anindya S Basu @Cook with Pikturenama share their memories of Pia, I realised that not interviewing her while I could for the #foodocracyforher is something I will always regret.

Which is why, as I typed this, I decided that #foodocracyforher should have a Hall of Fame and that I would like to most humbly declare Pia Promina Dasgputa Barve its first star.

The award winning #podcast #FoodocracyForHer by Kalyan Karmakar is India's longest running podcast featuring women entrepreneurs in the food and beverage business. Please share the episode. Please click on like as it helps the video be discovered and please do subscribe to the channel to catch future episodes of the podcast.