PANAJI
A unique food entertainment show, 'The Big Forkers’ with three million-plus views and over 40,000 subscribers on YouTube, offers candid, apolitical and unfiltered commentary on food, restaurants and cuisines and so far had two seasons aired -- one on the food varieties in Mumbai and second on the food tradition in Goa. Both these seasons were much appreciated and the third season will be on the foods in Bengaluru.
The show is conceptualised by two cousins, Sid Mewara and Shashank Jayakumar (Shanky) who launched it last year on YouTube. The first season covered food places in Mumbai last year, this year’s second season had Goa on its platter wherein the traditional Goan cuisine culture was explored by Sid and Shanky. The show will soon be launching a line of cool merchandise.
The second season launched in June 2021, featured the ‘Ultimate Food Trail’ in Goa covering local and international cuisines. Taking all their learnings from the first season, the team focused on the production and sharpened their style with graphics and sharing of trivia and information on the food. Given that Goa has so much to offer this season was made up of 20 episodes. It included various Goan cuisines such as Luso cuisine, Gaud Saraswat Brahmin cuisine, tribal style cooking, to name a few. The food trail stretched from international to fine dining to small joints to street food. The idea was to experience the diverse and rich food culture of Goa.
About his experience in Goa, Sid Mewara, an investment banker and a professional chef who has travelled across the world understanding various cuisines, shares, “Goa is unique from all the seasons. I lived here for 18 months and Shanky used to visit the state so many times even before we started shooting that helped us explore the Goan food scenario in-depth. We were able to build relationships with chefs and people in the food and beverage industry. Staying here gave us an opportunity to experience various cuisines that change every few km as you move from one district to another across the state.”
The duo exceeded their expectations of how far and deep they could research the food and broke stereotypes of what they thought people eat in Goa. “From a foodie perspective, which is a deeper dive than most people, there was tremendous learning. And as we got to know people on a personal level, we got to try food that most people would not get a chance to. So, it’s going to be difficult to replicate something like Goa because things open up when you spend that much time with the community,” admits Sid.
Serial technology entrepreneur and consultant to The World Bank, Shanky, narrates his experience of the show in Goa, “What I thought stood out, is the personalisation of the service. It’s not as typical as you see in Mumbai, where most owners are at a counter collecting the money. The whole idea of how they interact with the customers as hosts and not as owners, not welcoming people to an institution but welcoming people to their homes or place of work improves the experience 100-fold. That sort of mentality then reflects in the food. For me, that was quite interesting and distinct for Goa.”
In its first season in May 2020, these two ‘Forkers’ covered different food and cultural experiences in Mumbai. In Season 1, the show had 8 episodes with 3 formats ‘Legends: This V/S That’ which had Mumbai legends stacked up against each to see which one comes out better. ‘Is it Worth It’ was a critical take on restaurants serving international cuisines with a claim to be authentic. ‘The Pub Crawl’ was unique and also traces the evolution of the city from Bombay to Mumbai, a journey through time, bars, pubs and joints. There was also the Malvani Food Legends: The episode unearthed unique aspects of the food and fundamental differences between Malvani and Konkani cuisine. It has garnered over 150, 000 views on YouTube so far. Season 3 will be covering Bengaluru and is in post-production, slated to release in October. Bengaluru loves its food and its beers and the show will highlight iconic places as well as lesser-known cuisines and nuances of food culture here.
The channel can be visited at https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBigForkersshow and on Instagram handle at https://www.instagram.com/thebigforkers/
