3 Homegrown Food Stylists Break Down The Delicate Art Of Culinary Storytelling

Food, at its core, is a medium — a medium for flavours, nostalgia, and memories. In Indian households, food also serves as a carrier of stories, culture, and history. It is a hand-me-down. My mother always shocks her spinach in cold water after cooking it, because my grandmom did it. “It helps retain the bright green colour while making palak paneer,” she tells me as I sit down to write this. She also asks me, “What’s there in making food look pretty? Isn’t that something that just happens?” That’s a common response when we consider making food visually appealing. But what about making food look pretty for the camera? We spoke to three homegrown food stylists who explained why even dusting sugar on their pancakes is essential for viewing food styling as a medium of storytelling. 

Nikita Kandhadiya's journey into food styling sparked from a childhood passion for baking, strongly encouraged by her parents. Growing up, observing her mother's meticulous work as an advertising producer provided an early lens into visual storytelling. For Nikita, food styling is a potent medium to narrate a brand's story through each meticulously composed plate, one that's always infused with her personal artistic touch. 

Shumaila Chauhan’s earliest memories that influenced her cooking include her mum baking and experimenting with recipes from Tarla Dalal’s and Nita Mehta’s cookbooks, which eventually led her to document new recipes she was trying. 

Sanskriti Bist began her food styling journey in 2019, a time when the term ‘food styling’ was not yet recognised as a legitimate career. The entire focus of this art revolves around making food visually appealing to enhance the experience of savouring and enjoying it.

Food styling focuses on making dishes look appetising while telling the story of how each item arrived on our plates. What was its journey ‘from farm to table’? This is where the role of a food stylist truly shines. Creating something that is both decorative and appetising is only part of the role; the heart of it lies in narrating the journey that each element underwent before it was be served on a person's plate.

It is easy to disconnect from the sources of the food on our plates. We often lose sight of the individual ingredients that contribute to a dish, as well as their existence as living beings in an ecosystem beyond our kitchens. Food stylists carry the responsibility of rekindling this awareness through their work and narratives.

For Nikita, prioritising the connection between viewers and the origins of food by showcasing the inherent beauty and textures of each ingredient is crucial. It serves as a constant reminder of the journey each element undertakes to reach the plate. “Food styling isn't merely about aesthetics; it involves constant technical problem-solving to create appealing visuals that authentically represent the food's essence,” she states.

For Shumaila, selecting the finest ingredients and respecting the foundational elements of a dish is essential to her role. The waste of food and ingredients that often accompanies the job troubles her, although it can sometimes be unavoidable. “For commercial work and projects, since one always needs to over-prepare and be ready with multiple options for retakes, there exists a mental turmoil given the wastage that ensues, but one has to accept it as part and parcel of the job at hand,” she explains. 

Sanskriti talks about how, in the age of BlinkIt and Swiggy, it is easy to forget where our food comes from. When we don’t see a direct point of contact as the origin, we forget the existence of food in an ecosystem outside ours. “My mom’s garden back home in Dehradun has taught me so much about growing my vegetables and the amount of work, time and patience it takes to grow something from a seed to its final product, to finally being able to cook and eat it. There is so much respect for food when you learn its origins,” she recalls. 

There’s something so nostalgic and pure about storytelling around food — it inevitably feels personal; perhaps because we’re so connected to food and stories of it that it becomes one with us, it’s no more a separate entity. It’s often a part of our cultural identity. It’s history on a plate. 

Particularly in a country like India, every region has its variations in the way ingredients and flavours are used. History and cultural context become the backbone of the way food is presented for Nikita. The regional variations in iconic dishes like Biryani exemplify this for her. Knowing what goes where, what cutlery and side dishes are used, plays an important role in curating a plate.

For Shumaila, how a dish is plated hugely depends on its cultural origins. How we present a dish entirely depends on how we respect and treat a culture’s food, its traditions, and its history. “In today’s world, where everyone has an opinion, staying true to a food’s cultural context and doing proper research about it is very crucial, and one needs to respect that. For example, with Indian dishes, the choice of props and even spices you show will vary from north to south, or the crockery one uses will differ for a dish from a north eastern state,” she explains. 

For Sanskriti, on the other hand, how a dish is consumed becomes a part of the way food is styled. The way of eating and making is important for her to establish the origins and cultural background of a dish. For example, a sadya meal is meant to be eaten with your hands; cutlery has no place there. A sadya meal is often not just about the food but also the arrangement of the food on the leaf, if it's vegetarian or non-vegetarian, which boils down to who is cooking the meal and who is consuming it. There is so much of class and caste politics involved in the way even ingredients like salt are used. 

“Another example could be chai that we get at roadside stalls. For someone who has lived in India their entire life, the idea of chai is sharing conversations, comfort, and routine, that maybe someone without context would not understand. In terms of styling this, maybe the idea of having biscuits with a newspaper next to the tea gives an idea of familiarity,” Sanskriti tells us. 

And as I write this, I can just tell that those biscuits she's describing have got to be be the butteriest ones you’ll ever have. The visual medium, at least to me, is the most effective form of communication. And if you can make something as personally horrifying to me as bitter gourd chips look cool and palatable, I’m sold, take my money. Food styling, now more than ever, has repurposed our perspectives of food, especially in the digital age when everything needs to look 'aesthetic'. 

In the age of social media, Nikita explains that compelling visuals are paramount, but the primary focus remains on authenticity and effectively conveying the essence of the food or a brand. 

Social media is very personal for Sanskriti. It’s an intimate diary of stories for her — stories that remind her of what food she made and what time and space she was in mentally. 

Striking a balance between making food look both stunning and eye-catching and honest and real seems like a task. Styling imperfections often help achieve this balance for Shumaila. Be it a spoon with a little chocolate sauce dripping off, or a broken piece of naan next to a bowl of dal makhani as if indicating that it's ready to be dipped in, these small details and tiny imperfections are what make the final output look more believable. 

The attention to detail in their work is unmissable. In Nikita’s simple plate of spaghetti, for instance, if the pasta itself is the hero, the focus may be on its elegant drape and texture; if the rich sauce is the star, she’d ensure it is glossy and generously coats the noodles; and if the creamy cheese is the focus, the highlight would be its melt and the way it interacts with the other elements. This meticulous thought that differentiates every dish is what inspires her. 

Shumaila gets her inspiration from the story that a recipe carries — the first time she had it, if it’s a family recipe or a dear friend’s, and most importantly, these stories decide what she wants to spotlight — the story or just the food. 

A lot of Sanskriti’s inspiration, too, comes from storytelling. From movies and shows, to travelling and reading, so much out there inspires her to get up and try cooking and presenting food in a way that emotes what she’s feeling while making the dish. “Recently, I took a trip to Xi’an in China, which was one of the major hubs of the Silk Route and had some Muslim influences from Central Asia. There were kebabs with five spice and Sichuan pepper, and naan that was served with chilli oil. It was raining and gloomy when I visited. I've been so inspired by these flavours and the location of this city that I’ve been waiting for the monsoon in Bangalore to start cooking the same dishes and recreate the twilight light I slurped all the noodles in!” she says. 

Viewing food as something beyond sustenance is what drives the storytelling behind food styling, and this brings me to an essential question: what makes a food stylist? Whether it’s an understanding of cooking, design, or sourcing, you have to have it all. 

When you’re a food stylist, you become a chef, a recipe tester, a designer, a food historian, a photographer, and most importantly, a storyteller. 

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