Food, according to Hansal Mehta, is one of the strongest places memory lives. And Khana Dil Se, his way of holding on to his family’s memories. “I realised the recipes my mother, aunt, and father-in-law made would slip away if no one held on to them,” reflected the filmmaker. 

So, Mehta went back to the kitchen for Khana Dil Se, just as he had done in the early 1990s when he directed the genre-defining cooking show, Khana Khazana. But this time, there’s a new ingredient — Artificial Intelligence (AI). Agreeing that filmmakers’ concerns about AI replacing artistes are legitimate, he asserted that AI is not at the forefront of his show. “The families and their recipes are what the show is about. AI is a tool that helps me tell that story. Working the conventional way means animation budgets, period reconstructions, and location shoots. These costs put this kind of show out of reach for almost everyone. AI lets me do that visual work at a fraction of the time and cost.” 

Hansal Mehta (L) and Sanjeev Kapoor (extreme right) on ‘Khana Khazana’ set. Pics/Instagram

Even as we have seen a surge in competitive cooking shows, meaningful culinary storytelling is absent from Indian platforms. That’s a void Mehta hopes to fill with his YouTube show. He emphasised, “The audience hasn’t stopped caring about food. They don’t want cooking shows that have become like a sports league. A generation grew up watching Sanjeev [Kapoor], and is now raising children of their own. I think they are ready for a food show that takes food seriously again.”

Hansal Mehta noted that one can’t separate history and politics from food, citing the example of Gosht Nihari. “Nihari has three different preparations across Lucknow, Delhi, and Karachi; across a border that didn’t exist [earlier]. It was born in 18th century Shahjahanabad as labourers’ food. Almost every dish we celebrate as heritage was, at some point, a survival strategy.”

Undhiyu 

The Gujarati dish that Hansal Mehta will cook in the first episode