Indian mom teaches vegetarian food

Purnima Gangam

Email of the writer: zhqcindy@163.com

WEARING a traditional Indian Sari, Purnima Gangam demonstrated how to make a 5-minute healthy homemade dish with authentic Indian flavors in her apartment kitchen in Nanshan District. Her cooking philosophy is to make nourishing vegetarian food at home.

Gangam now lives with her husband and son in Nanshan’s Xili. Shenzhen has been her home for six years. The stay-at-home mother started teaching how to cook Indian vegetarian food at her home four months ago. She was inspired by a friend who teaches baking.

“I enjoy cooking homemade food and the students I teach are learning a new skill so that when they leave, they can care for themselves or teach their children to enjoy homemade food,” said Gangam.

A mother of a 5-year-old, Gangam values and enjoys cooking food for her family. Getting the whole family to sit at the table and enjoy healthy food is of great significance in her eyes.

“In my childhood, many families were still fighting hunger and poverty. Now, people can order all kinds of food online. But I think homemade food is the best choice for people, even if they are overseas or they are very busy, so I want to teach people Indian recipes and some of them are my own recipes,” said Gangam.

Gangam’s love of healthy homemade food originates from her own vegan family in India. Her grandmother would not even use garlic, egg or onion in the dishes. “I have never tasted meat in my whole life.”

Gangam keeps her ingredients and condiments healthy. She uses only olive and sunflower oil, ghee (clarified butter), jaggery and multigrain flour in the dishes she teaches.

Having spent years working in Scotland, prior to moving to Shenzhen, she said it was often hard to avoid eating meat while living abroad. However, she did manage to only eat vegetarian food.

“I love teaching people to cook, but the biggest challenge for me now is that I don’t have enough time since I have to cater for my son and family in the mornings and evenings, also on weekends,” said Gangam.

Gangam said that it was up to her students as to what dishes they wanted her to teach. People can check her WeChat moments and see if a class interests them before booking it. Gangam prepares the ingredients the day before each class. If newcomers do not know which dishes they’d like to learn, Gangam suggests some of her favorite dishes.

Gangam has now taught more than 300 students, both Chinese and expats, from all around the world.