Nagpur-native Deepali Bavaskar once found herself hosting some of the most unexpected guests, including prime ministers and international delegates.
Through her Brazil-based venture, Samosa & Company, Deepali serves a wide repertoire of Indian dishes in São Paulo.
The brand is managed by Deepali, who holds a master’s degree in botany, and her husband Vijay, a pharmaceutical executive.
In 1998, when the couple moved to Brazil, a food venture wasn’t on the cards.
The idea only visited them around 2009, after Vijay suffered a cardiac arrest and was fired from his job, and the family had to revisit other options.
One of the couple’s first projects involved catering for a delegation of 150 Indian companies, part of a trade fair organised by ITPO (India Trade Promotion Organisation). The event proved to be a success.
But, Vijay says, the real twist came in 2011, when 50 eminent artists from India, visiting Brazil under the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), experienced their food.
The flavours struck a chord with the artists; they sang its praises all the way to the embassy.
Then, in 2012, when an Indian Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) delegation visited Rio de Janeiro for the Rio+20 international conference, the couple was once again asked to cater.
The couple, confident about their idea, started Samosa & Company. But the journey of ideating an Indian menu (heavy on spices) for a Brazilian audience was tough.
Catering to these palate preferences meant dialling down the spices in the Indian dishes while preserving the flavours.
But if Deepali had to narrow down on two dishes that proved to be the most challenging, she says, it would be dosa and idli because of the unavailability of ingredients at the time.
But she found ways to improvise and maintain authenticity.
Read about Deepali's journey.
Click here.