‘Healthy Food Can Be Tasty Too’: 20-YO Uses Whole Grains, Jaggery To Recreate Old Recipes at Her Farm Kitchen

“I understood that no dish is difficult to make if you are genuinely interested and really want to cook it from your heart.”

For 20-year-old Visista, that lesson came from a kitchen, not from a classroom.

At four, she stood beside her grandmother Lakshmi as she made chapatis for lunch every day. She did not know how to knead the dough or roll it properly. She only knew that she wanted to try.

“My grandmother was making chapatis every day for lunch, and I used to see her and wanted to try,” she recalls. “So I just joined her.”

What began as a childhood love for cooking gradually grew into an interest in traditional dishes, especially recipes that people rarely make anymore. Visista began exploring how these dishes were originally prepared, the ingredients they used, and the stories behind them.

Over the years, she has documented more than 250 recipes. She shares her work through ‘TRUE FOOD’, a recipe section on the website of Aikanthika, the farm in central Karnataka where she grew up. Here, she recreates traditional dishes using ingredients and cooking methods passed down through generations, making it possible for others to try these recipes in their own kitchens.

Her curiosity about food was nurtured by an unusual upbringing, where she had the freedom to explore whatever interested her.

She has never attended a conventional school. She followed Swashikshan (self-directed learning) at Aikanthika, where education was part of daily life rather than something confined to a classroom.

She learnt through questions, books, the internet, conversations with her parents, farm life and the freedom to try things herself.

“I have liked food and tasting new dishes since childhood. I liked doing the whole process of making a dish myself, from beginning to end, and then eating what I had made,” she explains.

That instinct to understand something by doing it has stayed with her. Today, when she comes across an old recipe, she wants to know where it came from, why certain ingredients were used, and whether it can still be made.

Lessons from a farm, books and everyday life 

Aikanthika was founded in 1996. Visista lives there as part of the Aikanthika Tribe, helping with the day-to-day life of the farm and events around natural farming and natural living.

“My learning process has always been part of daily life rather than something that happened at a fixed time,” she says. “I learnt about things that interested me and also things that I felt were necessary to know.”

If she had a question, she went to her parents. If they knew the answer, they taught her. If they did not, they helped her find it through books or the internet.

Her younger brother Varchas (17) grew up in the same environment. He also follows Swashikshan and helps with the farm, natural building, and other activities.

“For us, Swashikshan was just normal life,” he says. “We learnt by doing things instead of just studying from textbooks.”

He remembers his sister as a child who hardly ever wanted to remain a spectator.

“She was always keen to learn and liked trying things herself. She would experiment and find her own way instead of following what someone told her,” he says.

For Visista, the kitchen became one of her favourite places to put that curiosity into practice.

From her grandmother’s chapatis to baking in a mud oven

Visista’s earliest cooking memories are tied to her mother Kruthii and grandmother, who were regularly in the kitchen.

“I think what drew me to the kitchen was the joy of putting ingredients together and watching them become something delicious,” she tells The Better India. “There is a particular satisfaction in it that is difficult to put into words. And when my family eats what I have made and tells me how much they liked it, that gives me another level of happiness.”

At seven, she began baking.

Before Aikanthika’s traditional wood-fired mud cob oven was built around February or March 2017, she mostly made Indian sweets on the stovetop and occasionally baked a cake there.

The new oven opened up more possibilities. She began making cakes, cookies, muffins, and other baked dishes, though she remained more focused on stovetop cooking until around 2020.

Her habit of looking beyond the recipe itself began in 2018. She started researching old, traditional, and forgotten recipes from India and around the world, many of which had nothing to do with baking.

By 2020, she was also tracing the stories and origins behind the dishes she made. This research gradually drew her towards traditional baking, especially as she began reading about sourdough and older baking methods.

“I became more interested in history and wanted to understand where our food traditions came from. That interest took me down a whole new path of learning,” she says.

At the farm, the family does not use ingredients such as white flour, refined sugar, bottled sauces, flavourings and packaged ready-to-use ingredients. Instead of trying to remake every modern recipe without them, she began looking for recipes that existed before these ingredients became common.

“I became interested in cooking the dishes that most people don’t cook anymore,” she says. “I especially enjoy cooking traditional dishes that have longer processes and take more time to make.”

How an old recipe becomes part of her collection 

As she continued experimenting with recipes, she began documenting the ones that worked in a book. Eventually, she and her father, Raghava, thought it would be meaningful to share this collection more widely, which led to TRUE FOOD.

The idea was to create a place where people could find recipes made with traditional ingredients and methods. “That vision has not really changed,” she confirms.

Some of the recipes are also part of her family’s own food traditions, passed down to her by her mother and grandmother.

When the family travels to rural areas, tribal villages, or other people’s homes, Visista pays attention to what is being cooked. If she tastes something special, she asks for the recipe and writes it down. Visitors and global volunteers at the farm have also shared recipes with her.

If she knows the name of a dish but does not have its recipe, she searches online. She prefers recipes written by people from the region where the dish originated, as she feels they are more likely to reflect its traditional preparation.

She also turns to digital research to trace a dish’s history and understand which ingredients may have been used when it first originated, helping her assess how closely a recipe reflects its traditional form.

Once she finds a recipe, she checks whether its ingredients are available in her region and whether they fit with the principles followed at Aikanthika. If something is unavailable or unsuitable, she looks for the closest appropriate substitute.

“I usually cook a recipe once before documenting it, and while making it and tasting the final dish, I pay attention to the overall result, especially the taste, texture, and whether it feels right as a whole,” she says.

If something feels wrong, she makes it again and adjusts it. Her mother, grandmother, and other family members taste what she makes and offer feedback before she documents it on TRUE FOOD.

Giving pizza & street food a traditional twist

She uses freshly milled whole grains, jaggery, unrefined oils, eggs from indigenous chicken breeds, and farm produce instead of refined flour, white sugar, and preservatives.

“For me, using traditional ingredients is important because I have found that they bring much more taste and nutritional value to the food,” she says. “When I make the same dish using healthy traditional ingredients instead of highly refined and processed ones, I find that the food is not only more nourishing but also much more delicious.”

That approach extends to familiar favourites like pizza and street food, which she also enjoys making at home.

“We do eat these kinds of dishes, but when we make them ourselves using ingredients from our farm, and source what we don’t grow from organic or natural farmers, they can become much healthier while still being delicious,” she says.

Varchas has seen this approach firsthand.

“She takes foods we usually enjoy outside and recreates them at home using fresh, natural ingredients instead of processed ones,” he says. “And somehow, she manages to make them taste even better.”

His own contribution is usually tasting.

“Honestly, my main job is tasting. I really love her cooking, so whenever she experiments with something new, I am always happy to be the first one to try it,” he says.

He also helps light the fire in the cob oven.

The recipes that taught her to keep trying

Sourdough is one of the recipes that remains particularly special to Visista. Being able to bake bread and pizza using traditional and original methods was memorable for her.

Jolada rotti (a sorghum flatbread from Karnataka) gave her another valuable lesson. 

“I grew up hearing people say that it was difficult to roll, so I also thought it would be hard to make,” she says. “But when I actually made it myself with my mother about five years ago, we not only successfully made it, but I also understood that no dish is difficult to make if you are genuinely interested and really want to cook it.”

For Varchas, that willingness to experiment is what defines her approach.

“She usually researches a recipe first, then tries making it and sees how it turns out. If something does not work, she looks at what went wrong, makes changes, and tries again. Sometimes it takes a few attempts to get it right,” he says.

That is also how she approaches learning outside the kitchen.

Helping people cook traditional dishes again 

Volunteers and visitors from India and abroad experience Aikanthika’s traditional ingredients and cooking methods, including the cob oven.

“When we share these recipes with people who visit the farm, they are usually fascinated because many of these are new to them,” Varchas says. “They get to see and try traditional ways of baking that they may not have come across before.”

People who have tried TRUE FOOD recipes have also written to Visista about their experiences.

“Hearing that people are actually making these dishes at home and liking the results makes me feel that the work is reaching people and making an impact,” she says.

For Visista, sharing a recipe means giving someone else the chance to make it in their own kitchen.

“I hope people realise that healthy food can also be delicious,” she says. “There is a common idea that healthy food is not very interesting or tasty to eat, and I want to show that it doesn’t have to be that way. I hope that the traditional recipes I document will continue to be cooked and will not be forgotten.”

From her grandmother’s kitchen to the next recipe 

The same child who once stood beside Lakshmi to learn how to make chapatis now researches old recipes, studies ingredients, cooks, tastes, and documents what works.

Her approach to learning has followed a similar pattern: asking questions, finding answers, trying things out and learning from the results.

“When I am genuinely interested in something, I can learn and do much more than I initially thought I could,” she says.

Her brother has watched that eagerness grow. “I think this way of trying things and learning by doing is a big part of Swashikshan,” he says.

She wants to continue in the same way. She plans to research traditional recipes from more regions and cuisines and keep adding them to TRUE FOOD.

For someone who never went through a conventional school, her lessons have been everywhere. In her grandmother’s kitchen. On the farm. In books and conversations. In an old recipe shared by someone she met on a journey. In an unsuccessful bake that needed another attempt. And in the happiness of watching someone else cook something she had once researched and made herself.

At four, she wanted to know how her grandmother made chapatis.

At 20, she is trying to make sure that many more old recipes do not disappear from the table.

To learn more about Aikanthika, click here. You can also find Visista’s recipes in the TRUE FOOD section of the Aikanthika farm website.

All pictures courtesy Raghava.

Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: thebetterindia.com