Better late than never: Meet India’s 60+ home chefs who are killing it on youtube

A taste of 5 recipe channels on youtube that has got senior citizens helming the ladle

Class topper!

5 cooks over age 60, who are garnering likes and fans

Nisha Madhulika, 61
Channel Name: NishaMadhulika
Subscribers: 8.2 million

Nisha Madhulika is a mother of two who started her Hindi recipe channel on YouTube in 2011. Her eponymous channel is one of India’s oldest cooking channels and Nisha’s been a constant presence on the list India’s top 10 YouTubers. She is popular for her easy-to-make vegetarian recipes.

Daddy knows best

Jaymukh, 62
Channel Name: Village Food Factory
Subscribers: 3.57 million

Village-style rustic cooking using traditional clay pots and vessels on an open-wood fire are quite a rage. And one of the first YouTube channels to put this out was Village Food Factory. Catch Jaymukh, the 62-year-old dad to Gopinath, cook food with minimal equipment. Apparently, he picked his skills while working as a door-to-door fabric salesman.

Savithramma, 80s
Channel Name: Myna Street Food
Subscribers: 1.08 million

Siblings A. Deva Chandra Raju and T. Chakradhar decided to feature their octogenarian grandmother, Savithramma’s home-style cooking using mud pots, fire wood etc. and started this YouTube channel from their village home based out of Machilipatnam, Andhra Pradesh, in 2016. These videos, featuring this cute, toothless grandma didn’t take long to go viral. So much so, that to keep up with the demand they had to then recruit a bunch of new grandmas!

Chef at large

Kalpana Talpade, 66
Channel Name: Kalpana’s Kitchen
Subscribers:33.5k

Kalpana Talpade’s channel specialises in authentic Pathare Prabhu delicacies. Kalpana had shot some cooking videos to help her daughter learn a few Pathare Prabhu recipes, which she later uploaded on YouTube on the request of her daughter’s friends in 2011. Today, she’s a home chef with her pop-up kitchen at her residence.

Keeping it simple

Manjula Jain, 71
Channel Name: Manjula’s Kitchen
Subscribers: 552k

Manjula Jain, who moved to the US when she got married in the late 1960s, is today a grandmom who runs her eponymous YouTube channel, where she shares Indian vegetarian recipes. Her tutorials are elaborate and a perfect starting point for young home chefs not accustomed to Indian cooking. It is also a treasure trove of vegan and gluten-free recipes.

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From HT Brunch, March 22, 2020

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