The App That Fed India

Social media may have many negatives but it also has many pluses. It can reconnect
 disconnected families, It can bring groups together such as the #MeToo. It can promote businesses and offer  knowledge. This is what happened with the messaging platform What's App and India. The two meshed perfectly, connecting home chefs, cooks and farmers.

Regular contributor and food writer, Priya Krishna wrote about this happening in yesterday's New York Times Food section.The app , What's App was able to connect a wide network of different food related groups all over the subcontinent. The Indians have Prime Minister Narenda Modi who  started Digital India, an initiative to increase internet connectivity across the country. It would connect urban areas to rural ones. Whats App, owned by Facebook is the medium of choice, It is free and only requires an internet connection. Most new phones already have it installed.As a result over 200 million (!) or one in six Indians have it, more than any other country. Some have misused it, spreading false news, inciting mob violence and even manipulating votes during elections in India and other countries. Yet it also has done a lot of good too, especially those who farm, cook or care about food. India is a country whose culinary traditions are orally passed down, not written on cards or in notebooks. Whats App allows them to share and arrange knowledge and skills.Some have even made a profit from this.

Whats App has affected all corners of India/Aysha Tanya, a founder of the food and culture publication, The Goya Journal uses it to get recipes from her mother . Saee Koranne-Khandekar uses her WhatsApp created a group with just her family. She even created a cookbook of their recipe  messages and pictures in 2014. Older Indian home chefs tend to be secretive with their family''s recipes, guarding them as if they were gold. Whats App has loosened them up and they're posting all sorts of dishes. .For mango farmer, Noshiran Mistry, Whats App is a godsend. He is able to get an internet connection five kilometers outside his town so he uses the application to send photos of the fruit  as they're growing to vendors all over the country. He also uses it to  pass along lore  about the fruit, preferring to writing a blog.He feels that more will read his messages than that.India's restaurant industry has also benefited. Chef Thomas Zacharias, the executive chef and and partner in the Mumbai restaurant, Bombay Canteen belongs to more than twenty Whats App groups . He uses groups to train employees on the menu and devise dishes, along with motivating the staff.

What's App is  connecting the food world of India. Recipes will not be lost. Farmers will prosper as will restaurants. Best of all people will come together and share their love of food.