AP Tourism Authority plans to promote Andhra Thali

Tirupati: To make traditional ‘Andhra Thali’ prominent and give a brand to it, AP Tourism Authority (APTA) has initiated a cookery competition named as ‘Andhra Vantalu.’

The first such competition was held here on Wednesday in association with Ramee Academy of Catering, Tourism and Hotel Management. Though APTA has conducted several cookery contests in the past they want to lay special focus on giving a brand to ‘Andhra Thali’ and to get it familiarised they planned to conduct a series of such competitions in all the districts.

Speaking to The Hans India, Assistant Director, Cuisine of APTA Nishar Ahmed said, “We want to popularise ‘Andhra Thali’. As part of it, participants are asked to bring a set of dishes. Three best combination of dishes will be selected from each district of which a final selection will be made and label it as ‘Andhra Thali’ which will have both vegetarian and non-vegetarian categories.”

He added participants can also name their Thalis so that they will get several ideas for naming it ultimately. “The competition is exclusively for women as we want to focus on homely food. The participants have to made it at their home and brought here,” he maintained. Explaining the plans, he said that recently they started making of ‘Bongu Chicken’ and ‘Bongu Biryani’ from Tirupati to popularise the dishes.

Training programme in making Bongu Biryani and Chicken will be held at Berm Park in Vijayawada on August 21. Also, a programme will be held at Berm Park on August 9 in which longest ‘Putha Rekulu’ be made for Indian Book of Records.

He made it clear they are
also conducting Andhra Food Festivals in standard hotels frequently which are different from Andhra Vantalu contests in which local cuisine will be encouraged and preferred in place of Pizzas and Burgers. With local cuisine, health issues can be reduced, he felt.

Participating as chief guest in the event, Tirupati East DSP M Muniramaiah observed there is every need to popularise traditional food by opening kiosks in the city where pilgrims movement is more. With this, the local food will get wide recognition as pilgrims from every corner visit Tirupati.

AP Tourism Executive Director V Jayaprakash, District Tourism Officer DV Chandramouli and APTDC Divisional Manager RV Suresh Kumar Reddy participated in the programme in which about 25 participants presented their dishes.

The most common dishes observed from many are Rayalaseema famous Ragi Sangati, Andhra famous Gongura pickle and Mango dal. A homemaker S Suseela won the first prize for her dishes while a student of hotel management M Shaheen stood second. A senior citizen K Nagarathna got the third prize.

However, it was found that due to lack of publicity from organisers, the response was confined to only 25 of which the majority are in-house participants. Had they taken more care towards publicity, the response would have been more and there may be more outside participants, which APTA must take care of while organising similar events in the remaining districts.