For the gastronomically inclined aging millennial, first there was Anthony Bourdain, his swagger, nuisance and cool, led to an explosion of TV host; Gordon Ramsey, Rocky and Mayur, Vir Sanghvi, Vikas Khanna, Aditya Bal, who travelled the world eating, talking and drinking. While they varied in age, height and swagger, they were all men. While most household kitchens are dominated by women, it seems, the travel food-show genre has long been reserved for men, that is, until now.
Enter Tenzing Wang Bhutia and Zomato Originals’ new show Eat Like a Girl. Produced by ScoopWhoop, Eat Like a Girl is possibly India’s first extreme food show that pulls no punches and send Tenzing across the country to eat some of the most unusual food India has to offer. At twenty-one, Tenzing has an irreverence that’s reflective of a generational shift in the media landscape. She oozes confidence with an IDGF attitude as she gobbles worms, brain and raw Yak meat with her bejewelled nails, red tinted hair and her occasional display of Delhiness in beeped out profanities.
The show is not for the faint of heart, because well, Tenzing eat hearts, livers, kidneys, goat heads, snails, blood sausages, fried blood and tongues (plural, not singular, because she eats more than one) as she travels to eight cities across the country and while you might cringe and occasionally skip forward, it’s gripping, refreshing and pushes the boundaries of the travel food show gender in Indian.
Durga Raghunath, Senior Vice President, Growth, at Zomato says, “Food in India is as diverse as this country. From Coimbatore to Guwahati to Lucknow to Goa different communities have different appetites and traditions. In Tenzing we found a myth-breaker with the perfect spirit of fun, experimentation and voice to take on challenges few would”.
Sattvik Mishra, CEO, ScoopWhoop says, “ScoopWhoop is constantly pushing boundaries when it comes to creating content for young indians. With Eat Like a Girl, the idea was to showcase how Indian food can be more than just comforting, it can also be exciting and edgy. In a food-show universe dominated by adventurous men, we thought it was about time a girl showed up and shared her unique experience of seeking out and eating extreme food in India”.
The first four episodes of the eight-part series have gone live on the Zomato app and the subsequent four episodes are to be released shortly.