After inventing sweet onion pudding, this chef earns a PhD

CHENNAI - He has literally tickled people’s palette and imagination with such dishes as halwa, an Indian pudding, made of onions and even green chillies. Now his experience as an innovative chef and teacher has earned K. Damodaran a PhD.

The University of Madras has given this 53-year-old author of 17 cookery-related books with as many as 2,722 recipes a doctor of philosophy degree - and this he claims is India’s first doctorate in hotel management and catering technology.

A teacher himself, passionate to educate students in cooking skills, Damodaran’s 169-page thesis explains the potential for distance education in hotel management and with curriculum framed for courses for durations ranging from six months to two years.

“The curriculum envisages practical as well as theory knowledge. Practicals in class rooms and theory through distance education,” Damu, as he is fondly called by friends and associates, told IANS.

“People are interested in catering technology even in small towns. Many people working in hotels also want to hone their skills to go up the ladder. The hospitality industry is in need of good people and my thesis is precisely about these issues,” he says.

Damodaran has always been one to plunge into things unconventional.

In the 1970s, when cooking was hardly a career of choice, his decision to quit a bachelor’s programme in chemistry to enrol at the Institute of Hotel Management and Catering Technology here caused some anxiety to his parents.

“My mother was worried that if her son becomes a ‘cook’, he won’t be able to get a suitable life partner. So to satisfy her, I completed B.Com through correspondence and also got a master’s degree in business administration from Madras University.”

After graduation, the chef worked at five star hotel chains such as ITDC, Taj and ITC WelcomGroup, but in 1986, he put aside the chef’s hat to become a teacher.

He has been associated with institutes like the Asian Catering College and the MGR Institute of Hotel Management, before heading the city-based Empee Group’s hospitality education institutions.

Even though Damodaran’s books were prescribed texts for hospitality students, he found it hard to get himself registered as a PhD student as there was no qualified scholar in his chosen field to be his guide.

Eventually in 2004, G.B. Jaiprakash Narain, principal of MNM Jain Engineering College, came to his help.

“When I was heading the southern region for National Institute of Technology Teachers Training and Research, we had sought Damodaran’s assistance in developing training modules for teachers of catering technology,” Narain said. “That helped.”

Despite earning a PhD, Damodaran remains a chef and a teacher at heart. His eyes light up when one queries him about his numerous experiments — like sweets made from chillies and onions.

“One can actually make a sweet with hot south Indian green chillies” he says. “Tasting it, you will not be able to make out it has green chillies. But my onion halwa has that typical aroma.”

He is passionate about food cooked in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu. “I believe these dishes have many medicinal values, given their ingredients,” he says, adding he was willing to share the expertise he has gained on spices with any entrepreneur.

“My request is they should brand it Damu’s Masala.”

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians.in)