Shrishti Prabhu Desai is a food influencer from Goa with more than 17.3k followers on Instagram, who love her work and engage with her content. In the times of COVID, when all of us were busy experimenting with whatever we had in the kitchen, Shrishti actually gave a direction to her hobby and made a space for herself in the ever-increasing cooking community on Instagram. We caught up with her and talked about her journey as an influencer, the scope for food-blogging in India and her favourite Goan dishes.
What is the role of your mother in your journey as an influencer, since you started cooking with her during COVID?
My mom played a major role in teaching me all the authentic recipes. She passed on so many recipes that her in laws and mother had taught her. Her tips while cooking have just helped me so much.
From posting pictures of your dishes on your Instagram stories as a hobby to actually uploading recipes and gaining a loyal audience – how surreal was the journey?
The journey on Instagram was not less than a roller coaster ride, as all the digital platforms do suffer at times. At the start, it was random stories what I was uploading, and used to answer the detailed recipes to all the messages I used to get. That’s when, so many people around me actually motivated me to take this forward. I was unaware of captions, exact hashtags and all these things like Instagram reach and algorithm. I used to cook and upload what I clicked. So, basically these two years were a journey of learning new things from the people I used to follow and through other internet sources. I found my passion of delivering and portraying what I was creating at home. The passion got simply converted to a profession where now I make a living out of it by collaborating with brands, products, working for an agency and much more. It was indeed a journey of growth and consistency.
You also support local chefs and home chefs from Goa. What inspired you to do that?
According to my belief, everything starts from the basic things like what locals or home chefs do. It's from them how an idea comes into the market. Even the unique old age recipes come from a home chef like my grandmom or mom. So, it’s the gratitude I have for them and hard work that they do which inspires me to do more in their support.
You are passionate about keeping the age-old recipes of Goa alive. What are some of your personal favourite dishes?
I am a great die-hard fan of Goan authentic recipes but if you ask me to pick few of them then fish cutlets, chicken cutlet pao, caramel pudding, cafreal chicken and of course fish fry is what all I need to survive.
Can you talk about your experience at the Indian Food and Beverage Awards 2022 where you earned the 2nd place?
Indian Food and beverages Awards 2022 were overwhelming and completely unexpected, especially when the award results were being announced. We met beautiful and talented people all around India like master chef Sanjyot Kheer and creators like Kamiya Jani from Curly tales. Great evening at Mumbai with only common thing between all of us – love for food.
What do you think is the scope of a food blogger and content creator in India? What advice would you give to young bloggers looking to explore the field?
Yes, I do believe that career and scope in food blogging as well as content creation is vast and it's growing rapidly. Bloggers build up a bridge between the people and the brand. It's a beautiful thing, you know, to showcase your talent and creativity. I feel the bloggers at their starting phase should be more consistent towards their creativity, deliver what's actually the reality is and support more of local businesses.