March 11, 2016

Interview with our World Record Achiever Chef. Raj Mohan !


Happiest moment is our favorite, well - known and inspired chef getting a world record achiever award and sharing his beautiful moments about the cooking marathon on my webpage. Of course, it is a proud moment for me and I feel really blessed and honored to post about the recent Limca Book Of Records and Guinness Book Of Record winner Chef M.S Raj Mohan's journey of life on food and interesting news about the Guinness record.

My today's post is truly special, as I am going to share few interesting moments which happened on December 19th 2015 ( 7 am ) at Hotel Poppy's Madurai. It was the day, our chef made an astounded performance by cooking non stop for 48 hours with full energy and efforts. I have to thank one of my blogger friend Vimala Lakshmi from cookingclub17.blogspot.in who got really lucky to attend the great event for sharing all the pictures instantly. Though I missed the chance of attending the wonderful event, I am lucky enough to have such a friend to share all beautiful memories and happening for every half an hour which really vanished my feeling of absence. 

I am sure that loads of questions arises when we hear about cooking marathon or record event, like, do they take break and if yes, how many minutes ?, what do they do with the cooked food after marathon ? How many members will be there to evaluate ? and lots more... My today's post gonna reveal all the interesting things happened on marathon day by our chef. Raj Mohan. I have to mention a special Thanks to our chef for spending his valuable hours to give a clear idea about the event and it's my privilege to share it with you all.

When I questioned about his inspiration, he said that it was his dream to achieve something great and especially in his passion field - cooking. Apart form money, learning new things and getting fame means a lot. He also mentioned that his cooking should be helpful and be an inspiration to next generation people. His aim is to explore South Indian cuisine and promote world wide.


The moment, I received a picture from my friend with a famous and my favorite chef. Damadaran, who is also a Guinness record winner, I was so curious to know more about him. When I asked about this to chef, he felt very happy and consider this as a proud moment as chef. Damodharan attended the event for 2 days without any expectation. Addition to his presence, he praised, guided and gave full support to our chef.


 Next comes an interesting question which most of them would be interested to know... What happens to the food which are prepared for such type of marathon ? For this question, our chef said that foods are shared among visitors and apart from that food were made into parcels and given to an orphanage. And in addition, he also mentioned that there were mentally challenged people as visitors who enjoyed his food. This really impressed me to know that this marathon had been prepared also for the cause.



When we have our guest at home, pre planning plays an important role and especially me, I used to pen down all the meal plans and buy veggies according to that. When we plan so much for such a simple things, I was sure that chef. Raj mohan would have spend almost a month to schedule his plans. When I asked this to him, I was really shocked by his reply. He said that they just planned the initial category of menu like sweet, savory, main course etc. which later did not get executed as planned. He also made a special mention about his catering students who did the back end job like organizing, chopping veggies etc. Apart from helping in his marathon, students along with his friend Chef. Palaniappam also gave full support till the end of marathon. Radio Mirchi team also made an remarkable work by their constant support.



When my friend said that the chef completed 100 dishes in 3 hours and 800 dishes in 29 hours, I was really impressed by his energy levels and passion on food. My curiosity increased to know the secret of such active and energetic cooking which finally triggered as a question to chef. He said that one of his friend Mr. Lakshmi kumar, a very good friend, body builder and journalists suggested few healthy foods like sweet potato, samba wheat kanji, fresh juice, black coffee and apple which helped to maintain his stamina.







Apart from his marathon details, chef also shared few interesting guidelines about Guinness record which we were not familiar. During cooking marathon, the actual resting time is for every one hour, just 5 minutes. But our chef took 20 mins break for every 5 hours. Each dish has to be minimum of 150 gms and manual calculation is done by a person from Guinness team which is also recorded simultaneously. Witness for this marathon were done by N. Srinath, Executive chef of GRT and Mr. Vinod kumar, J. C Residency, Madurai. And every 4 hours witness will be changing according to the rule. Chef also made a special note about Mr. Vivek raju from India Book of records, who supported and guided through out the marathon.

As chef was very particular about delivering healthy food in the marathon, the following are the quantity of ingredients which he used.

280 kg Veggies
20 litre Oil
10 litres Milk
45 kg Meat  ( 36 kg Chicken +1 Kg Mutton ( in which he did 4 dishes ) + 9 kg fish )

The reason of using less meat is to avoid the most expensive food in the marathon and oil is also used very less. For 1205 dishes, using just 20 litres of oil is really amazing and appreciable.

Time for us to know about the challenging part of this marathon..

Chef mentioned that there is no pre cooked food in the event and everything were prepared on the spot of cooking. He was very clear in using his food, without any complication the ingredients should be easily available and that is the main reason of using less meat in the marathon.


Finally, our chef successfully completed his cooking marathon on 21st dec 2015 ( 7 am ) with a special sweet dish - Paal payasam.


 Benjamin perry, 20 yrs old chef from USA was the last Guinness record holder who completed 230 dishes in 40 hours. Though our chef, beaten the old record at 40 hrs, he continued his cooking marathon and made a wonderful record break by cooking 1205 dishes in 48 hours. He already got his place in India Book of Records and got applied to Guinness Book Of Record.


Personally, I had tried few of his recipes which tasted really delicious and esp, Sundakai vatha kuzhambu was a super hit among family members. He also have posted lot of south Indian and restaurant style recipes on youtube. Click the below link and enjoy his delicacies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un8lwnd6jHA

Thank you Chef. Raj mohan for giving us a wonderful and detail interview about the marathon. It's a great pleasure and excellent opportunity for me to post such a informative post. We all wish you a bright future and keep rocking in your passion world.



















1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the detailed post dear.. Even I was curious and following when he participated..

    ReplyDelete