Tassiya Tariq is Kashmir’s first female Youtuber whose cooking videos on her channel Kashmir Food Fusion are a hit among the Kashmiri foodies both home and abroad.
She cooks a variety of traditional Kashmiri cuisine on her channel which now boasts over 1.7 lakh subscribers.
Her simple way of cooking authentic, mouth watering Kashmiri dishes are a hot favourite among newly wed brides as well as students living outside the valley.
It all began three years ago, when Tassiya wanted to check the recipe for Wazwan specific Kashmiri Pulao online. To her disbelief the recipes shown were by non-Kashmiri cooks creating a watered down version of the Kashmiri delicacy.
She believed that the Kashmiri cuisines should be prepared indeginously. Ofcourse that’s what makes a particular cuisine special, the flavour of the place where it originates from.
This persuaded Tassiya to create a culinary channel on YouTube, for authentic and ethnic Kashmiri cuisine. She had just gotten hitched and received full backing of her husband in this tasty endeavour.
The support from her in-laws was all good and well, but she still needed to learn how to cook Kashmiri special cusinies for her channel. For this she approached her family chef (Waza) Mohammad Ayub. He guided her first to make the ‘Kashmiri Pulao’ and to Tassiya’s amazement it tasted exactly like it does when Wazza cooks it.
Tassiya took Mohammad Ayub’s guidance for making almost every cuisine. She didn’t want to lose the Kashmiri flavour. This ensured the first recipes on her channel are authentic Wazwan dishes. The main idea behind this was to preserve the Kashmiri food culture.
Since then she has made a variety of day to day dishes and uploaded those videos on YouTube. From Kashmiri Wazwan to smoked fish, Kashmiri Harissa and other such palatable dishes are part of Tassiya’s channel.
She has garnered a tremendous response from young brides hoping to impress their in laws. Students living outside Kashmir, cite her as their saviour when it comes to learning how to cook, as she teaches basic cooking techniques of home made Kashmiri food.
Tassiya understands how food is related to the very basic human emotion and when it comes to Kashmiris, they just love their food. She hoped her channel would provide a platform for preserving authentic Kashmiri cuisine. With the love and response she has received from Kashmiris around the world she has achieved that and much more.