Highlights
- Andrakashari Mastanamma was the oldest YouTube star in the world
- Mastanamma was culinarian whose love for cooking inspired many
- Her channel Country Foods has 1.2 million subscribers
A few years ago, an Andhra Pradesh-based home chef Andrakashari Mastanamma shot to fame, when a YouTube channel called Country Foods started documenting her unbelievable cooking skills. Mastanamma became the oldest food YouTube star in the whole world, at the age of over 100 years. The exceptional culinarian granny passed away yesterday, aged 107. The channel posted a video of Mastanamma's last rites, for the subscribers and fans to pay their last respects for the passionate cook. Mastanamma's YouTube channel was popular because of her adorable ever-smiling face and her deftness with the most basic cooking utensils. Most of the food Mastanamma cooked was with very rudimentary instruments available to her in her tiny 'open-air' kitchen, located in a village in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh. Mastanamma's cooking videos garnered millions of views and likes, with the channel's subscribers spread all over the world.
Andrakashari Mastanamma was a reminder to all of us that if one has the passion to follow their dreams, they don't need to graduate from fancy culinary schools or need high-grade cookware. The granny used to peel all her vegetables and fresh produce with hand. She would grind all her spices in an old pestle and mortar, and all the meals she prepared were made from scratch, recorded and posted on the channel to inspire chefs and cooking enthusiasts from around the world. Mastanamma's efforts and love for cooking didn't go to waste and her fans would send her their love from across the world. In a video posted on the channel after her birthday last year, showed Mastanamma talking about a greeting card she had received that had been sent by her fans in Pakistan.
Mastanamma was an expert at creating delicious dishes and could make anything, from watermelon chicken to chicken drumsticks, emu meat curry and even village-style KFC, on her kachcha chulha in the village. Mastanamma's skills had first come to light when two Hyderabad media persons, K Laxman and Srinath Reddy, had shared a video of her preparing brinjal curry. Laxman is a distant relative of Mastanamma's and he, along with Reddy, is instrumental in starting the YouTube channel in 2016. The channel currently has over 200 videos on it.