Grandpa Kitchen is a YouTube channel established by Narayana Reddy (1946 – 27 October 2019). He was from Telangana, India.[1] In his channel he and his grandchildren cooked large dishes of food intended for orphans, making both Indian and western dishes.[2] The creator's residence is near Hyderabad.[3]

Narayana Reddy
Born1946
Died27 October 2019(2019-10-27) (aged 72–73)
Other namesGrandpa Kitchen
OccupationCooking YouTube
Years active2017–2019

Sanya Jain of NDTV described the resulting dishes as "mega-sized",[3] and Reddy used a wood-fired flame to cook instead of a modern oven. Reddy's son operated the YouTube channel itself. Reddy's trademark clothing consisted of a dhoti and a white shirt,[4] and he also has a white handlebar moustache.[5] Anurag Verma of News 18 wrote that two factors that made him popular on YouTube were the donations of food and the "seemingly modest approach to cooking".[6]

History

edit

Reddy cooked large meals for members of his family, who visited from more comprehensive conurbations. He started a YouTube channel later catching from other family branches that his meals could be given to other-selves in the district.[2] Prior to his YouTube profession, Reddy was a gardener.[7]

His first video, "King Of 2000 EGGS," was uploaded in August 2017.[2] As of 1 November 2019, the channel built a subscriber base of 6.11 million,[7] with Indian and foreign viewers,[1] and included over 220 videos.[7] His first video was viewed on over 2.6 million occasions. His Patreon, as of that day, had over 1,000 people subscribed to it,[2] and his Facebook had about 5,30,000 subscribed to it.[7] As of 1 November 2020 his most widely viewed video, of him making finger chips (a.k.a. potato chips a.k.a. french fries), had 55 million views.[4] A video showing him preparing a batch of Maggi noodles from 100 packets had a total of 27 million views,[7] and his mutton biryani video had over 13 million views.[6] He also made chicken biryani,[7] fried chicken,[1] chicken noodles,[7] chocolate cakes,[4] donuts,[7] gulab jamuns,[6] hamburgers, lasagne,[1] milkshakes, pancakes,[4] vegan pizza,[5] potato wafers,[7] oreo pudding,[1] and red velvet cake.[7] Members of his family chose to work for him to help produce videos in lieu of their previous employment.[2]

Reddy stopped uploading cooking videos due to health issues; his final before-mentioned video, uploaded on 20 September 2019, denoted "Crispy Potato Fingers".[1] A succeeding video was of him explaining his health predicaments.[6] Preeti Biswas of The Times of India stated he was "visibly diseased" in aforementioned video.[7] Reddy died on October 27, 2019, at age 73.[1] His family notified the public after his entombment ended,[2] via a YouTube video uploaded three days later on 30 October,[5] lasting about five minutes.[7] Within 24 hours the video had 89,110 views,[7] and by 1 November 2019, this increased to 3.3 million views and 142,192 comments from people around the world. There were also responses on Reddit threads.[5] His nephew Srikanth Reddy stated he and other members of the family have plans to continue Narayana's work through making subsequent videos,[2] the first of which was released on 6 November 2019. Now, they are expanding largely towards foreign themed foods, starting from Philippine adobo, alongside regular Indian food.[8]

As of Oct 7, 2023, Reddy's nephew made a crew member, Srinivas Reddy (who is a relative of Reddy's nephew) the new face of Grandpa Kitchen (essentially Grandpa 2.0), taking over the place of Reddy a little over 3 years after his death. Reddy's nephew, Srikanth, welcomed Srinivas in a live stream and said that the channel was getting less and less views after Reddy had died. Srinivas was a crew member for 2 years before taking over as the new face of Grandpa Kitchen. More info provided on Grandpa Kitchen's livestream: Grandpa Kitchen is Live 1

References

edit
  1. ^ a b c d e f g "Narayana Reddy of Grandpa Kitchen who used to cook for orphans passes away". The Times of India. 1 November 2019. Retrieved 3 November 2019.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Suri, Manveena; James Griffiths (1 November 2019). "Beloved Indian YouTuber Grandpa Kitchen dies. Millions watched him make epic meals for orphans". CNN. Retrieved 3 November 2019. - Alternate link at Archived 3 November 2019 at the Wayback Machine CNN Philippines
  3. ^ a b Jain, Sanya (1 November 2019). "YouTube's Beloved Grandpa, Who Cooked For Orphans, Dies At 73". NDTV. Retrieved 3 November 2019.
  4. ^ a b c d Suresh, Haripriya (1 November 2019). "'Grandpa Kitchen' fans around the world mourn Narayana Reddy's death, pay tributes". The News Minute. Retrieved 3 November 2019.
  5. ^ a b c d Cherian, Dona (1 November 2019). "The grandpa from YouTube's 'Grandpa Kitchen' died, he had over 6 million subscribers". Gulf News. Retrieved 3 November 2019.
  6. ^ a b c d Verma, Anurag (2 November 2019). "YouTube's Favourite Narayan Reddy Who Made Epic Meals for Orphans on 'Grandpa Kitchen' No More". News 18. Retrieved 3 November 2019.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Biswas, Preeti (1 November 2019). "YouTuber grandpa chef, who fed the needy, dies in Telangana". The Times of India. TNN. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
  8. ^ "Elephant Foot Yam & Mutton Biryani Recipe | How To Make Elephant Foot Yam & Lamb Meat Mixed Biryani". YouTube. 6 November 2019. Retrieved 8 November 2019.
edit