Tamil Nadu Village Cooking Channel creates history, hits one crore subscribers on YouTube

Screengrab of VCC cooking video (YouTube)

Tamil Nadu’s popular Village Cooking Channel (VCC) has created history by becoming the first Tamil language YouTube channel to get one crore subscribers.

The VCC YouTube channel is hosted by a family of farmers and chefs from Tamil Nadu’s Pudukkottai district. It was started in April 2018 by Chinna Veeramangalam and is co-hosted by his cousins and their grandfather M Periyathambi, who used to work as a caterer.

The YouTubers started gaining international popularity as their use of traditional techniques and cooking in the outskirts quickly caught the fancy of people across the world. They use local produce and use stone grinders to prepare the spices instead of relying on electronic gadgets such as mixers and blenders. Even modern utensils such as pressure cookers do not make way to their open kitchen, nor do gas cylinders and gas stoves.

Their popularity rose manifold after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi visited them during the election campaign. Before his visit, Village Cooking Channel used to add around 10,000 subscribers per week. After Gandhi’s visit, this increased to 30,000 to 40,000 a week, reported India Today. The video featuring the Congress leader has been seen 26 million times.

The YouTube channel helps the family earn about Rs 10 lakh a month. Sometimes, they also make additional income through their Facebook page. About Rs 2 lakh is spent per month on producing the show.

The VCC team usually prepares dishes in large quantities, which are distributed among needy locals after the video is shot. They even met Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin recently and donated Rs 10 lakh to the Chief Minister’s Public Relief Fund (CMPRF) to help the state fight the COVID-19 pandemic.