‘All day we are doing nothing, but we feel hungry,’ says my mother, laughing.
Yes, I hanker for grilled octopus, cheese and olives, but I also remember the serene faces of a group of women sitting around a fire where a pot is on the boil. Their conversation goes something like this:
‘Don’t let it boil too fast.’
‘Hai, take the lid off.’
‘Hai, the taste will evaporate.’
‘Cook it slowly.’
‘This is the best time, when the red ants are seen on the leaves.’
‘Hai, it is a sign.’
‘The ants are clever ...’
It is a quiet, languid conversation in a village house on the art of cooking the popular On-giin leaf, or Clerodendrum Colebrookianum. It is a tall, vigorously growing perennial shrub of broad, dark green leaves with a hint of bitterness. As children we used to hate this stuff but ate them because we were told it would make us grow tall, especially if we held up the greens, stem and all, and tilted our heads back to eat them. Now food scientists have analysed that Clerodendrum contains medicinal properties for the treatment of diabetes, rheumatism and hypertension. I go to the market and buy bundles of the leaf. They grow in the garden too, and I look out for the red ants to appear.
What is khautek, tongtep, khau-laam and dungpoo?
In case you are wondering, these are all rice preparations—steamed, wrapped in leaf, powdered, mixed with sesame seeds and flattened into cakes. They are then rolled into balls or cooked in bamboo tubes. Rice is the most widely consumed staple grain in Arunachal Pradesh. In fact, it is believed to be of divine origin. One story goes that rice is a gift from the gods that came to a race of sky dwellers in the land of fish and stars. It happened during a great hunt when the faithful dog of a legendary hunter lost his way and strayed into the kingdom of the Great Earth Mother, the Goddess of Grain. The dog told her how he was lost. The goddess heard him out and then sent him on his way with a few grains of rice, which the faithful dog carried back to his master in the crease of his ear. Today, rice is cultivated throughout the state and many varieties are grown—they can be classified into two broad categories: that of highland or mountain rice, which is grown in the cyclical jhum fields of shifting cultivation, and the lowland or wet rice cultivation. A hardy species of mountain rice, known locally as ‘Mipun’, is believed to be the original seed that was brought back from the granary of the Earth Mother.
Rice preparations are required on many occasions. Rice cakes using red, short-grained sticky rice wrapped in leaf are an essential item at weddings. Rice is also the chief ingredient for the local beer that, according to popular folklore, makes men equal to the gods and restores health and laughter in this world.
Khau-laam or bamboo rice is a clean, convenient way of packaging cooked rice that can be carried easily when out on a journey. The ingredients are simply rice and water. I am using the word ‘khau-laam’ of the Khampti people where the variety of bamboo used is known locally as ‘khaulam-ba’. It is a soft bamboo with a thin membrane that coats the rice as it cooks, allowing the cooked rice to be removed in one cylindrical piece. The rice is left to soak overnight and filled into bamboo tubes, leaving enough space for expansion. A little water is poured in and the bamboo is sealed with a leaf of arrowroot. The rice-filled bamboo tubes are cooked over an open fire, and a good deal of attention is required to ensure that the rice is thoroughly cooked and not burnt. Bamboo rice can be eaten by simply pulling back the soft bamboo, or by slicing the bamboo into pieces. It’s flavour is unparalelled and can be savoured best while sitting in the shade by a river with the breeze on your face. Then nothing else is required except khau-laam and maybe a little salt.
Khampti cuisine is also famous for a raw fish soup traditionally prepared only by men, and like gazpacho, served cold. It is called paa-saa. This soup is laboriously prepared using all parts of a popular freshwater fish called Ngopie. However, the key ingredient is a leaf called khum-phat, identified as Bischofia javanica,11 of which almost 3 kilos are required to extract a litre of juice. The leaves are pounded in a large vessel and steeped in water. The juice is extracted by squeezing out the excess water, then mixing the leaves with the finely chopped raw fish along with coriander, chilli, garlic, ginger, watercress and white basil. The stock for the soup is prepared by boiling the dry roasted scales and finely pounded bones of the fish and then filtering it through a fine sieve. This stock is used as long as a fine layer of fish oil is visible. The soup is of a fresh green colour, and in taste paa-saa is a masterpiece of subtle flavours and elegant seasoning. The traditional accompaniment to paa-saa is a chutney made of the roe and edible innards of the fish, stir-fried in a little oil with chopped garlic, scallions, salt and chillies. The result is a dark, rich paste that is the perfect combination with the soup. Paa-saa is an invention for the winter when the harvest is in, and a connoisseur would consider it a sacrilege to have anything else on the table if there was the unbeatable triad of fragrant new rice, the dark chutney and a bowl of paa-saa.
Like rice, bamboo is the other life-giving plant in Arunachal Pradesh. It is used for fuel, fodder, shelter and food. This will be evident to any visitor to the state, who sooner or later is likely to be assailed by the distinct aroma of bamboo shoot that is used daily in a variety of local preparations. Pickled, dried or cooked bamboo shoot is that tastemaker that is believed to possess curative properties with protease activity which helps in the digestion of proteins.
Bamboo shoot is the new growth of culms and in season it is available whole. The popular edible varieties range from the coarse root clumpers to the ivory yellow, pinkish and pale green tender runner shoots. Generally households buy these in bulk, and after peeling off the protective sheath, chop the fresh culm and pack it into jars or even plastic buckets. This becomes the fermented bamboo shoot that is used to flavour meat and vegetable dishes. Bamboo shoot can be stored for long periods in air-tight containers. Sometimes these are lightly burnt or pressed with a heavy stone to drain out excess moisture and the shoots are stored whole. In rural Arunachal, bamboo shoot is traditionally stored in large bamboo tubes which are then stacked in a cool place like a water point or a small stream. Another way of storing it is by sun-drying. This is an arduous process that involves a lot of chopping. The finely chopped bamboo shoot is spread out on a large mat and allowed to dry completely. This type of bamboo shoot is preferred for cooking with smoked fish, though it is also used in a number of meat dishes and chutneys. It is light, easy to carry, and a dose of dried bamboo mixed with a little water, salt and chilli can really perk up the appetite.
Like most food in Arunachal, bamboo also has its mythical origins. Traditional local cuisine is simple. It is linked to the environment and with what is available, with special festivals and rituals associated with the agricultural cycle. Contrary to popular perception, traditional communities do not usually eat meat. The hunting and fishing traditions do not provide meat at all times of the year, and they are also associated with rituals and food taboos. Meat and fish are generally dried, smoked and preserved to tide over lean periods.
The energy of a village is concentrated in the cultivation of rice for which large clearings are made on the hillsides. Wet rice cultivation was introduced in the late 1950s to boost production, and in the foothills every fertile plot of land was used for growing rice. However, wet rice cultivation, of which my home district is at the forefront, is now perceived as the culprit behind the increasing number of diabetic cases which were fairly unknown in tribal society before. A higher-yielding variety of ginger, another essential ingredient in local preparations, was also introduced, but I heard that in some villages people began to suffer dental problems which they thought was due to the larger-sized but fairly tasteless hybrid ginger. It may be speculation, but it has made me think about food in a new light.
Of course, Arunachal lifestyle and food habits have changed over the years. In the old days, food was for sustenance and survival. The relationship between food and medicine was also quite clear. In homes today the table is usually laid with a mosaic of cultural combinations. There’s saffron rice, instant noodles, the western equivalent of our local black pudding, a suggestion of Haggis and KFC.
The simple food of bygone days cooked fresh over woodfires can now only be enjoyed in the villages, and specialized preparations can make a comeback only perhaps if they are on the menu for visiting tourists. The influence of Continental, Chinese, Asian and Indian curries and spices has also helped to modify local dishes. There is information technology too that has changed the food scene. Food is visible and ever present, just like when we were in school laboriously copying out recipes in our prized notebooks, the equivalent of being on Facebook back then—never mind that Cornish pasties and clotted cream were a dream away and we would never get the ingredients, at least not in Arunachal then, to conjure up such heavenly delights. World cooking is now at our doorstep.
Yet one thing I have never seen, not even on TV shows about wild places and esoteric food, is the small, edible insect called tari. When the weather is cool and the sky is overcast, a dark, buzzing cloud settles softly over the dry riverbeds and disappears into the gravel and naked stones. This is the season of the tari, a blackish-brown river beetle that arrives in the months of November and December, presumably to hibernate. An acquired taste makes the tari prey to groups of villagers, especially women, who scour the riverbeds and overturn stones in search of this delicacy. Tari is eaten raw, cooked, boiled, fried or roasted. The only thing to watch out for is the tiny red centre on the chest of the beetle which causes a burning sensation if eaten inadvertently. This portion is plucked out easily, but stains the fingertips like nicotine. Not much is known about this beetle except that it belongs to the class Insecta and the species name is Nazara.12
The addiction to tari-eating is also hard to explain. To my mind it is quite tasteless, but aficionados go into raptures over it. In many cases people have literally gone mad eating the tari. This is a strange disorder that is believed to attack a person who unfortunately eats a tari that is already dead, or one that dies before it is used in cooking. The results can be disastrous. The affected person can experience extreme hallucination and can take on the behaviour of the insect, shunning light and crawling under objects in search of a dark place. The illness is not fatal, but its effect lasts for days. It is a strange sight to see someone lying in a hospital bed yanking back the cover over their head and body whenever anxious relatives try to take a peep to see how the patient is doing. One year, so many people were hit by tari consumption that the district administration imposed a ban on its procurement and sale. Yet, every season, the affair with the tari continues. Kept in bamboo tubes or in string bags and perforated containers, the tari can live for days and weeks without food or water, and such food parcels sent to friends and relatives where tari is unavailable is cause for great delight. Any takers, anyone?