Throughout history the diet of most people in the world was limited to what was seasonally and locally available. This was especially true of India, with its vast territory and poor roads. Moreover, India is so climatically diverse that few plants and ingredients are available throughout the entire country. Even the common classification by regional or local cuisines – South Indian, Punjabi, Bengali, Hyderabadi and so on – does not begin to do justice to its diversity. It is no exaggeration to say that an example can be found to refute any statement made about Indian food. Despite its shortcomings, a regional survey is the most practical way of describing the diversity and richness of the subcontinent’s cuisine.
An Indian meal is centred on a starch, either rice or a grain. Nationwide, cereals provide 70 per cent of all the calories and protein consumed, although the percentage falls as income rises. In rice-producing regions (the northeast, South India, Uttar Pradesh), that is the staple grain, whereas in the wheat-producing north (including Punjab and Haryana) the staple is wheat, usually consumed as bread. In western India, so-called coarse cereals, such as millet and sorghum, were once staples, but they have largely been replaced by wheat.
The second major part of the diet is pulses (beans, peas and lentils). Together, grains and pulses provide the full complement of amino acids necessary for health. Vegetables, dairy products, spices, chutneys, pickles, fruit and sugar supply vitamins, minerals and trace elements. In many parts of India a meal ends with buttermilk or yoghurt, which is believed to aid digestion.
People living in Punjab, where dairy farming is widespread, consume seventeen times as much milk per capita as those in Odisha and twice as much as the national average. Heading the list in the consumption of oil and fat are Gujarat, the country’s largest producer of oil seeds, and Punjab, where butter and ghee are eaten daily by those who can afford it. In the past other local oils were used – coconut oil in Kerala, mustard oil in West Bengal, sesame oil in the south – but today they are increasingly being replaced by vegetable and soy-bean oils.
Contrary to popular Western belief, there is evidence that a minority of Indians are vegetarian: the proportion was estimated by one survey as 25–30 per cent nationwide. Regionally, the proportion ranges from less than 6 per cent in Kerala, Orissa and West Bengal to 60 per cent or more in Rajasthan and Gujarat.1 However, meat is expensive and most people cannot afford to eat it every day; even affluent people eat relatively little by Western standards. When meat is served, the portions are smaller than in the Western diet, where meat is often the centrepiece of a meal. On average, Indians obtain 92 per cent of their calories from vegetable products and only 8 per cent from animal products (meat, dairy and eggs).
Most middle-class Indians eat two main meals a day, supplemented by one or two smaller meals, including an afternoon tea and a light dinner. In rural areas, the main meals are a hearty breakfast or early lunch to prepare for the day’s labour and a light dinner, perhaps supplemented with bread and snacks in the afternoon.
According to ancient Hindu dietary theory, every meal is supposed to include all six tastes in the following order: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent. Today, most people are unaware of this theory, and the only meal at which all the tastes are experienced – except for the distinctly bitter – is a formal wedding banquet. Nonetheless, usually four or five tastes are present in an Indian meal. As in any country, a skilful cook tries to achieve a harmonious interplay of colours and textures. For example, if a meat dish has a thin gravy, the vegetables are served in a thick sauce, or a thin dal will be served with dry meat dishes, such as kebabs.
Indian meals do not normally have a sequence of courses. Everything arrives more or less at once, although certain dishes may appear at different times and remain on the table throughout the meal. According to the Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz (1914–1998), once Mexico’s ambassador to India:
In European cooking, the order of the dishes is quite precise. It is a diachronic cuisine. . . . A radical difference in India, the various dishes come together on a single large plate. Neither a succession nor a parade, but a conglomeration and superimposition of things and tastes; a synchronic cuisine. A fusion of flavours, a fusion of times.2
A common method of serving food is on a thali – a round metal plate about 35 cm (14 in.) in diameter with slightly raised edges. Once used mainly in northern India, thalis are now popular throughout the country in homes and restaurants. Rice, bread and pickles are placed on the thali while dals, vegetable, meat and fish dishes, yoghurt and sweet dishes are served in small round metal bowls called katoris. The word thali may have originated in a ritual cooking pot, sthali, used in the Vedic kitchen to boil rice. Thalis can be made of silver and gold (for the wealthy), bronze, kansa (an alloy of copper, tin, zinc, iron and mercury) and even styrofoam, with indentations instead of bowls for large informal receptions. Certain metals are traditionally believed to have medicinal properties and to enhance digestion.3 The word thali is also used to refer to a set meal in an Indian restaurant. In the south, food was traditionally served on a banana leaf, although today that occurs mainly at festivals and weddings.
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A thali, or metal tray, with small bowls is a traditional way of serving food. |
A traditional way of serving a meal in South India and in South Indian restaurants in Southeast Asia is on a banana leaf.
The traditional way of eating Indian food is with one’s right hand. During the preparation of food, it is not touched or tasted by anyone else, so in a way, the final act of preparation is left to the eater, who mixes the rice or bread with the food and condiments to his or her liking. If the food is too bland, the diner can add a little pickle or chilli; if too spicy, some yoghurt. Eating is done with a circular movement of the hands, as the diner gathers the rice with his fingertips or tears off a piece of bread and then uses it to scoop up portions of the other foods. More Westernized households use knives and forks.
Indian cooking tends to be technique-based and very labour-intensive. The provenance and freshness of ingredients are less important than in, say, Italian cuisine. In most households, cooking was traditionally done by women. In a joint family, where the sons’ wives lived with their parents, the senior woman would supervise, aided by her daughters-in-law. In brahmin households, women would start cooking only after bathing, wearing cotton saris. Affluent households would employ cooks, who were often men and, in orthodox households, brahmins. (In the olden days, cook was the second most common profession among brahmins, after priest). To avoid polluting the meal, no one was allowed to enter the kitchen or to touch the cook.
Indian kitchens are simple, even austere, by Western standards (although affluent urbanites are now starting to install ‘designer kitchens’). Almost all cooking is done over a stove or burner. Traditional fuels were dried cowpats, charcoal, coke, twigs or wood shavings. The use of cow dung is an ancient form of recycling that also provides income for the people who collect, dry and sell it. Cowpats provide a gentle heat ideal for slow-cooking dishes with sauces and liquids, which are sometimes left overnight on hot coals. In middle-class households, the standard cooking device is a small hob (cooktop) with two burners fuelled by bottled gas (propane). It is amazing what elaborate feasts can be prepared on this simple piece of equipment. Pressure cookers, invented in France in the seventeenth century, are owned by three-quarters of all urban households in India. A sealed lid increases the air pressure, lowering the temperature at which water boils and significantly reducing the cooking time.
A technique that has no exact equivalent in Western cuisine is a combination of sautéing, stir-frying and stewing. The cook fries spices and a paste made from garlic, onions, ginger and sometimes tomatoes in a little oil until it is soft. Then pieces of meat, fish or vegetables are browned in the same oil. The next step is to add small amounts of liquid a little a time, while stirring. The amount of liquid added and the cooking time determine whether the dish will be wet or dry. Another uniquely Indian technique (called chhauk, takar or bagar) is the addition of spices fried in a little oil or ghee to a curry or dal after it has been cooked, imparting a delightful aroma.
One possible explanation for the prevalence of slow simmering and ‘curries’ is the institution of the joint family, where meals had to be prepared for many people at the same time. This would preclude stirfrying, for example, in which speed and freshness are important. Ovens and stoves, which are used for heating the home as well as for cooking, were not needed in India; thus, roasting is rare except in the far north.
Pickling, an ancient technique, is important in a hot climate. It is a way of preserving fruit, vegetables, meat or fish by impregnating them with acid, which discourages the growth of most microbes. This can be done either by adding the acid, usually vinegar, directly, or by soaking them in a strong salt solution, which encourages acid-producing bacteria to grow. Indian pickles can be sweet, sour, salty, cooling, hot or very hot indeed, and add another taste dimension to a meal.
The Indian batterie de cuisine is relatively small. In ancient times, pots and cooking utensils were made of earthenware and cleaned with ashes, earth and acidic or alkaline natural substances. Today they are made of metal. One of the most frequently used receptacles is a deep stainless-steel or cast-iron pot (karahi) with two handles and a flat or slightly concave bottom, used for shallow- and deep-frying. Rice and curry-like dishes with a liquid sauce are prepared in a straight-sided pan with a lid. The lid is saucer-shaped, so that live charcoal can be placed on it for certain dishes. A tawa, a flat, heavy iron griddle with a long handle, is used for roasting and preparing breads that require little or no oil. A slotted metal spoon is used for frying and draining, and a ladle for stirring. In Bengal, a large knife mounted on a wooden board, called a bonti, is used to cut up fish and large vegetables. South Indian and Gujarati kitchens have a variety of specialized devices for preparing steamed breads and snacks.
In some parts of India, the cook crushes spices, onions, garlic and herbs by pressing and rolling them with a small stone rolling pin on a large stone slab. In South India, a mortar and pestle is generally used. Modern cooks have electric grinders and blenders. Very large kitchens, such as those in a wealthy home or a restaurant, may employ a person whose sole job is to grind spices. Spices and flavourings are often ground early in the morning for the day’s meals.
Jammu and Kashmir is India’s northernmost state.4 One of the largest princely states of British India, it was claimed after Independence by both India and Pakistan, and since 1972 it has been divided by a Line of Control. Two-thirds of the original territory comprises the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir; the rest, called Azad Kashmir, is under Pakistani control. India and Pakistan have fought several wars over the region since the 1950s, and the economy of the state has been badly damaged by political unrest and the Kashmir earthquake of 2005. Of Jammu and Kashmir’s 12 million residents, approximately 70 per cent are Muslims; the rest are Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists. The population of Azad Kashmir is 4.5 million, mainly Muslims.
With its lush scenery and lakes, Kashmir was the favourite summer resort of the Mughal emperors. The legendary Vale of Kashmir produced an extremely rich bounty of fruit and vegetables. The lakes supply fish, water chestnuts and lotus roots, a delicacy. Nomadic herdsmen raise goats and sheep. Distinctive Kashmiri ingredients include saffron; small, sweet red shallots called praan; morels; wild asparagus; and a mild-flavoured red pepper called Kashmiri chilli. Mustard oil was the traditional cooking medium.
A kitchen in the home of an aristocrat in Lucknow.
There are two schools of Kashmir cuisine: Hindu, sometimes called Pandit, and Muslim. While both groups eat meat (although the Pandits avoid chicken), the spicing is different. Hindus use yoghurt and asafoetida, while Muslims flavour dishes with onions and garlic, both of which are avoided by Pandits.
Women preparing lunch for a school in a Bengali village.
Turnips are eaten raw, pickled, fried with spices and simmered in yoghurt, or cooked in a creamy gravy. Kashmir is one of the few parts of India where mushrooms are standard fare, particularly a local variety of morel. One of the most popular dishes is dum aloo, small boiled potatoes fried and simmered in a sauce of yoghurt and spices. Plain boiled rice accompanies everyday meals; feasts feature aromatic pulaos and biryanis.
Kashmir is famous for its rich meat dishes, served during the special banquets called wazwan (see page 205–6), which may consist of as many as 40 courses. The preferred meat is goat, the younger the better, and often marinated in yoghurt and spices and cooked with milk and cream to produce a rich, thick sauce. The standard Kashmiri drink is qehwa – green tea flavoured with saffron, cardamom and almonds and served from a samovar.
With a population of more than 130 million, Uttar Pradesh is India’s most populous state. India’s capital, New Delhi, is located within its borders. Situated on a large alluvial plain with a tropical monsoon climate, Uttar Pradesh is India’s top wheat-growing state and a major producer of sugar cane, pulses, potatoes, livestock, dairy products, vegetables and fruit.
Around 82 per cent of Uttar Pradesh residents are Hindus, and 60 per cent are vegetarians. Meat is eaten by a large caste called kayasthas, the descendants of Hindus who served as administrators for the Mughals and then the British. A popular breakfast dish is halwa puri: puris (deep-fried wheat bread), carrot halwa, curried chickpeas and potatoes and pickles. A main meal typically consists of dal, wheat bread (puris, parathas or chapattis) and one or two seasonal vegetable dishes – cauliflower in winter, bitter gourd in summer. Non-vegetarians replace a vegetable dish with a meat curry.
Varanasi (formerly Benares), considered a holy city by Hindus, is distinguished by its vegetarian cuisine, cooked in ghee without onions and garlic, and its sweets, which are mostly made with khoya, the sticky solid made by boiling down whole milk. Other U.P. cities are famous for their sweets. Mathura, the birthplace of Lord Krishna, is known for its peda, a semi-soft round light-coloured sweet made from thickened milk flavoured with cardamom, nuts or saffron. Agra is home to the petha, a translucent soft sweet made of cooked ash gourd soaked in sugar solution. In contrast to the austere vegetarian food of Hindus, the food of Lucknow, the state’s capital, is meat-centred and sumptuous, a legacy of the Awadhi court (see page 192–6).
The earliest evidence of farming and herding in South Asia, dating back to 7000 BCE, was found at Mehrgarh in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, today home to Baluchis and other ethnic groups.5 The terrain is rugged and barren, the food simple and unspiced. Bread is important, including tandoori roti; khameer roti, which is slightly leavened and baked in a special clay oven built into a wall; and kaak, a rock-hard bread made by wrapping dough around a hot stone and baking it on coals.
Kebabs are lightly seasoned with salt and coriander. The most popular dish is shorba, a soup often made with milk. Another distinctive food is quroot – milk curds that are fermented, salted and shaped into pebble-like balls that are dried in the sun. Sajii, a dish of Middle Eastern origin, is a whole lamb marinated and roasted over burning wood on a spit stuck in the ground. Sajii is traditionally served with kak. Meat is dried and salted, then boiled during the winter months. A common drink is green tea prepared with water infused with green cardamoms and cinnamon.
Until 2010 Khyber Patunkhwa, a province of Pakistan with a Pasthun majority, was called the Northwest Frontier Province. It came under British rule in 1849 after being part of Afghan and Sikh kingdoms. The food is similar to that of Baluchistan and is centred on meat. (According to a local proverb, even burnt meat is better than lentils.) Mutton or beef kebabs, lightly spiced, are very popular. The staple is bread, usually made from wheat flour (in some areas corn) and baked in a tandoor, a clay oven owned by many households. A village near the provincial capital, Peshawar, was the birthplace of India’s most famous restaurateur, Kundan Lal Gujral, the creator of tandoori cuisine (see pages 282–3).
Today a province of Pakistan, the region known as Sindh was part of the Indian historical mainstream for thousands of years, starting with the Indus Valley civilization.6 At the time of Independence, around 25 per cent of the population were Hindus and Sikhs, including many business-people who emigrated to India and abroad.
In the arid Thar Desert only sorghum and millet grow, and these remain the staple among rural people. Vegetation is scarce, except in the irrigated Indus Valley region, where fruit and vegetables are cultivated. Rice and wheat grow in the northern and southern parts of the province. Seafood, especially prawns, and freshwater fish are important to the Sindhi diet. A popular fish is the bony palla (ilish, called hilsa in Bengal), which migrates up the Indus River. It is eaten grilled or fried, or filled with a masala paste and cooked over low heat or baked in hot sand. Fried fish with phulka, a puffy bread, is a typical breakfast.
Sindh has many distinctive breads and snacks, such as chanwaran jo atto, made from red rice; dho do, thick rotis prepared with masala and garlic paste; and bossari, a rich roti prepared with jaggery and ghee. The influence of the Arabs, who arrived in the seventh century, is apparent in the many varieties of halwa, some made with a sesame-seed paste as in the Middle East. Another Arab legacy may be mazoon (from the ancient name for Oman), a sweet of chopped nuts, spices and sugar syrup cooked in ghee.
The region known as the Punjab, which means ‘five rivers’, has long been the heartland of Indian agriculture. Following Independence in 1947, the British province of Punjab was divided between Pakistan and India, and in 1966 Indian Punjab was broken into three states on linguistic and religious grounds: the small mountain state of Himachal Pradesh; Haryana, with a Hindu majority; and Punjab, with a large Sikh population. On the other side of the border, the Pakistani province of Punjab has 91 million residents, more than half the country’s population. Its capital, Lahore, is just 30 km (19 miles) from Amritsar, the capital of Indian Punjab.
Located on a fertile plain, the two Punjabs are the breadbaskets of India and Pakistan, producing wheat, barley, corn, chickpeas, sugar cane, rice, mustard and fruit and vegetables. Farming is more mechanized than elsewhere in India, and the poverty rates are the lowest of anywhere in the two countries. Dairy farming (of cows and buffaloes) is an important industry.
The food of the region is simple, robust and closely linked to the land. The region is sometimes dubbed ‘the land of rotis’ because the staple is bread, made from wheat or sometimes millet and corn. Seasonal vegetables, such as cauliflower, carrots, turnips, pumpkins and mustard greens, are an essential part of the diet. Somewhat paradoxically, in view of the region’s high per-capita income, Indian Punjab also has a high proportion of vegetarians – 54 per cent. People in this region have a low rate of lactose intolerance and drink a lot of milk, flavoured yoghurt (lassi) and buttermilk.
Women in Gujarat preparing dishes from the flour of local millet.
Some 18 million Indians are followers of Sikhism, a monotheistic religion founded by Guru Nanak (1469–1539). Born a Hindu, he preached the doctrine of ‘one God, the Creator, whose name was truth’. Between 1459 and 1708 his successors, called gurus, rejected the caste system, ritualism, asceticism and the worship of idols, and recognized the equality of the sexes and of all religions. Sikhs adopted five distinguishing symbols: the beard, the dagger, an iron bracelet, special underwear and the turban. A Sikh scripture, the Adi Granth or the Granth Sahib, is the focal point of Sikh places of worship, which are called gurdwaras. After the service, a halwa made of equal parts wheat flour, ghee and sugar is distributed to the worshippers.
There are few uniquely Sikh dishes: instead Punjabi Sikhs eat Punjabi food, and so on. Most Sikhs are not vegetarian, although they do not eat beef or animals that are not killed in accordance with Sikh law (called jatka: using a single stroke of a sword or axe to sever the head). Their sacred writings contain passages indicating that whether or not to eat meat should be a decision left to the individual. Sikh gurdwaras have a community kitchen, a langar, which provides free meals to all worshippers and visitors, even those from other religions. The food served there is always vegetarian, which makes it accessible to everyone.
Panir – farmer’s cheese pressed under a weight and cut into cubes is a characteristic ingredient in curries, often combined with peas and other vegetables. It can also be grilled on skewers. Sauces are made from onions, tomatoes, garlic and ginger fried in ghee, and spicing is straightforward, featuring coriander seeds, cumin seeds and red chillies. Rice is served mainly on special occasions. The thick, rich dals of the region are famous all over the subcontinent: in dal makhani, for example, black lentils, chickpeas, black-eyed peas or kidney beans are simmered for a long time over a slow fire and flavoured with spices and cream. Another famous Punjabi dish is mustard greens, sarson ka sag, served with a corn bread similar to the corn tortilla. Spicy chickpeas served with a slightly puffy fried bread is a popular street food and breakfast dish called chole batura.
Lassi, a popular yoghurt drink, was traditionally sold in clay pots. |
In Pakistani Punjab, meat – mutton (goat), chicken and beef – is widely consumed by those who can afford it. Specialities include paye cholay (cow’s trotters with chickpeas), chargha (a whole chicken marinated in lemon juice and deep-fried) and various kebabs.
The state of Rajasthan was formed in 1947 by the union of more than twenty princely states. The Aravalli mountain range divides the state into the hilly southeastern region and the barren Thar Desert, one of the hottest, driest regions in the world. However, thanks to the use of irrigation, Rajasthan has become a major producer of millet, rapeseed, mustard, barley, corn, certain spices and livestock. Around 90 per cent of the population are Hindus and Jains.
Grain is ground into flour to produce some of the subcontinent’s most delicious breads. A staple throughout western India is bhakri (also called dhebra), a round, flat unleavened bread that can be soft or hard in texture, made from coarsely ground flour and water. It was traditionally taken by farmers to the fields and eaten with chutney, chillies or pickles. Wheat is increasingly replacing the traditional grains of the region. Cooking oil and ghee are precious commodities among poor people, so bread is usually roasted in a heavy pan, and a little ghee added before serving.
Just under two-thirds of Rajasthani people are vegetarians. The most famous dish of the region is the ancient dal batti churma. The dal is typically made from five kinds of lentils cooked in ghee. Battis are wheat-flour balls roasted in coals until hard, then cracked open and eaten with ghee. Churma is coarsely ground wheat crushed and cooked with ghee and sugar. Lentils are omnipresent in dals and kadhis (spicy curries with yoghurt and chickpea flour) or ground into flour to make breads and snacks. A dough of chickpea flour, yoghurt and spices is rolled into long, thin strands that are boiled and dried to make gatta. They are prepared like vegetables. Sun-dried vegetables are also popular.
A group called Marwaris, traders by caste, originated in Rajasthan and, from at least the time of Akbar, migrated all over India. They are strict vegetarians (many are Jains) who avoid garlic and onions, but have developed a rich cuisine based on sun-dried vegetables, breads and many sweets.
The cuisine of the Rajputs, the hereditary rulers, relies heavily on meat, reflecting their caste (ksatriya) and their love of hunting. Quintessential Rajput dishes are sula, a smoked, grilled kebab traditionally made from wild boar, venison, quail and other game; wild boar and venison pickle; and safed maas, an aromatic white stew of meat prepared with yoghurt, coconut and cream.
The state of Gujarat, bordered by the Arabian Sea, Pakistan and several Indian states, was created in 1960 when the state of Bombay was divided by language into Gujarat and Maharashtra. Two-thirds of Gujaratis live in rural areas. A large minority are merchants and businessmen. Ninety per cent of the population are Hindus and 9 per cent Muslim.
The main crops are rice, wheat, millet, lentils, peanuts and cotton. Seventy per cent of the population are vegetarians – the highest proportion in India. This reflects the influence of the Jain community and the heritage of Mahatma Gandhi. Many Hindus do not eat eggs, onions or garlic. A standard flavouring is a paste of green chilli and ginger. Dishes are made with relatively little oil, and some are steamed. Sweet and sour is a popular flavouring, the sourness coming from the rind of the fruit kokum (Garcinia indica). Cooks often add a pinch of sugar to dals and vegetables dishes and serve them with a piece of jaggery and a piece of a sweet. Despite the state’s long coastline, fish and seafood are rarely used in Gujarati cuisine. Distinctive vegetables include papri, a very long thin green bean; colocasia (arvi), the leaves of the taro plant; and many varieties of squash and yam.
Western Gujarat, or Saurashtra, is known for its dairy products, dry vegetable dishes and pickles. A famous local dish is undhio or oondhiya, a medley of sweet potatoes, aubergine, green beans, grated coconut and little dumplings made from chickpea flour and fenugreek leaves. The part of Saurashtra known as Kathiawar is particularly known for its robustly spicy cuisine.
Surat, the second largest city in Gujarat, is home to one of India’s oldest Muslim communities, called Surtis, who have their own cuisine featuring many varieties of soups. Central Gujarat is the state’s granary, and is distinguished by its breads, snacks and lentil dishes. Southern Gujarat is a fertile, well-watered region that produces plenty of green vegetables and fruit, including some of India’s finest mangoes.
Dhokla, a popular Gujarati farsan, or snack, are squares of steamed fermented rice and chickpea flour.
150 g (2 cups) raw chickpeas
4 tbsp yoghurt
4 green chillies, finely chopped
2.5 cm (1 in.) piece of fresh ginger, finely chopped
¼ tsp turmeric
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
4 tbsp oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
salt to taste
coriander leaves and fresh coconut, to garnish
Soak the chickpeas in water overnight. Drain and grind coarsely. Add the yoghurt, cover and leave to ferment for four hours.
Add the green chillies, ginger, turmeric, sugar and salt, and mix well.
Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in 1 tbsp of the oil and add to the batter.
Lightly grease a flat metal plate (thali) with a 4 cm (1½ in.) rim and pour the batter into it. Cover and steam for 20 minutes. When cool, cut into squares and place on a serving plate.
Heat the rest of the oil and the mustard seeds in a small pan. When the seeds start to crackle, pour them over the dhoklas. Garnish with coriander leaves and coconut.
Afternoon tea is an occasion for enjoying Gujarat’s delicious snacks called farsans. An emblematic Gujarati dish is dhokla, a steamed dish of fermented legumes. Gujarat has a long history of confectionary. Some sweets are milk-based; others are made from pulses, such as a sweet lentil-stuffed puri and halwa made from chickpea flour.
The state of Maharashtra is the industrial powerhouse of India, and its capital, Mumbai, its commercial centre. The state is a major producer of oil seeds, peanuts, soy beans, sugar cane, turmeric, vegetables and grapes, the last of which are used in a rapidly growing wine industry. Fish and seafood are abundant along the 800 km (500 miles) of coast. Around 80 per cent of the population are Hindus, 10 per cent Muslims and the rest Christians and Parsis. The two largest Hindu castes are brahmins, who are vegetarians, and non-vegetarian Marathas. About 30 per cent of the state’s population are vegetarian.
Maharashtrian cuisine is eclectic because of the state’s location between north and south – both wheat and rice are staples – and its long contact with the Portuguese. Chillies, tomatoes, potatoes, peanuts, sweetcorn, sweet potatoes, green peppers, green beans, cashews, tapioca and papayas play a larger role in Maharashtrian cuisine than in many other parts of India.7
Another distinctive feature is the blending of sweet, salt, hot and sour flavours in a meal or even a single dish. As in Gujarat, sweets are eaten during the meal, not afterwards. Foods are placed in a strictly defined order on thalis or, at feasts, on banana leaves. There is little deep-frying or roasting; rather, dishes are lightly sautéed and steamed to retain their flavours. An emblematic and ancient Maharashtrian sweet is shrikhand, a soft pudding made from strained yoghurt with sugar, saffron, cardamom and other spices.
A common food among rural people is zunka bhakar: a porridge made from chickpea flour, onions and spices and a thick bread of sorghum or millet flour, with red chillies on the side and perhaps a dollop of butter on top. (In 1995 the Maharashtra state government set up a chain of stalls selling zunka bhakar for 1 rupee. The purpose was to provide employment and win political support.)
A coastal cuisine called Konkani features seafood, coconut, fruit and vegetables. Popular fish dishes are bombil, or Bombay duck, a small fish dry-fried until it is crisp and often served as an accompaniment to curries; and pomfret, which is eaten stuffed, grilled, fried or curried in a coconut sauce. Crabs, prawns, shrimp, shellfish and lobster are other popular foods.
A distinctive cuisine combining Indian, Persian and British influences is that of the Parsis, the descendants of Zoroastrians who came from Persia in the seventh century CE. The Parsi community in Mumbai was instrumental in the development of Indian industry and commerce. However, their numbers are rapidly declining, and in 2001 there were fewer than 70,000.
Parsis eat meat and fish, although they may avoid beef and pork out of respect for their Hindu and Muslim neighbours. Meat dishes are cooked Iranian style with vegetables, such as aubergines, potatoes, spinach and peas, and only lightly spiced. Chillies are used in moderation. The Iranian influence is also evident in the use of nuts, dried fruit and rosewater. The most famous Parsi dish, dhansakh, combines meat with as many as seven kinds of bean and lentil, pumpkin, aubergine, fenugreek leaves, onions, ginger, garlic, tamarind and spices.
Eggs are a popular breakfast dish – in the old days eating three or four a day was not uncommon – served over minced meat, fish, potatoes, cooked vegetables or bananas. Akoori is scrambled eggs flavoured with onions, garlic, coriander leaves and tomatoes and cooked in ghee. Most meals are accompanied by bread, pickles and chutneys. The Parsi community adopted many English dishes, including custard, cakes, puddings and stews.
A major event in the Parsi calendar is New Year, or Navroz, held at the time of the vernal equinox and observed by lavish feasting. Three sweet dishes, which probably came from Iran, are always served: ravo, a semolina and cream pudding flavoured with spices and rosewater; sev, fried vermicelli cooked in sugar syrup; and meethu dhai, or sweet yoghurt.
Parsis are supposed to observe four days of abstinence each month when they do not eat meat, although fish and eggs are acceptable. Meat is also supposed to be avoided during the eleventh month of the Parsi year. Meat is not eaten for three days after the death of a loved one; on the fourth day, the fast is broken with dhansakh.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a second wave of Zoroastrians emigrated from Iran; called Iranis, they opened small eateries, called Irani cafés, that serve biscuits and other baked goods, bread and butter, samosas and other Indian snacks, Parsi dishes and Iranian-style tea. They are, however, rapidly disappearing: in the 1950s there were 350 Irani cafés in Mumbai; only some 25 remain.
The tiny state of Goa was a Portuguese possession from the early sixteenth century until 1961.8 About a third of the population are Roman Catholic, the rest mainly Hindu. The state is affluent, with less than 5 per cent of people living below the poverty line. The soil is sandy and there is little arable land, but there is plenty of fish, seafood, fruit, cashews and coconut. Meat plays an important role in Goan cuisine, including pork, chicken and even beef. Goan cooks are famous for their culinary expertise.
Goan cuisine is an amalgam of Portuguese, Indian and even British influences. Classic Portuguese dishes are adapted and enlivened by spices (see chapter Ten). A popular local beverage is feni, a distilled spirit from cashews first made by Portuguese monks.
Goans celebrate Christmas with great fanfare. Pork is a must for Christmas lunch, especially sorpotel, a hot-and-sour curry made from the meat, liver, blood and fat of a pig, flavoured with vinegar and spices. A traditional Christmas cake is bibinca, sixteen layers of egg yolk, flour and coconut milk batter that is baked and turned upside down. Other holiday delicacies are dodols, a soft jaggery fudge, and Western-style cakes called bols made from almond paste, semolina, sugar, eggs and brandy. Goa is also home to a lively carnival before Lent.
Madhya Pradesh is India’s second-largest state, with more than 75 million inhabitants. The region was ruled by the Mauryans, the Mughals and the Marathas, but by the early eighteenth century had broken into several small kingdoms, which the British incorporated into the entity called Central Provinces. Nearly half of the state’s population are vegetarian.
Central Madhya Pradesh is dominated by the Malwa Plateau, where the rich black soil allows the growing of sorghum, rice, wheat, coarse millet, peanuts, pulses, soy beans, cotton, linseed, sesame and sugar cane. The western region is much drier, and its cuisine resembles that of neighbouring Rajasthan. Typical dishes are bhutta ri kees, grated corn roasted in ghee and cooked with seasoned milk; and baati or bafla, a roasted ball of wheat flour. A sour kadhi is made from ground chickpeas and tamarind instead of yoghurt. Thuli is a sweet, porridge-like dish made of cracked wheat, typically eaten with milk or kadhi.
India’s four southern states – Tamil Nadu,9 Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala – are culturally, linguistically and gastronomically distinct from the rest of the country, although there are significant regional and local differences among them. The languages (called, respectively, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam) belong to the Dravidian family and have their own scripts and vocabulary, albeit with many Sanskrit words.
Rice and lentils in all four states are the staples of the vegetarian cuisine that is consumed by most brahmins, with wheat playing a secondary role. Typical spices include mustard seeds, fenugreek, cumin seeds, asafoetida, curry leaves, red chillies and tamarind.
In 1947 the Madras Presidency became Madras State, comprising Tamil Nadu and parts of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka. The state was later divided along linguistic lines, and in 1969 Madras State was renamed Tamil Nadu, meaning ‘land of the Tamils’. Its capital, Chennai (formerly Madras), was founded by the British as Fort St George in the seventeenth century. However, the British had relatively little influence on Tamil culture or cuisine. The state’s population is 89 per cent Hindu, 5 per cent Muslim and 5 per cent Christian. An estimated 15 per cent of Tamils are brahmins, and most are vegetarian. The major crops are rice, millet, pulses, sugar cane, peanuts, onions, oil seeds and many vegetables. The Western Ghat mountains to the west are home to coffee and tea plantations.
Breakfast, an important meal, consists of idlis (soft, steamed discs) or dosas (flat, round, crispy crêpes fried in a little oil). The dough for both is made by soaking rice and black lentils and grinding them into a paste, which is then left overnight to ferment. Both are served with sambar – a thin, spicy lentil soup made from toor dal and sometimes vegetables and coconut chutney, a paste of ground coconut, urad dal and spices. Dosas can also be made with semolina flour and/or filled with spiced potatoes (masala dosas). Dosas in Tamil Nadu are generally thicker and softer than the thin crispy ones favoured in Karnataka. Milakai podi, a powder made from ground lentils, spices and chillies, is sprinkled over rice.
Tamil lunches and dinners follow a set pattern, although within each course all the elements are mixed together. The first course consists of white rice, sambar and a vegetable dish, such as avial with a creamy coconut sauce or kootu, a thick stew of vegetables, boiled lentils and coconut. The vegetables are fresh and vary every day. Papadums (crispy lentil wafers) or vada, a deep-fried lentil bread that looks like a hole-less doughnut, may accompany the meal. The second course is of rice, rasam (a watery, hot-and-sour dal) and another vegetable. The meal ends with buttermilk or yoghurt. The standard drink is strong filtered coffee mixed with milk, reminiscent of French café au lait.
A popular drink, especially in South India, toddy (from the Hindi word tari) is a beverage made from the fermented sap of the palmyra, date or coconut palm. The sap is extracted by a tapper and collected in a pot. The initial liquid is sweet and non-alcoholic, but fermentation starts quickly because of the presence of natural yeasts. Within two hours, it becomes a drink with up to 4 per cent alcohol content; longer fermentation yields a stronger, more acid version until finally it turns into vinegar. Sometimes spices are added for flavour. In Kerala and Karnataka, it is sold in toddy shops that also sell food. However, the production and sale of toddy is controversial, and state governments periodically try to prohibit it. Toddy is also used as a leavening agent in Kerala’s appams and Goa’s sanna, steamed breads made from rice flour and coconut milk. Boiling down toddy produces a variety of jaggery (gur).
A staple of South Indian restaurants, masala dosa is a large crêpe made of fermented ground rice and lentils with a spiced potato filling.
A non-vegetarian cuisine is enjoyed by the Chettinads or Chettiars, a wealthy merchant community who made their fortunes trading with Southeast Asia in the Middle Ages. Today they live in 75 communities some 400 km (250 miles) south of Chennai. Their cuisine is known for its hot, aromatic meat and seafood dishes, such as kozhambu, meatballs in a creamy cashew-based sauce; meen kulambu, fish cooked in a thick, aromatic tamarind sauce; and kozhi kuruma, chicken in an aromatic sauce of coconut and almonds.10
The state of Karnataka was created in 1956 from the former princely state of Mysore and the Kannada-speaking area of adjacent states. The state capital is the centre of India’s booming computer industry and the fastest-growing city in Asia. It is known for its Western-style pubs and restaurants. The state grows rice, mangoes, wheat, millet, coconuts, peanuts, oil seeds, wheat, coffee, tea, cashews and spices, especially peppercorns and cardamoms. Eighty-five per cent of the population are Hindus, 12 per cent Muslims and 2 per cent Christians. A third of the population is vegetarian. Generally, people consume equal amounts of rice, wheat and millet, especially in the north, where the food is similar to that of Maharashtra.
The food of Karnataka has been documented for nearly 1,000 years in such works as the Lokopakara and the Supa Shastra, and more recently by K. T. Achaya, who comes from Karnataka. An emblematic Karnataka dish is bisi bele bhat, an elaborate mixture of rice, lentils, vegetables, curry leaves and other spices that originated in an eleventh-century dish called ogara. Another ancient dish is the mandige, a large paratha made from wheat-flour dough flavoured with sugar and ground cardamom. An essential part of every festival is the local sweet mysore pak, small triangles with a fudge-like consistency, made from chickpea flour, ghee and sugar.
Coorg or Kodava, a lush, hilly region of coffee, spice and orange plantations in the Western Ghats, has a distinctive cuisine characterized by pork and chicken curries made with coconut milk; mushroom and bamboo-shoot stews; and breads, noodles and round dumplings made from rice.
The coastal region of Mangalore is famous for its spicy fish and seafood preparations and coconut sauces. Rice is eaten in many forms: as dosas, sannas (idlis fermented with toddy or yeast), kori rotis (a wafer-thin bread) and adyes, round dumplings made of ground rice and coconut milk.
The small state of Kerala in the southwest corner of India was created in 1956 by combining several Malayalam-speaking regions.11 Spices, notably cardamom and pepper, have been cultivated there from ancient times, and the state remains a leading exporter of spices, cashews and seafood. Kerala’s lush landscape is covered with coconut groves, banana trees, rice paddies and vegetable gardens, while its 650 km (400 miles) of coastline and fresh and saltwater lagoons teem with fish and seafood. Cardamom, coffee and tea grow in the eastern highlands.
For all communities in Kerala the staple is rice, which is parboiled by soaking the paddy in water, then drying it before milling. Rice flour is used to make many distinctive breads, including wellayappam or appam (known as ‘hoppers’ in English). The dough is fermented with toddy and fried in a wok-like pot (called a cheen-chetti, literally ‘Chinese pot’, reflecting its origins) to make a disc-shaped bread with a soft centre and thin, crispy outside border. A popular breakfast dish, poottu, consists of ground rice and coconut steamed in a bamboo tube.
Fresh and sea fish and seafood are eaten by all communities. A quintessential Kerala dish is meen molee, a spicy fish stew with a coconut sauce that is also popular in Southeast Asia. Some attribute its origins to the historical ties between Kerala and Southeast Asia, and claim that the word molee comes from ‘Malay’.
Two common Keralan ingredients are coconut, as we have seen, and tapioca. Tapioca was introduced to Kerala at various times but became widespread during a rice shortage during the Second World War. Its use has since declined, but cooked tapioca served with spicy fish is still a delicacy in southern Kerala.
Onam is the state festival of Kerala, celebrated by Hindus, Muslims and Christians in August or September. The festival celebrates the rice harvest and the memory of an ancient king, Mahabali, whose rule is thought of as a golden age. On the third day families or communities eat a vegetarian meal served on banana leaves.
Unlike many other parts of the country, Kerala was never under direct British rule. It has the highest literacy rate in India, and the lowest birth rate. Only 6 per cent of the state’s population are vegetarian. Although 57 per cent of the people of Kerala (known as Malayalis) are Hindus, the state is home to sizable populations of Muslims (23 per cent) and Christians (19 per cent). The Muslims, called Moplahs or Mappilas (from a word meaning ‘bridegroom’), are descendants of Arab traders who married local women. Their distinctive cuisine shows the influence of Western Asia, particularly Yemen. Typical dishes are harees (Arab harissa), a hearty wheat and meat porridge; erachi pathiri, minced mutton and whole eggs encased in wholemeal pastry; and Malabar biryani, flavoured with local aromatic spices. Although cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg are locally grown, they are used in moderation, and even black pepper is using sparingly. Traditionally, spices were confined to the preparation of Ayurvedic medicines for which Kerala is known.12
Kerala’s Christian population is a mixture of Syrian Christians (who trace their origins back to St Thomas), Roman Catholics and other sects; they are largely non-vegetarian.13 Seafood, chicken, eggs and beef are regularly eaten; pork and duck (now rather hard to find) are reserved for special occasions, such as weddings and Christmas. Many Catholics in Kerala fast by avoiding meat and even eggs for 25 days before Christmas. Cochin and other cities once had small but thriving Jewish communities, but they have virtually disappeared because of emigration to Israel.
Dr K. Radhakrishnan, a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organization, has developed idlis, sambar and coconut chutney for astronauts to eat in space when India launches its first manned space mission in 2016. The idlis are heated with infrared radiation to a temperature of 700°c (1292°F) and then microwaved to remove the water, until each one weighs 12 g (about ½ OZ). When soaked in hot water, they swell to 25 g (nearly 1 OZ). Each pack contains ten little idlis, equivalent to three normal-sized ones. The sambar and coconut chutney are dried using infrared radiation.
Dr Radhakrishnan also spent a year and a half developing the Indian sweet rasgullas for space. The balls are freeze-dried and then vacuum-packed, while the syrup is dried to make a powder that can be dissolved in water. ‘Rasgullas are ideal for space’, he says. ‘They have a beautiful texture that doesn’t disintegrate easily like other sweets.’ His main accomplishment is space yoghurt, which was created by pulsing short bursts of electricity through the yoghurt to render harmful microbes inactive while keeping the good bacteria alive. It may be no coincidence that Dr Radhakrishnan’s father and uncle ran an Udupi restaurant in Mysore.
Sohini Chattopadhyay, ‘The Space Idli Mission’, Open Magazine, 9 June 2012.
One of India’s largest states, Andhra Pradesh was created in 1956 to encompass the Telugu-speaking parts of South India and the former princely state of Hyderabad.14 Ninety per cent of the state’s population are Hindus and 8 per cent are Muslims, most of whom live in the city of Hyderabad, the state capital. The state also has a sizeable population of Scheduled Tribes (see pages 271–2). Andhra Pradesh is a major producer of rice, barley, millet, lentils, bananas, chillies, turmeric and black pepper. Although brahmins are strict vegetarians, other Hindu castes eat meat and fish, especially those living near the coast, and only 16 per cent of the state’s population are vegetarian.
Three ingredients are essential in Andhra cuisine: tamarind, red chillies and gongura, the leaf of the roselle (hibiscus). A typical meal among the poor is gongura with boiled rice, or rice and a chutney of red chillies, garlic, salt and lime juice. A classic Andhra dish is gongura pachadi, a pickle of fried gongura, chillies and other spices. Tamarind imparts sourness to vegetable and rice dishes or is mixed with sugar and salt to make a drink. Its flowers and leaves are added to stews, its seeds are ground into flour, and its ripe fruit can be mixed with jaggery and eaten as a sweet. (When people in parts of Andhra Pradesh started to replace tamarind with tomatoes, entire villages began to suffer from fluorosis, a disease that causes permanent damage to and deformity of the bones. The drinking water proved to have high concentrations of fluorine, the effects of which are mitigated by tamarind.)
Andhra cuisine is reputed to be the hottest in India. According to a legend, there was once a severe famine in the area and all that grew were red chillies, which then became a staple of the local diet. The hottest chilli is called koraivikaram, which in Telugu means ‘flaming stick’. A dry chutney is made by pounding these chillies to a fine powder and mixing it with tamarind pulp and salt. The state’s most famous dish is a green mango chutney called avikkai, which is so hot that it has sent unsuspecting visitors to hospital.
The city of Hyderabad is renowned for its haute cuisine associated with the court of the Nizams (see chapter Nine). Hyderabadi biryani, known as kacchi biryani, is made by marinating goat meat in yoghurt, onions and spices, then layering it with partly boiled rice, milk, fried onions, saffron and cardamom, and cooking it in a sealed pot until the liquid has been absorbed. It is typically served with boorani (yoghurt with tomatoes or vegetables) or salan ki mirch, boiled green chillies or green peppers in a sauce of ground peanuts, coconut, tamarind, sesame seeds and spices. Nihari, a spicy meat stew (often made from tongue) cooked slowly overnight, is a local speciality, and is often served for breakfast. Another classic dish is haleem, a porridge of wheat, lentils and goat pounded until it is thick, cooked slowly and served with fried onions on top. It may be a variant of the Arabian harissa introduced by the Nizam’s Arab (mainly Yemeni) palace guards in the nineteenth century. In 2010 Hyderabadi haleem was granted Geographical Indication Status (GIS), the first non-vegetarian dish in India to be so designated. To qualify as authentic it must be made with goat meat; the ratio of meat to wheat must be 10:4; the ghee must be laboratory certified as totally pure; and the dish must be cooked in a copper pot over firewood for twelve hours.
Preparing nihari, a rich dark meat stew that is cooked slowly overnight and often eaten for breakfast by South Asian Muslims, especially during Ramadan.
The populous state of West Bengal borders Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal. Historically the region was part of the Mughal province of Bengal, and many Bengalis converted to Islam, especially in the east. Later parts of Bengal were ruled by the nawabs, the most important being the nawab of Murshidabad.15 The British founded Calcutta in the late seventeenth century, and it remained the capital of British India until 1911. Calcutta was the most anglicized city in India, and the British influence permeated many aspects of life. The predominantly Muslim eastern part of Bengal became part of Pakistan as East Pakistan in 1947, but in 1971 the people of East Pakistan rebelled and formed the independent country of Bangladesh.
Linguistically, culturally and gastronomically, West Bengal and Bangladesh have much in common. West Bengal is 75 per cent Hindu and 23 per cent Muslim, with minorities of Christians and adherents of tribal religions. In Bangladesh, 85 per cent are Muslim, 15 per cent Hindu and the rest Buddhists or followers of indigenous religions. Only a very small proportion of Hindu Bengalis are strict vegetarians, and even brahmins relish fish (sometimes dubbed ‘vegetables of the sea’).
The land is fertile and well watered, and periodically suffers devastating floods. The main crop is rice, which is boiled, heated in a sand-filled oven and popped to make muri, a component of many street snacks. Wheat, chickpeas, potatoes, oil seeds, many varieties of gourd and squash, and tea grow here. Both West Bengal and Bangladesh are exporters of fish and seafood. The standard Bengali spice mixture is panchphoron (‘five spices’), a mixture of fenugreek, nigella, cumin, black mustard, and fennel seeds. Mustard seeds are ground into a paste with water for use in curries, or ground into oil. All parts of a plant (leaves, stems, flowers and seeds) are used. A speciality of the region is rezala, mutton cooked slowly in yoghurt, milk, aromatic spices and green chillies.
Bengalis take food very seriously and are said to spend a larger portion of their disposable income on it than people elsewhere in India. Two hallmarks of Bengali cuisine are fish and sweets. (So great is the love of fish there that poor people will buy fish scales and add them to a dish to impart a fishy flavour.) Freshwater fish is considered desirable, while sea fish is not, with the exception of bhekti, a delicate cod-like fish. One reason for that is that some deep-sea fish have an unpleasant taste and can cause illness unless they are eaten extremely fresh.16
A favourite frying medium is mustard oil, since its pungency is believed to bring out the flavour of fish. The iconic Bengali dish is maacher jhol, a fish stew made by cutting fish (often carp) into large pieces, bones and all, frying it with spices and then simmering it with vegetables. The most coveted Bengali fish is hilsa, a shad-like sea fish that swims upriver to spawn, although when eating it careful attention must be paid to removing the myriad of tiny bones.
Remnants of the British Raj include cutlets (minced vegetables, meat, shrimp or fish breaded and fried); chops (minced meat coated with mashed potato and deep-fried); soufflés and omelettes; and the institution of afternoon tea, complete with cucumber sandwiches, cakes, salty snacks and tea prepared English-style (without spices).
A Hindu Bengali meal follows a definite progression of flavours, from bitter through salty and sour and ending with a sweet dish, often mishit doi, sweetened yoghurt. Bengalis are famous for their love of sweets. Income permitting, they eat sweets throughout the day: as dessert at the end of a meal; for afternoon tea; and as snacks. Sweets, especially sandesh, are an essential component of Bengali hospitality. Most sweets are made of sugar and curds (chhana).
Odisha (formerly Orissa) is one of India’s poorest states, with a sizeable tribal population.17 More than 90 per cent of its population are Hindus, but only about 6 per cent are vegetarian. The cuisine shares many features with that of Bengal. A characteristic dish is ambul, fish cooked with dried mangoes. In the south the food is closer to that of South India, commonly using coconut, tamarind, red chillies and curry leaves. Odisha has a wide variety of sweet and savoury dishes, collectively called pitha, that are served on special occasions, including chakuli, crêpes made of rice, wheat or lentil flour, and manda, steamed dumplings.
Hilsa fish is an emblematic Bengali dish, famous for its many small bones. In this version, the bones have been removed.
Once the centre of Indian civilization, today Bihar is one of the country’s poorest states. Many landless farmers became labourers who migrated to Kolkata and other cities for work. Of the population, 82 per cent are Hindus and 15 per cent Muslims. Bihari food is rustic and simple. A staple of the diet is sattu, roasted chickpea flour. Labourers carry it to work tied in a knotted towel and mix it with salt and green chillies. Wheat, barley, corn and other grains are parched by being buried in sand, where they are heated by the sun.
Mustard oil is the traditional cooking medium. A standard meal consists of rice, dal and vegetables. A distinctive Bihari dish is litti – wheat and chickpea or lentil flour formed into balls, filled with ghee and deep-fried. It is served with chokha, mashed vegetables garnished with mustard oil, onions and chillies. Many Biharis emigrated to the Caribbean (especially Trinidad and Guyana) in the nineteenth century and took their food customs with them (see chapter Thirteen).
The state of Assam, known worldwide for its tea, takes its name from the Ahom, an ethnic Tai people who migrated from southwest China in the early thirteenth century and ruled the region until 1826, when the British annexed it.18 In the 1970s sections of Assam were broken off to create the states of Nagaland, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Arunchal Pradesh, which have ethnic and tribal majorities. Around two-thirds of Assam’s population are Hindu, 28 per cent are Muslim (including many immigrants from Bangladesh), and the rest Christian and adherents of tribal religions. Most Assamese are not vegetarians.
Certain features of Assamese food make it one of India’s most intriguing cuisines. It is virtually alone in preserving the six basic tastes of ancient Hindu gastronomy, including alkalinity. An iconic Assamese dish is tenga, a slightly sour stew made by frying pieces of fish in mustard oil, then simmering them with fenugreek seeds, vegetables and lime juice. Another sour dish is made of fermented bamboo shoots. Sourness is counteracted by khar, a class of dishes with an astringent or alkaline taste. Today the alkalinity comes from baking soda, but it used to come from the ash of burnt banana-tree stems; this was also sprinkled on dal or vegetables. Rice is the staple, mustard oil the traditional cooking medium, and fish, especially carp and hilsa (as in Bengal), are much in demand. Assam has many versions of pitha, a sweet made from rice flour and sugar and associated with its harvest festivals or Bihus. Pitha can be filled with coconut, flavoured with sesame seeds or aniseed, or mixed with jackfruit pulp.
The seven states in India’s northeast – Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunchal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Tripura, Manipur and Sikkim (sometimes called the Seven Sisters) – are inhabited by a multitude of ethnic and tribal groups, some of them descendants of people who migrated centuries ago from Southeast Asia and south China, who speak Tibeto-Burman languages. Many are Christians because of long-standing missionary activity in the area. (The state language of Nagaland is English, which is why that is one of the official languages on Indian banknotes.) The people are mainly non-vegetarians and rice-eaters, preferring a sticky rice to the long-grained variety favoured in the rest of India.
Littis are bihari breads made of balls of dough filled with spiced sattu (roasted chickpeas). |
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Litti-chokha (balls of dough filled with sattu and served with mashed, spiced vegetables) is the iconic Bihari meal.
Wak Me-A-Mesang Pura (Pork with Fermented Bamboo Shoots), Meghalaya
500 g (1 lb) fermented bamboo shoots
1 kg (2 lb) pork with fat and bones
2 tsp finely chopped green chillies
2 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger
1½ tsp salt
Pinch of turmeric powder
75 g (½ cup) rice flour
Wash and drain the bamboo shoots.
Cut the pork into medium-sized pieces. Cook in a heavy pot over a low heat without oil or water for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the water from the pork evaporates.
Add the bamboo shoots and 240 ml (1 cup) water; cook for a few minutes more.
Add the green chillies, ginger, salt and turmeric, and simmer until dry.
Stir in 480 ml (2 cups) more water and cook for 15 minutes, until the pork is tender.
Add the rice flour and cook for 15 minutes, until the sauce thickens.
Adapted from Hoihnu Hauzel, The Essential North-east Cookbook (New Delhi, 2003), p. 204.
In Nagaland, pork is a popular meat (as is dog – hence a saying that the Nagas eat everything with legs except tables and chairs). Very little cooking oil is used; food is usually boiled, steamed or roasted over an open fire. Bamboo shoots are an essential ingredient in curries and pickles. Rice and fish are wrapped in banana leaves and steamed. Flavouring comes from garlic, green onions, ginger and chillies. (One of the hottest chillies in the world, bhut jolokia, or ghost pepper, is grown in the region.) People in Tripura and Manipur dry and ferment small fish and use them in curries, sauces and pickles. Drinks are locally brewed from millet or rice. Fermentation is a common technique, and there is a wealth of fermented products across the region, including soy beans, bamboo shoots, yam and mustard leaves, fish and river crabs. In Nagaland, boiled soy beans are fermented for several days in a pot, smashed in a mortar and pestle, wrapped in a banana leaf and stored next to the fire, where they ferment again. (Similar preparations are found throughout Asia, including natto in Japan, chungkukjang in Korea and thua nao in northern Thailand.) Tea has grown wild in this area from ancient times. It was fermented and eaten as a vegetable, or boiled as a beverage that is still made by a tribe called the Konyaks in the high hills of Nagaland.19
In Mizoram, a mithun – a cross between a cow and a water buffalo – is killed in a ceremonial sacrifice and eaten in a communal feast. The cuisine of Arunchal Pradesh features many typically Tibetan dishes, including momos, a boiled dumpling stuffed with meat; dried yak cheese; and tsampa, a tea made from barley flour and yak butter that is churned to make a kind of thick soup.
Nearly 9 per cent of India’s total population are members of Scheduled Tribes, also called tribals or adivasis (Hindi for ‘original inhabitants’, since some are believed to be the descendants of the original people of the subcontinent, who were pushed back into the forests and the mountains).20 More than 350 tribal groups speaking 100 languages live in India, in all states except Haryana and Punjab. The vast majority, 87 per cent, are in central and western India, including the 7.4 million Gonds and 5.5 million Bhils. In 2001 three new states were created to give the tribals their own states: Uttaranchal, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
Tribals are the most deprived group in India in terms of income and access to education and healthcare. They have survived in the forests by hunting and fishing, gathering wild plants and practising shifting cultivation. With deforestation, they are becoming settled farmers, although their land is often very poor. Sometimes they barter wild cardamoms, resin, honey and other forest products for oil, rice, salt and cooking utensils. One source of protein is the rats that live in the rice fields; they are smoked out after the harvest and boiled or roasted. Red ants are ground to make a piquant chutney.
In Madhya Pradesh, the Gonds make a drink called sulfi from the sap of the sulfi tree. When first tapped it is mildly alcoholic, but after a day or two it ferments and thickens, and becomes more potent. Another drink, a clear spirit with a heady flavour, has been made from the flowers of the mahua tree from ancient times, and was even produced commercially by the British. Attempts are underway to revive its commercial production.
