If one is struggling to understand a culture, it’s perhaps best to taste it. A conversation around food is remiss without thinking of where it came from, who makes it, who eats it, and what it means to them. As some say, you are what you eat, and it greatly stands true when large parts of our identities are drawn from our food.
‘Food culture’ in India is a wide, tangled web. With produce, traditions and flavours changing vastly with geography, there exist several deeply personal food cultures across the subcontinent. The Himalayan belt and the region of North Eastern India—both with differing, unique cuisines—are teeming with some of the most nourishing foods, and yet most of India’s knowledge on the food of these places is limited to the (admittedly delicious) momo. There has been a lack of initiative to truly explore the region’s cuisine, and through it, the people and their heritage.
We know the dominance of terrain and climate on regional vegetation—say, coconuts in Kerala. It’s easy to make this association because we’re acutely aware of it, but it’s not so for the North East.
“What you eat and how you eat, more than anything else, is decided by what the earth can sustain,” says Kunzes Angmo of Artisanal Alchemy in Ladakh, which serves curated Ladakhi meals.
The indigenous ingredients are treated to optimise nourishment to survive the cold climate. Heat—whether in temperature through steam, or in spice through some of India’s fiercest chillies like the Raja chilli or Dalle Khursani—is a great example. Rigzin Lachic’s Tsas by Dolkhar in Ladakh is a traditionally-rooted restaurant which serves modern Ladakhi food. “Preservation through fermentation, dehydration and pickling play very crucial roles along with the larger theme of food that is simple, easy to grow and as fuel efficient as possible,” she says.
“A lot of foraging is done for vegetables like fiddlehead ferns and nakima (an edible orchid). Smoking and hydrating of vegetables is carried out so they can be used all year round. During my time, we didn’t even have refrigerators,” says Doma Wang, founder of the Blue Poppy Restaurants, who has been educating people on her food for 30 years. Wang’s flagship restaurant is located in Kolkata, and specialises in Tibetan food.
Though complex and purposeful, these characteristics and ingredients are severely under-appreciated by India. Without a willing audience, much of their culinary identity is overlooked.
These regional cuisines were slower than the rest to disperse outward. The time it took for the food to appear in other regions deepened the ‘difference’ in people’s minds. Chef Mahendra Thulung, founder of Bao Bangalore, a Himalayan and Asian street food joint, says, “Knowledge matters. We did not have the resources most other states had. Whatever grew on days it did not snow was made use of. Our food became distinct when we could not access masalas and other ingredients from the rest of India.”
Modern-day ignorance toward a food culture stems from the past, and the movement of people (and, with them, their culinary heritage) has a pivotal role. “In Ladakh, the influence came from the Silk Route, and not so much from travel and trade of the southern half. Around the globe, people think of Punjabi food as Indian food because they’re the largest cultural segment of the Indian population that have been displaced, particularly by Partition. The same goes for Bengali food.” Traders from Gujarat, too, were able to carry their culinary traditions to other parts of the world. The Himalayan and North Eastern regions lacked these two major vehicles to popularise their food, but this, however, grew into the struggle of having to ‘normalise’ it.
Doma points out the lack of effort to document their food culture, especially in terms of education. She says, “The Indian education system is partly to blame. I hope the history and geography books will carry chapters on the North East of India.”
While the identity that food forms for people from the Himalayan belt and North East is prominent, it is often at the distaste of others. In 2007, an IPS officer from Arunachal Pradesh released a guide for students from the North East moving to Delhi. Security Tips for Northeast Students/Visitors in Delhi termed bamboo shoots and akhuni (fermented soybean) as “smelly foods” which “should be prepared without creating a ruckus in the neighbourhood.” It may have been to protect the students—but the food-based hate is the root of the problem. The reluctance to traditional foods in other Indian states has been so incredibly prevalent that norms for ‘acceptable’ food began to change entirely. Kunzes calls this the “yuck-ing” of food, and the terrible truth stands even in 2023.
Food is the easiest memory of home and, as Kunzes says, it is also the easiest thing to economise. It’s a true driving force for people of a community to come together—shared identities are often as important as unique ones. The idea of ‘Indian food’ is misunderstood by limiting it to certain parts of the country. It’s true that much of the onus lies on those from the said region, but if screaming into the void could help increase awareness, the discussion surrounding representation would be far more nuanced.