The food diaspora of India is so vast that it is a mammoth task to compile a database of each and every possible regional cuisine that India has to offer. If you travel across the 13,000 plus kilometres of our country, you will find the food traditions changing almost every 200 kilometres.
What is popularly represented globally as Indian food is perhaps only 20% of the complete culinary diversity of our country. A whole myriad of cuisines from the North to the South and from the East to the West are still unexplored. For example, when I visited Assam and Meghalaya last May, I was surprised by the variety of food and vegetables of the area most of which are unheard of in the rest of the country.
The north eastern states, which borrow their culinary diversity from the neighbouring countries and intermingle it with the rich local tribal traditions using a variety of game meats as well as local greens and vegetables, are a highly unexplored region as far as the food is concerned. A lone ranger has taken up the baton to bring India closer to this immense variety of the cuisines from the seven sister states in the North East of India – Gitika Saikia, a friend and a fellow member from our Mumbai group, Mumbai Food Freak has been one of the pioneers in Mumbai in promoting the cuisine of the North East. She has taken her hobby of popularizing the cuisine of that part of the country to a level where she gave up her regular job to take up this hobby full time.
During her initial days, Gitika started off by marketing exotic bamboo and pork pickles and later graduated into supplying full-fledged north eastern meals to the public. Her meals are not the typical North Eastern meals served in speciality restaurants in Delhi or Bangalore like Rosang or Jakoi. Her meals are carefully researched by travelling o various parts of the North East to collect ingredients and sitting with the locals to learn the intricacies of their tribal cooking. So much so that at times, she even flies in the vessels and pots in which these meals are to be cooked.
I recently had a chance to try her New Harvest special lunch which was organized by Meal Tango where she had brought in special greens and meats from villages of Assam which included pigeon, geese and hold your breath – the creepy silk worms !
Each meat was cooked with a special element brought in from Assam for the meal. The pigeon was cooked with potatoes with a kick of bhoot jholakia (Aluaru Paro Manxoh Jalukia), the goose with ash gourds (Raj Haanharu Kumura), the pork with mustard greens (Lai Xaakaru Gahori) and the silk worms simply stir fried with some garlic and onions to retain their true flavours. Alongside these gamey dishes was Maati Daal which is an Assamese version of black daal but much thinner in consistency as compared to its Punjabi counterpart as well as sticky rice.
Each dish in itself was very simple and what was unique was that the spices used were minimalistic thereby letting each produce and green shine by itself. While the pigeon was bony, the potatoes gave it body and the slight spicy kick was delectable. Similarly, the geese which are considered to be a meat served only to the most important guests in rural Assam, were gamey and intense while the ash gourd balancing the dish perfectly with its soft creaminess. The pork in mustard greens was a flavour I have had before and was nothing extraordinary but the silk worms were a total delight. After getting over my initial hesitation, I popped one in my mouth to discover the taste to be similar to the jackfruit seeds – a slight crunch on the exterior and a nutty flavour on the inside. The silkworm and the geese were dishes which saw me going back for more.
The standout of the meal for me, however, was the simplistic dessert of rice puffs (this kind is puffed in salt instead of sand and has a unique flavour) mixed with cream and homemade sugarcane jaggery. A very simple rustic rural dessert with simple honest flavours that talk to your palate as well as to your soul. I could picture myself adding mango pulp to this and eating it chilled on a hot summer afternoon. Drool!
The food and the meats – all of them quite exotic and uncommon- were tastes that were quite simple and new to the palate and may need a couple of more tries to get used to but the passion with which they were curated and brought together for us Mumbaikars, is something that is quite commendable and to be relished. I personally want to thank Gitika for making this effort of bringing the North East and its culinary secrets closer to our homes and insist that she keeps the torch burning for years to come. I for one am also looking forward to exploring the grand variety of amazing vegetables through a vegetarian themed meal that she may curate some time soon.
