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You’ve been travelling to Assamese villages, staying with tribal families and learning about their cuisines for 28 long years. What inspired you to travel so extensively to document these ethnic recipes?
Food is identity. There has been a lot of confusion about Assamese communities. I wanted to clear this confusion by documenting the authentic cuisines of Assam. We have 23 major communities and several sub-communities in Assam, but they are barely known or understood. Over time, we have lost everything we had. But without our traditions, we are nothing. Today, there is a crisis of identity. Even the new generation is moving away from traditional foods. At the beginning of my culinary journey, I wanted to learn Assamese cooking. But when I asked my mother about our food, she could not come up with more than three or four dishes. I realised it’s not possible to learn this cuisine at a culinary institute. So, I decided to travel across Assam to learn about the food of different ethnic groups. I visited villages belonging to different tribes like Rabhas, Tiwas, Karbis, Khamtis, Tai Phakes, Sonowal Kacharis, Bodos, Garos, Misings and many more. I have been documenting their culinary traditions for the last 28 years.
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How do you convince the tribals to share their secret recipes with you? Tell us about some of the tribal dishes you learnt to make during your travels.
Before I learn to cook from them, I communicate with them, stay and celebrate with them. Then slowly, they grow to love me. Only then do they allow me to enter their kitchens.
A year ago, I had travelled to Tinsukia district near Dum Duma, around 600 km from Guwahati. On the border of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, there is a community called the Khamtis. They do a beautiful dish called pasa. According to me, it’s the best dish we have from the North East. Pasa is a seasonal soup made from fresh river fish, minced meat, aromatic makat leaves, ginger, garlic and green chillies. Making it is a long and intricate process. It truly is a work of art.
What makes Assamese cuisine distinctive and unique? How is it different from other NE cuisines?
To most of the food world including chefs, food bloggers and diners, Assamese cuisine means three things — pork, bamboo shoots and bhut jolokia. But we have a unique diversity of cuisines as there are so many different cultures and communities. Our population comprises tribal as well as non-tribal communities. There is a mix of hill and plain tribes, so there are a lot of differences between the cooking practices of upper and lower Assam. Our cooking processes are distinct from the other states. While the Nagas have their boiled dishes and chutneys, we like to stew, fry and smoke our food. We use black pepper and love our lentils. We cook pigeon and duck — which the other states don’t — and also mutton and country chicken. Unlike states like Nagaland and Meghalaya, we don’t use fermented soybeans. But most important, fish, and not pork, is the main food of Assam. So, there are a lot of differences between the NE states.
Assam is very rich in wild edibles. Which is your favourite herb while cooking?
We have 101 different herbs in Assam. Many of them are in the market in April around the time monsoon is approaching. We treat many diseases and ailments with these wild herbs. We eat all our meals with green leafy vegetables. I love to use lai patta or local mustard leaves in my cooking. You can cook anything with them, and also eat them fresh.
What does Assamese cuisine offer to vegetarians?
In every household in Assam, you will get a pitika or mash. Any vegetable can be smoked or boiled and made into a pitika. It is very healthy. We like to stir fry our vegetables, and not overcook them to retain nutrition and crunch. We are all about seasonality, so in every month we make changes to our recipes. But it’s true that there are very few vegetarians in Assam. While there are exceptions, most cannot eat a meal without fish and meat.
We hardly have any Assamese restaurants outside of the state. As a result, there is very little exposure to Assamese cuisine. As a chef, how are you addressing this gap?
The exposure to NE cuisines is often limited to Kolkata. A lot of people in Assam have not mingled with other Indian states. Even when they do travel, they generally don’t share their recipes, perhaps because they aren’t so confident about their own cuisine.
But I believe food can be a way for Assam to communicate with other parts of India. I have been working to correct the misconception that our cuisine is just about pork and ghost peppers. For the past many years, I’ve been organising food festivals across India, like this latest one at ITC Grand Central, Mumbai, where I’m serving lesser-known dishes like Assamese chicken with broken rice powder, banana flower fry, and yellow lentils with elephant apple. Over the years I have invited several Indian and international chefs to come to my restaurant Heritage Khorika in Guwahati, to give them a taste of our food. I also have a village kitchen, called Domahi, near Guwahati. It’s a living museum which showcases the kitchens of different tribes and their cooking styles.
It will take time for the world to know our food. But it will surely happen as we have a great cuisine that is unique and very healthy. We have so many varieties of rice, wild edibles and brilliant produce. The world needs to discover Assamese food.
Your first book is due for release shortly. What is it about and when can we expect it to be on the shelves?
My book, A Treasure of Assamese Cuisine, is about the lost recipes of Assam. It’s about my sentiments as a chef and my reflections on Assamese people and cuisines — what we had, and what we have lost. Through the book, I will share my culinary knowledge and secrets learnt over the past 28 years, and also chronicle my travel adventures. I have included recipes as well as the stories behind these recipes. The book is complete, and will be out by September or October this year. I’m in talks with various people, including my friend Vikas Khanna, for a global release.
What else are you excited about in the coming days?
I’m working on creating a museum of indigenous herbs in Assam. I have a property near Guwahati which I intend to use for this. The idea is to showcase various local herbs and different kinds of dry fish from our rivers and ponds. Many of these are getting lost, so I want to document them for posterity. The project would be finished by 2025.
Sona Bahadur is an independent food journalist and author based in Mumbai. She is the former editor of BBC Good Food Magazine India
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