Why Kashmir’s mutton shortage cuts deeper than the dinner table

Ashraf Ul Hassan, a Srinagar-based travel operator. (Special arrangement photo/ Image enhanced using AI)

His comparison came in the context of Kashmir’s ongoing mutton crisis, arriving just as wedding season begins — a shortage reported by The Indian Express on Thursday edition.

Hassan doesn’t deny the pinch. “I’ve been eating vegetables lately,” he admits. A kilo of mutton cost Rs 600 a year ago. It rose to Rs 720 last year. “People said, who will buy it? Then this March it went up again — my butcher started retailing at Rs 840 a kilo, and there were still buyers. He cuts five or six sheep every morning, and by afternoon it’s all sold.”

The stakes go beyond the dinner table. “When someone dies here, we observe a four-day mourning period, and there is mutton even on those days. There’s no wedding in Srinagar without it. Wazwan started with seven dishes and has only grown more elaborate. Even someone without a roof over his head, someone unsure of his next meal, will still serve a wazwan at his child’s wedding.”

Muharram, just last week, exposed how deep the shortage cuts. “The Shia community gives Niyaz (a food offering in remembrance of Imam Hussain and the martyrs of Karbala), but this time many couldn’t or instead of food offers other items. A mutton-dealer friend told me that an affluent man who buys 1.5 quintals of mutton every year had to cancel his Niyaz altogether. Mutton dealers say they simply can’t supply it. Hotels are struggling, and this is peak tourist season. It’s a business worth thousands of crores in Kashmir. It’s unfortunate we don’t rear enough sheep here ourselves and depend on other states for our own consumption.”

Mutton’s pull crosses religious lines. For chef Prateek Sadhu, a Kashmiri, now based in Darwa, Himachal Pradesh, home to his award-winning restaurant Naar, mutton remains the meat closest to his heart.

Chef Prateek Sadhu, a Kashmiri, now based in Darwa, Himachal Pradesh. (Special arrangement photo)

“It’s the most staple meat for a Kashmiri. Your festivities are built around it, your day-to-day life is built around it,” he says, audibly animated even over the phone.

“Mutton plays a pivotal role even during Shivratri, our biggest festival,” he notes, adding that it surprises many who don’t expect meat at a religious occasion. “But for Kashmiris, it’s a mutton feast. There will be at least twelve or thirteen dishes — yakhni, rogan josh, kaliya, tchok charvan (sour liver), mutsch (meatballs), and more.”

What Sadhu wants everyone to note is the nose-to-tail philosophy behind it. “We use every part. Intestines go into a porridge. We eat heart, we eat liver as tchok charvan, we cook tripe (edible lining from the stomach) with turmeric, we use lungs, we use testicles.” Then there’s the technique. “Making a gushtaba is one of the most technical processes in modern-day cooking, and I say that from cooking all over the world. It needs a very precise meat-to-fat ratio, and airlocking. The bounce comes from locking in air and fat together.”

Sadhu’s mother’s generation, in the 60s and 70s, ate mutton almost daily. “There was always mutton in the kitchen. It depended on your means, but most people ate it two or three times a week, prepared every way — mutton with hak, mutton with kohlrabi, and when you were unwell, a mutton soup with turmeric, ginger, and black pepper.”

His own favourite is his mother’s yakhni — heavy on fennel and cardamom, curd-based, made with fatty cuts — still cooked every time he visits home in Kashmir. Growing up, birthdays meant a mutton feast; on ordinary weeks, there was still his yakhni and his sister’s favourite mutsch on rotation.

Delhi-based entrepreneur Rahul Kaul was born in Delhi, but his roots trace to Kashmir — his father from Habba Kadal, his mother from Bijbehara.

Delhi-based entrepreneur Rahul Kaul was born in Delhi, but his roots trace to Kashmir. (Special arrangement photo/ Image enhanced using AI)

“Mutton,” says the 36-year-old, “is the preferred choice of every Kashmiri. Chicken wasn’t even a delicacy for us — we saw it the way we saw potatoes. It entered our diet through migration, and because red meat was considered worse for the heart.” Wazwan runs just as deep in Kashmiri Pandit households, he says, though the cuisines diverge on one key point: “Kashmiri Pandit cooking skips onion and garlic. We use yoghurt instead.”

At Kaul’s house today, mutton appears once a month — partly because it’s harder to digest, and better suited to Kashmir’s climate than Delhi’s summers; partly convenience. “Mutton takes longer to cook than chicken. And everyone’s more health-conscious now, people prefer white meat.”

Shivratri looms just as large for him as it does for Sadhu. “It’s bigger than Diwali for us — we worship Shiva, Ganesha, Parvati.” In some Kashmiri Pandit homes, mutton is offered as prasad on Shivratri itself; in all of them, it’s cooked the next day, called Salam. “We make mutton curry, rogan josh, keema kofta (mutsch), dum aloo, gobi aloo, fish curry. Some homes make gushtaba too.”

The other non-negotiable occasion is Maenz-raat — mehndi raat. “Just as Punjabis have their cocktail nights, we have mehndi raat, where wazwan, kebabs, and liquor are served. There’s no meat on the wedding day itself.”

Asked to pick a favourite, Kaul goes with rogan josh — a slow, dum-cooked lamb curry in mustard oil, spicy and heavy, taking three to four hours. Other favourites: tabak maaz (mutton ribs in ghee) and kaliya (mutton in milk) and yakhni (mutton in dahi). He describes the latter two as lighter, whiter curries built on fennel and cardamom. Kashmiri Pandit cuisine even builds vegetarian shadows for its meat dishes — dum aloo stands in for rogan josh, and yakhni turns vegetarian when nadru (lotus stem) replaces the meat. One rule holds across all of it: the mutton is fried first, then finished in a curry cooked separately.

For Jasleen Marwah, a Kashmiri Sardar and co-founder of Folk, a restaurant celebrating India’s regional cuisines, mutton is inseparable from hospitality. “You feel more respected when you cook mutton for your guests. It’s a matter of pride. Kashmiris will even have a mutton dish, say keema or kebab, for breakfast,” she says. Her family’s cooking mirrors Kashmiri Pandit style: rogan josh, mutsch (meatballs), and yakhni, “the easiest to like and eat.”