With your drinks
They set up the black, carbon crusted cauldron around sunset, on a raging wood fire that spews a sweet smelling white smoke. As the water comes to a boil, wet cows returning home from the day’s graze in the thick rain forest line up, enjoying the thick smoke as it kept the flies away.
It’s October, the end of monsoons in Seijosa , a village on the edge of Pakke Tiger Reserve in western Arunachal Pradesh. The area is populated mainly by the Nyshi tribe, one of the largest in this north eastern state.
When the men arrive, the cows shake and stir expectantly, ringing the metal bells around their neck. Their fingers start rubbing and feeling the cows for something that they pluck out and throw into the boiling pot. On a closer look, I realise that these are long and fat leeches, full of cow’s blood, being turned into the Seijosa version of blood sausages. The boiling water kills the leeches, coagulates and par-cooks the blood. The leeches are then peeled off, and the remaining pencil-like sausage chopped into small bits stir-fried with onion, garlic, ginger and the hot and flavourful rat-dropping-shaped chillies that grow wild in these parts. It’s an unbelievably tasty snack with the evening’s rice beer.
Another popular snack is a similarly stir-fried green and succulent silk worm that is regularly sold in the local markets all over north-east: it tastes like scallops. Among myriad tribes in these parts that regularly hunt, it is not surprising to be served sambhar or barking deer or primates like langur. Pangolins, in fact, are a delicacy. It is quite common to find smoked field rats in the market. These are not the disgusting bandicoots that you see in the city drains, but the smaller, grain-fed variety with a sweet, gamey flavour. I particularly liked the ones cooked with banana flowers and chillies. I was recently served dried jackal meat on one of my recent trips to the interiors of Dima Hasao in Assam, which was a new one for me.
However, the most disgusting snack to accompany drinks, which seems to be a favourite with all the tribes that live close to the fast flowing tributaries of the Brahmaputra is gandi poka. The small beetle lives under rocks on banks of the cleaner upper reaches of rivers. It could be black or brown, but when caught, it exudes a stink that drives away all predators except humans, who seem to enjoy that smell. Men and women scour the banks, upturning rocks, and sell the collection at a premium in local markets. It is scrunched alive with strong rice distils and is supposed to give you a significantly better high!
More than just bacon
If there is a single element that defines the culinary experience in north-east India, it is pork. The seven sisters arguably produce and cook the best pork in India. This is not a sausage-bacon country. The pigs are slaughtered young, have less fat and don’t need to be pressure cooked like their cousins in other parts of India. Each area has its own distinctive recipes that tend to be simple, largely boiled, less oily and wholesomely flavourful.
Many years ago, I was sent on an assignment to the land of Tangkhul Nagas on the Myanmar border in what was then a small town called Ukhrul in Manipur. I missed the only bus, and had to walk the last 12 km in darkness through a forest road bristling with soldiers in camouflage. Delayed by the constant questioning, I reached Ukhrul around 10.30 pm. My hostess had given up on me and everyone in the house was sleeping.
Unfazed, she told me to wash and join her at the central fireplace in the house. When I reached, a pot was already boiling with few pieces of dried pork. She pounded bhoot jholokiya (of the hottest chilli fame), wild garlic and ginger, some local herbs and a plant that had broad leaves of a lily, but had a strong fresh coriander flavour(in Assam they call it Ram dhaniya, and is common in Thailand, I later learned). She dropped a small ball of this roughly ground paste with lump of sea salt into the pot and added fresh mustard leaves. Served with rice, that first taste still stays with me over 30 years later.
Since then I have cooked and had many variations of this distinctive theme. In season add fresh and succulent bamboo shoot which changes the taste. In Along in Arunachal, they added a coarse powder of dried and smoked bamboo and bhoot jholokia which gave it a warm and mellow strength good for cold winter evenings. In Tripura they boil a mix of fresh pork, potatoes, roughly chopped garlic and ginger with little water. Once done they mix it with chopped onion, unripe ginger, chillies and sea salt drizzling it with strong mustard oil. In Karbi Anglong they lightly fry a paste of onion, ginger and garlic. Add coriander powder and very little garam masala. After cooking the pork in this, it is served with rice garnished with Ram dhaniya in reduced gravy.
In eastern Garo hills of Meghalaya they create a mix of pork, roughly chopped onion, ginger and garlic with rat chillies. They then stuff this into large hollow green bamboo stems and cook the stems on open fire. The bamboo chars giving the meat a distinctive flavour. Called Brang it is had with red rice cooked in bamboo stems as well, a thin dal and, a roasted fish and chilly chutney.
Catch of the day
If you are visiting or living in any of the seven sisters, you should definitely try smoked river fish and dried fresh water prawns. The former has a black burnt-out look, which is just layers and layers of carbon, having been dried above a constantly-lit fireplace. Smoked or sun-dried prawns have a deep red look. Both are usually rehydrated in hot water and cooked in mustard oil with some tender leaves (radish or spinach) and small green ping-pong-ball-sized brinjals that look a bit like the Thai ones, but are actually mildly bitter. I particularly like the ones found in Bodo areas.
You can also pound either of these with spring onion, garlic, hot chillies, salt and fresh coriander to make a delicious chutney that combines well with a thin dal and rice. The Meitei of the Imphal valley in Manipur have a version of this chutney pounded with fermented fish and a lemon leaf that looks exactly like the Thai kafir lime, but is not as strongly flavoured. Speaking of dals , the layered fruit of Dillenia indica, called Otenga in Assam (a favourite of elephants), gives masur dal a lip smacking tart taste.
Of course, with so much water flowing around, there is a profusion of fresh water fish of all shapes and sizes. In Assam, there is fish tenga , a haldi , lemon and mustard oil based fish curry that is subtle and delicious. Fish marinated in mustard paste wrapped in banana leaf and steamed or roasted is worth looking out for. Always ask for local fish (as opposed to the big farmed variety) in roadside eating places and these will either come crisply fried or lightly curried with a variety of vegetables. Fresh local prawns cooked with banana flowers are amazing.
Think green
Cooking and eating vegetables on its own is not the norm here. Vegetables are usually cooked with meat or fish, but a variety of stews combining leaves, gourds and potatoes are common. The Brahmaputra valley has a larger variety of meat dishes that use vegetables like spinach, mustard leaves, string beans and yams.
Chickpea batter-fried fresh pumpkin flowers are a delicacy, as are banana stem core and flowers. In parts of Assam, banana stem is slow charred to create a salty liquid called khar , which is then added to vegetables or boiled lentils, creating a unique taste. Bamboo shoot is a common component during the monsoons. In parts of Manipur and Mizoram, unripe beans of the Parkia tree are a delicacy. After being roasted on coal, the pulp and seed are extracted and eaten with chillies and salt. Unripe papayas cooked in a variety of ways are regular fare.
Aniruddha Mookerjee is researching the indigenous alcohols of India.
