Begin with creamy bocconcini drizzled with wild honey and treacly balsamic vingar. Follow that with a crunchy salad of organic, locally grown lettuce tossed in honey-sweetened mayonnaise. For the main course, there’s chicken roasted with rosemary, garlic, and honey. Ragi crepes, served with a freshly sliced banana, makes for dessert. Add a golden squiggle of wild honey. Notice a theme here?
“For the past 23 years, we have promoted and marketed wild, raw honey,” says Pratim Roy, founder director of Kotagiri-based Keystone Foundation. “We realised that people have no information at all about bees. Did you know India has four types? Each collects a different kind of honey, not just because they access different altitudes, but also because of the different sizes and lengths of their tongues.” Fortunately for researchers, and consumers addicted to that distinctive floral kick of wild honey, there are still plenty of indigenous collectors who truly understand bees.
Food for thought Now, Mr. Roy and his team are on a mission to not just document that information, but also ensure that its keepers are encouraged to continue their trade, a trade that is fascinating because when it works well, it’s an ideal “marriage between ecology and economics”. Their newly opened restaurant, ‘A Place To Bee’, located in the heart of Udhagamandalam, popularises honey even as it educates people about its makers and gatherers.
In 2007, Keystone created India’s first Bee Museum in Ooty. “We wanted to showcase our many years of research. To tell people about how crucial the honeybee is for the pollination of fruits and vegetables,” says Mr. Roy.
However, over the past year, they have noticed a decrease in visitors. “We decided to energise the space. So we started a restaurant right in the museum. An Italian pizzeria: but one that also serves local food made with local ingredients. And promotes wild honey.”
Their next step was to connect to Slow Food, the influential eco-gastronomic movement, which began in Rome in the 1980s. “As a Slow Food restaurant, we make an effort to serve local cuisine, so we not only have an authentic wood-fired oven serving thin crust pizzas, but also thinai biriyani, nattu kozhi and avarai beans.” Recipes are sourced from honey collectors they work with.
Diversity of tribes Keystone’s work is in the Nilgiris because it has a fascinating variety of honey-gatherer tribes.
“In the upper altitudes, you find the Todas and Kotas. As you come down, there are the Kurumbas and Irulas. Towards the Gudalur side live the Kattunaickens. Nowhere in the world are there so many tribes in such a tight area,” he says.
While all of them collect honey, Mr. Roy says the Kurumbas and Kattunaickens are the best at it — because it’s ingrained in their culture. “A man from the tribe who works in Trichy, for example, will take leave and come here during the season to collect honey with his family.”
Seasons vary depending on who you ask. The Todas begin first, collecting their honey from higher altitudes in January. The Kurumbas do it from April to June. And so on.
Honey differs widely in colour, texture and flavour. “There’s no standardisation – and that’s the beauty of it. If you’re a connoisseur you will know which area it’s from. Flowers, nectar and pollen determine the taste…”
Mr. Roy adds, “A lot of the Indian honey is wild — I would estimate it at about 60 per cent. But, in most cases the gatherers are invisible people, earning very little for the work they do.”
Additionally, smaller organisations that work with the tribes tend to produce better honey because they don’t blend different types into a homogenous syrup.
There’s one more powerful reason to get your honey straight from the source.
“For a longer shelf life, most commercial ventures flash heat the honey, and by doing that they change its very chemistry making it more like a caramelised sugar solution. It loses not just important minerals, but also a lot of other interesting elements.”
