BharatSangraha

Dooars & Terai · Eastern Himalaya & Brahmaputra Belt

Foodways

Four kitchens on one shelf, and they have not merged. The Rajbanshi kitchen is a rice-and-river-fish cuisine that gets its depth from fermented and sun-dried fish rather than from spice, and its texture from khar, an alkali leached from plant ash. The Adivasi tea-garden kitchen is a Chota Nagpur kitchen transplanted — boiled greens, forest tubers, dried fish, minimal oil, and rice beer brewed at home from a herbal starter cake. The Mech, Rabha and Toto kitchens sit close to the Rajbanshi one but use more pork, bamboo shoot and river snail. The Nepali-speaking kitchen of the Terai brings gundruk and momo down from the ridge. The one thing they share is that the seasoning is savoury and fermented rather than hot — the chilli is on the side, and the depth comes from something that has been left to rot on purpose.

Primary cooking medium

Mustard oil, dominant across all four kitchensPork fat among Mech, Rabha, Toto and Adivasi householdsVery little oil at all in the everyday tea-garden kitchen, where boiling and steaming do most of the workGhee reserved for ritual and for sweets

Dominant sour agents

Sidol and shutki — fermented and sun-dried fish, used as much for savoury depth as for sournessTamarind and elephant-apple (chalta) in the plains kitchenLemon, kagzi lime and the wild starfruit-type sours at the forest edgeFermented bamboo shoot in the Mech, Rabha and Toto kitchensGundruk and sinki liquor in the Nepali-speaking villages of the Terai

Spice register

Restrained, savoury and alkaline rather than hot. Panch phoron and mustard paste at the Bengali end, green chilli whole rather than ground, garlic and ginger used heavily, turmeric constant — and khar, the ash alkali, used as a seasoning in its own right where the plains would use soda or nothing at all. Against the Nepali kitchen uphill, which is sour and numbing with timmur and dalle, and against Bengal proper, which is sweeter and works its mustard harder, the Dooars signature is fermented fish plus alkali.

Staple grains and carbs

Rice — the whole basis of the diet, including the aromatic Kalonunia landrace of these districtsParboiled coarse rice, eaten in quantity and often as panta, left overnight in waterMaize and finger millet in the forest-edge and tea-garden villagesWheat flour, brought in and used mainly for morning roti in the garden lines

Preservation methods

Sidol — small fish fermented in an earthen pot sealed with clay and left for monthsShutki — fish sun-dried whole on bamboo racks in the winter dry seasonSun-dried vegetable, tubers and bamboo shoot laid out through November and DecemberHandia and rice beer, which converts surplus rice into something that keeps and can be sharedFermented bamboo shoot stored under liquor in a sealed potSmoke-drying of pork and small game above the hearth

Signature techniques

Khar extraction

Dried banana stem, plantain peel or paddy husk is burned to ash, the ash packed into a perforated pot and water run slowly through it; the filtrate is a mild potassium alkali. It tenderises tough greens and pulses in minutes, gives a slippery mouthfeel, and is added at the start of the dish rather than the end. It is the lowland cousin of the alkali cookery that runs the length of the eastern foothills.

Also found in: Brahmaputra Valley, Garo Hills, Tripura Hills & Plains

Sidol fermentation

Small river fish, usually puti, are sun-dried, pounded, packed into an earthen pot whose mouth is sealed with clay, and left for several months until they break down into a dense, pungent paste. A little of it seasons a whole pot of vegetables — a protein and umami store built for a household with no other way to keep fish.

Also found in: Brahmaputra Valley, Barak Valley, Tripura Hills & Plains

Ranu-cake rice brewing

Cooked rice is cooled, mixed with a dried herbal starter cake and left covered for two to four days, then strained. The cake carries both a starch-converting mould and a yeast, so one ingredient does the work of malting and brewing. The technique came with the Chota Nagpur families and is the direct plains counterpart of the marcha used in the hills above.

Also found in: Chota Nagpur Plateau, Sikkim & Darjeeling Hills

Leaf-wrap and bamboo-tube cooking

Fish, snail or greens with mustard paste sealed in a banana or turmeric leaf and cooked in embers, or stuffed into a green bamboo tube and set on the fire. No vessel, no oil, and the leaf or tube supplies the aroma — the standard method at the forest edge and in the Mech and Rabha kitchens.

Also found in: Brahmaputra Valley, Tripura Hills & Plains

Winter sun-drying

From November the dry season is used to lay out fish, bamboo shoot, tubers, chilli and leafy vegetables on bamboo racks and roofs. The Dooars is too wet to do this at any other time of year, so the winter drying season is what stocks the household for the following monsoon.

Also found in: Anga & Seemanchal

Gundruk souring in the Terai villages

Mustard and radish leaves wilted, crushed, packed airtight and soured without salt, exactly as on the ridge above. It arrived with Nepali-speaking settlement and is now made on the plain, where it keeps less well in the humidity and is therefore made in smaller batches.

Also found in: Sikkim & Darjeeling Hills

The foodway signature of Dooars & Terai — cooking medium, souring agents, spice register, staple grains and the techniques that define it. (6)