Foodways
This is a kitchen with almost no added fat in it. There was no oilseed press, no dairy animal and no wheat, so the four operations available were boiling, steaming, smoking and fermenting — and the equipment for all four grows on the slope. A green bamboo tube is a sealed cooking vessel that supplies its own moisture; a Phrynium leaf is a steamer basket; the rack above the hearth is a dryer that runs continuously because the fire is never out. The flavour axis is not sour-and-oily as in the Assam plains below, but smoky, bitter and alkaline, with heat supplied by fresh king chilli rather than by ground masala. Meat is treated as the scarce thing it is: a pig killed at Solung is smoked, fermented and pickled so that it lasts most of a year.
Primary cooking medium
Effectively none — the traditional repertoire uses no cooking oil, and mustard oil is a road-borne import from the plainsRendered pork fat, used as an ingredient rather than a mediumWhatever fat the meat itself carries into the pot
Dominant sour agents
Fermented bamboo shoot and its liquor — the dominant acid, and the reason souring here tastes of ferment rather than of fruitFermented soybean pasteWild sour leaves and fruits gathered seasonally"Note the absence: no tamarind, no kokum, no dried mangosteen, and only marginal use of the ou tenga the Assam valley downstream is built on"
Spice register
Fresh king chilli, local ginger and garlic, and very little else. There is no roasted-and-ground masala tradition and no onion base. What Assam achieves with panch phoron and mustard oil, this kitchen achieves with smoke and with alkali — an ash-derived salt substitute that softens fibre and gives boiled greens a slippery, faintly soapy roundness the plains kitchen has no equivalent for.
Staple grains and carbs
Rice, both ordinary and the glutinous types used for leaf-wrapped parcels and for brewingFinger millet (marua) — porridge, and the base of a distinct millet beerFoxtail millet, sold as Angnyat millet, which holds a geographical indicationMaize on the drier jhum slopesJob's tears, grown on plot margins and used in gruel and in beer
Preservation methods
Hearth-smoked pork and fish, kept on the rack for monthsFermented bamboo shoot, whole or shredded, kept under liquor in a sealed containerDried bamboo-shoot powder, used as a seasoning long after the shoot itself is gonePickled pork fat with bamboo shoot and chilli, which keeps without refrigerationSun- and smoke-dried king chilli strung above the fireApong itself — grain converted into something that keeps for weeks instead of a season
Signature techniques
Bamboo-tube cooking
Rice, fish or pork is packed into a length of green bamboo, sealed with a leaf plug and set slanting over an open wood fire, rotated as it chars. The tube's own moisture steams the contents and its inner skin scents them; the vessel is split open at the table and thrown away. Adi names follow the contents — ma dong for the rice version, ngo dong for fish, ek adin dong for pork. It travels because it needs no pot: a hunting party carried rice and salt and found the rest.
Also found in: Naga Hills, Mizo–Kuki–Chin Hills, Garo Hills, Tripura Hills & Plains, Brahmaputra Valley
Leaf-wrap steaming
Rice or a mix of pounded greens and meat is parcelled in ekkam, the broad leaf of Phrynium, tied with a stem and boiled or steamed. The leaf is not decoration — it holds the parcel's shape, keeps the grain from dispersing into the water, and gives glutinous rice a distinct grassy top note. Parcels keep for a day or two in a shoulder basket, which is why they are festival and journey food.
Also found in: Brahmaputra Valley, Naga Hills, Khasi & Jaintia Hills
Hearth smoking
A slatted rack sits permanently above the fire. Pork, fish, chilli, bamboo shoot and unhusked grain all live on it, curing continuously in a house that is never without smoke. Because the fire is a social object as much as a cooking one — the kebang meets around a hearth — the preservation system and the meeting hall are the same room.
Also found in: Naga Hills, Mizo–Kuki–Chin Hills, Garo Hills, Brahmaputra Valley
Ash-alkali extraction
Plant material — banana stem, particular grasses and stalks — is burnt, the ash is steeped in water, and the filtrate is boiled down to a grey solid used where a coastal kitchen would use salt. The Apatani of the Ziro valley make the best-documented version, called tapyo, and the practice belongs to them rather than to the Adi; comparable alkali preparations are made across the Tani belt and further west into the Naga and Garo hills. It exists because salt had to be carried in over passes and was, for most households, unaffordable.
Also found in: Naga Hills, Garo Hills, Mizo–Kuki–Chin Hills
Starter-cake brewing
Cooked rice or millet is cooled, mixed with a dried starter cake carrying its own mould and yeast culture, and left to ferment in a covered basket. The result is apong. The starter is a household inheritance, made from local herbs and rice flour and dried above the hearth, which is why one village's apong does not taste like the next one's.
Also found in: Brahmaputra Valley, Naga Hills, Sikkim & Darjeeling Hills
Ash filtration of beer
The second apong. The fermented mash is packed into a conical funnel lined with the ash of burnt rice husk or paddy straw and water is drawn through it. The ash filters and alkalises at once, and the drink comes out dark, cloudy and noticeably less sharp than the plain white version — the same chemistry as the cooking alkali, applied to a drink.
Also found in: Brahmaputra Valley