Seema Kumar
Prachi’s book took me back to my childhood when I used to enjoy reading Enid Blyton’s Famous Five. The five children in the series were always on a picnic and the description of the food and the little nuggets, once in a while, behind those foods were very interesting. Prachi’s book took me back to the same time but with a completely new flavour. The Indian flavour. And how!
Also our neighbours were from Garhwal and Kumaon when I was growing up so I grew up hearing them sing ‘Bedu pako baramasa, O narani kafal pako chait meri chaila’. I didn’t know the meaning till a friend’s mother told me Bedu is a wild vegetable that grows year-round and is a favourite with the pahadis. While going through the book, I was pleasantly surprised that Prachi had added a bedu recipe!
Summer holidays up in the hills are everyone’s favourite but over the years the kadi-chawal and rajma-chawal in the hills gave way to Maggi and momos. Just like the humble dosa, a tiffin or breakfast in the south, got reinvented to noodle stuffed dosa or egg stuffed dosa, the Maggi also got reinvented with the addition of various ingredients and spices. So, the Maggi you find in the hills is never what you find in the plains!
Just like the south is more than dosa, idli and vada, go through Prachi’s book and you will realise the pahad is more than Maggi and momos. She has very cleverly interspersed her personal experiences; with stories she has heard from her mother and grandmothers and the local folklore to put together a book that gives you an insight into hill life. Tough yet so full of life.
The recipes, from snacks, main course to sweets, explore the culinary traditions of Uttarakhand. Prachi has skillfully blended recipes with folktales, artworks and photos and come up with a winner. To give the traditional a modern touch she has given a twist to some of the recipes to make it accessible to a wider audience and has dedicated an entire section to this, which she has rightly called Twist. You will find your soup, ragi dosa, risotto and pasta!
The recipes are easy to follow, the dishes easy to cook and some of the ingredients you may not even have heard of leave alone use them in your food. Such as Cream of Kandali Soup. Kandali is stinging nettle (bicchu ghas) that many of us won’t even know can be used as a vegetable. Another interesting aspect I found out while reading the book was that some foods are so similar to food found in other states – rotana is a thinner version of Bihar’s thekua, arsa is similar to the neiappan one finds in south India.
The book is an easy read, much like Prachi’s style of writing. The stories only add to the charm of the book.
Some excerpts from the book.
“I had grown up on pahadi food and have always loved it. But did I get into the nuances? Quite frankly, no! Although I can cook a mean phanu and a lip-smacking naal badi saag and have been a journalist for twenty-five years and also a writer, the idea of writing a book on Uttarakhand cuisine hadn’t really crossed my mind.
But while I reported for The Times of India from Mussoorie for five and a half years, from 2013 to 2018, in trying to look at the culture and life of Uttarkhandis from an outsider’s perspective and to understand what would interest a reader, I learnt so much more about it. And now when I look back, I did at least a few stories on food from Uttarakhand.
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Slowly but surely, I knew, I wanted to write this book.
One of the things I was sure about – was to include food-related folktales.
While I was growing up, thanks to my grandfather, Satya Prasad Raturi (a reputed historian and journalist in Uttarakhand), my grandmother and parents, being teachers, literary pursuits were always encouraged. Resultantly, my elder brother and sister (my best cheerleaders) and I grew up on books and folktales and impromptu discussions around culture and festivals.
Drives from a picnic or long walks in the woods were inevitably laced with a folktale or a legend. So, when the idea for the book was firming up in my head, I thought of combining it with food. That I thought would not only be a good way to change the rhythm of recipes but also showcase the life in the hills—simple yet tough, beautiful yet challenging.
Also, memories have been included, because isn’t that what good food is all about? A delicious meal inevitably reminds one of their mother or nani or dadi and how they cooked a particular dish. Doesn’t food bring back memories of childhood and great times spent with family and friends?
Hence, the book is laced with little nuggets from my childhood, stories from the neighbourhood and travel tales.
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Kumaun, Garhwal and Jaunsar Bawar/Jaunpur are the three broad divisions of Uttarakhand in terms of region and people. While languages are widely different, food habits and recipes are similar with some dishes being typical to a region while others remain the same with slight variations.
What unifies these regions, however, is the simple fact that nature rules the eating patterns and habits. Because life in the mountains is so closely entwined with nature, the flowers, leaves, shrubs, vegetables—some wild, some cultivated, all become perfect partners for some delicious preparations.
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The overriding factor of the pahadi food besides its deliciousness is its nutritional value. The fact remains that life in the hills isn’t exactly as rosy as everyone who wants to ‘have a home in the hills’ would imagine it to be, hence the food has to provide enough energy and nutrition for the hard work that comes with the pahadi way of life.
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Why am I recording these recipes, one may ask?
Well, for several reasons. First and foremost, I want to record and preserve these recipes; secondly, I want children like Gaura and Nanda of mixed marriages like mine and my sister’s to have knowledge of the foods their parents and grandparents cooked and relished and some day they too Preface 5
will, hopefully in the future. Lastly and most importantly, I want to inspire the evolved tourists, food lovers to try and enjoy our food because in all seriousness, our food is not the maggi and momos that you might have enjoyed on your holidays in the hills. We have so much more to offer.
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Jholi
This was one of my great-great grandmother’s much-loved preparations. A nurse in the 1930s, when it wasn’t usual for women to work, she did.
A young widow, her face had toughened by life. She and my grandmother (the duo looked like sisters) took care of my father and his siblings while my grandfather was busy running a newspaper and leading Bal Sabha in Tehri Garhwal. The much-loved organisation spoke to young boys on the idea of freedom and revolution. Unhappy, the king ordered my grandfather to leave Tehri with the family. So, it was in 1941 that he moved to Mussoorie with family and continued with his writing work.
Mussoorie then was a small town in every way. Moving from Tehri to Mussoorie was a big change for the family and food did what it always does, bring comfort. Badi dadi, made most things that reminded the family of their days back in Tehri, one of them being jholi, my father’s favourite.
Ingredients
¾ cup rice
1 litre mattha
½ tsp turmeric
1 tsp chilli powder (as per taste)
½ tsp jakhya
Salt to taste
1 tsp mustard oil
Preparation
Mix all the dry ingredients and now knead into tight mixture using only the required amount of jaggery water.
When it is kneaded, take a ball each, put a little oil, keep it in the wooden moulds and press it hard. Remove the now flattened rotana with a special pattern and keep it on a dry plate. If you don’t have sancha, use a fork once you have flattened the patty with the base of a katori.
Once you have made the lot, fry them on medium flame.
Enjoy once cooled.”
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Uttarakhand Cuisine: Food and Folktales from the Hills!
Prachi Raturi Misra
Om Books International
Rs 295