These Tribal Chefs Are Reclaiming Their Food Cultures

Indigenous chefs across the world are revolutionising the culinary landscape by incorporating traditional foods and culinary practices in their gastronomic creations. There has been a remarkable shift in India as well towards acknowledging and showcasing the diverse range of indigenous cuisine. Through restaurants and social media platforms, they are promoting knowledge sharing while preserving the heritage of tribal food cultures. Here are the stories of four Indian female chefs who have sparked conversations around food sovereignty and culinary roots.

Karen Yepthomi

Karen Yepthomi has been running Dzukou Tribal Kitchen for nearly a decade. The Delhi-based restaurant, which serves the cuisine of Nagaland's tribes, takes its name from the Dzukou Valley, on the border of Nagaland and Manipur. She has won several awards for her work, including the Vasundhara Women Entrepreneur Award and the National Women Excellence Award.

Speaking about the narrative strands like food and identity, Yepthomi, who belongs to Nagaland's Sema community, says, "Some of my earliest memories are of my mother cooking sticky corn, known for its stunning pastel rainbow colours, and taro roots, freshly picked from our homegrown garden."

Yepthomi explains that the northeast diet is built around locally sourced ingredients, often eaten with green vegetables and abundant fresh herbs. "A must-try dish at Dzukou is the smoked pork axone (fermented soya bean) and pumpkin seeds chutney. Green vegetables and rice accompany every meal."

Yepthomi says it has been rewarding to see people connect with her ancestral foods. "I have been blown away by how well indigenous food has been received and appreciated in Delhi. In the food industry today, the creativity we see based on different culinary traditions and cultures is exciting and new. Consumers are embracing new flavours and seeking deeper cultural connections through food. People are now realising food is more than just sustenance. Every dish from indigenous communities tells a story."

Nambie Jessica Marak

"Initially, when I started my YouTube channel, I had this simple objective to document northeast Indian recipes, with particular focus on tribal cuisine from this region," says Nambie Jessica Marak of Meghalaya—a MasterChef India 2023 first runner-up who runs the popular YouTube channel, Eat Your Kappa. "Unknowingly, I kickstarted a debate about the unrepresented cuisine from the northeastern region of our country." From being a simple recipe-sharing platform, her YouTube channel became a medium for discovering and sharing the intricacies of the region's recipes and culture.

The idea behind the channel's name revolves around a food preparation method. "As a member of the Garo community, I deeply appreciate kapa—a unique way of cooking, using lye obtained by dissolving and filtering out bamboo ash. This filtered liquid is traditionally used for tenderising meat and vegetables. We Garos craft kapa from various ingredients, making it a versatile part of our cuisine." The name also reflects the collaborative effort with her husband, who hails from South India and is a partner in this venture. "In his culture, the word 'kappa' refers to tapioca, a cherished element for our communities. At the ideological level, my idea behind 'Eat Your Kappa' is to bring out hidden food from the remotest mountains of northeast India to the forefront."

Marak currently lives in her parents' village in a remote part of Meghalaya, situated in the mountains of the West Khasi Hills. The village has only about 48 houses, and all have their little farms. "My mother always cooked traditional Garo dishes for us, despite living in a city like Shillong where the ingredients you get in villages are not readily available. She was super-resourceful and would grow ingredients and vegetables in our garden."

Marak researches and explores traditional recipes, both online and directly, through conversing with village people, local cooks, and chefs. "I go beyond mere replication of the recipe," Marak explains. Sometimes, she engages in experimentation, "but not to a level where the authenticity is tampered with. This process allows me to forge a deeper connection with the region's culinary identity."

In the MasterChef kitchen, she wove culinary narratives with the help of dishes synonymous with the warmth of home. "Envision 'Galda Natok'—roselle fruits gracefully entwined with fish, 'Minil Spin'—sticky rice enveloping black sesame in a comforting embrace, and the heartening 'Pu Saw'—a tea-infused rice cake, each a culinary ambassador delivering a taste of Meghalaya's soul. In this narration of mine, the heroes were the unassuming 'Putharo'—a steamed rice cake, and the daring 'Galda Nakham'—a fusion of roselle leaves and dried fish. Suddenly, stealing the limelight, 'Doh Neiiong' made its entrance, a dish made with meat and black sesame gravy that echoed volumes."

Kristi Kikon

Nagaland-based foodstagrammer Kristi Kikon runs the Insta page, kristi_kikon, and YouTube channel, Heart On My Plate. When she first opened her Instagram account in 2011 on a friend's recommendation, she had no clue that this was where she would start her food journey and make a living from it. Kikon initially began by sharing food pictures "just for the sake of aesthetics", but later, when viewers started asking for recipes, she realised that there needed to be more knowledge about local ingredients, even within her community. Her posts became a platform to share recipes, exchange knowledge of techniques and ingredients, and discuss the intersections of tribal cultures and food systems.

Kikon says there are 17 tribes in Nagaland, each with its signature dishes. "And you may be surprised that most of them are vegetarian. Naga cuisine is more than meat—most traditional recipes do not even call for it."

Kikon believes there has been a change in the attitude towards indigenous food in India thanks to social media and local entrepreneurs trying to introduce unique and unknown food. "You have restaurants like OMO cafe in Gurgaon, which has a special menu curated around indigenous ingredients, and you also have restaurants like Hornbill and Naga Heritage in Delhi and Naga Belly in Mumbai, where they serve authentic food with locally sourced and indigenous ingredients."

Avantika Haflongbar

Food blogger and entrepreneur Avantika Haflongbar runs the popular Instagram page roohi_haflongbar, displaying Assam's traditional Dimasa indigenous cuisine. Using indigenous herbs and aromatic plants is a distinctive feature. "I am from the Dimasa indigenous community of Assam, and we are animistic in our beliefs. Our cuisine involves smoking, steaming, fermenting, and slow-cooking over fire. Bamboo tubes and leaves are used to impart a unique taste to the food."

Haflongbar talks about the harvest festival Bushu celebrated in January, where the highlight is the community feast. She brings up Judima, a traditional Dimasa rice beer that received the GI tag in 2021. Highlighting Dimasa cuisine on MasterChef, where she auditioned in Season 8, was a daunting task. "I knew I had to represent my Dimasa roots, so I prepared a Dimasa thali with sticky rice, dal with Bombay Duck, banana blossom and eggplant khar, ginger chutney, caramelised roselle flowers, and raw banana fries.” In one of the elimination rounds, she presented burgers with indigenous ingredients made with sticky rice and pulled chicken cooked in rice flour, cashew nut, ginger leaves sauce, and taro fries.

One of her fondest childhood memories was going to the local market on Saturdays with her father to buy fresh vegetables and pork. ”Baba would return home, clean the meat, cut it in a particular size and cook it on firewood. I used to love to be his assistant in the kitchen. ”