When in Kutch, eat like the Kutchis do

Kutch is home to a large number of communities, and I’ve been told that traditional food varies from community to community. And although I only got a tiny nibble of what this region has to offer, I did get to experience the traditional food habits of some Kutchi communities.

On our very first evening in Kutch we decided to explore the town of Bhujodi, a short walk from the Shrujan complex where we were staying. We went to visit the home of Arjunbhai Vankar, a weaver.

The entrance to Bhujodi town

After some searching, we found his house. As we entered through the outer door of his home, there was a large open courtyard in front of the house, with a cowshed on one side, living quarters and store rooms on another, a showroom of their traditional woven textiles in the middle, and the weaving workshop at the back. A group of villagers had gathered in the courtyard to celebrate “Beej”, a lunar festival in their community. The singing of celebratory bhajans was under way, and tea was being served. We sat with the group on the floor of the courtyard, as saucers – no cups - were distributed. Our host poured steaming, sweet milk tea from a kettle straight into the ceramic receptacles in our outstretched hands. We lifted the saucers to our lips and heartily slurped the delicious tea. In Kutch, like in many other parts of India, it is customary to offer one’s guests a cup of tea, and we were offered one in every home we visited. But this was the only time we were served in this typical fashion, straight into the saucer. That, coupled with the energy of communal tea-drinking on the courtyard floor in the evening twilight kicked off my experience of the traditional life and meals of Kutch!

After tea, Arjunbhai invited us to join them for dinner, and we promised do so, but on another evening.

The next day we had our first meal outside of the Shrujan guesthouse. It was a celebratory lunch for the thread ceremony of a Shrujan staff member’s son, in a nearby town called Kukma. The host generously invited us to join the feast, which was held at a community hall in the town. Huge aluminum utensils of the food were laid out under a pandaal, and guests were queuing up to be served.

True to modern Indian festive meals, the food was heavy on masala, and featured multiple fried foods, which represent celebratory indulgence. It included a rasa vaalu shaak – vegetables like capsicum, tomatoes, potatoes, curry leaves in gravy, gatta nu shaak - a curry made with besan dumplings, puris and rice. A Gujarati festive meal is incomplete without mishtan (sweet) and farsan (savory), so there was Kutchi adadiya - a sweet made from udad daal, jaggery, dry fruits and gund, and methi na gota – fried dumplings of fenugreek leaves in besan batter. And of course, there was chhaas – thin, salted buttermilk!

As festive meals go, this one was delicious, but it was not what Kutchis traditionally ate at home. That was something I got introduced to on the next day, when on our way back from the Banni grasslands, we stopped for lunch at the home of Lakhmaben and Aacharbhai in a tiny town called Ludiya.

Theirs is a family of wood carvers and carpenters. Lakhmaben and Aacharbhai live in a traditional bhunga, beautifully decorated with mud designs and embedded mirrors. Her cooking and eating utensils were stacked neatly against the wall, and her year-round supply of food grains safely stowed away in large trunks. We were invited to be seated inside the main house for the meal.

 

We had insisted that they should not treat us as guests by making a special meal, but to feed us only what they were cooking for their own lunch that day -- that was the only way I’d get to experience the true traditional home food of Kutch. So she fed us a robust meal of bajra rotlas - thick hand-patted rotis made from bajri millet, wheat rotis, cauliflower and pototo shaak – sabzi, and curd, accompanied by the omnipresent Kutchi supplements of gol (jaggery) and doongli (onions). We ate and ate till we were full up to here! Lakhmaben sat outside the door and watched us, with a slight, pleased smile on her face.

We had hardly digested lunch, when it was already time for dinner!

That same night, we had dinner at the home of Arjunbhai, the weaver in Bhujodi, like we had promised (again, insisting they make nothing special for us). His was a family of weavers. We arrived early and sat in the courtyard conversing with his father, Vishramji Valji Vankar, about the food they ate growing up and the traditions of their village back in the days. 

His aunt, Foiba as we called her in Gujarati, showed me their simple kitchen, which was located outside the main house. I watched one of the ladies of the house make the rotlas by hand on an earthen tawaa over an open wood-burning mud choolah.

 Another lady of the house was merrily grinding the fresh garlic pods and green chili, to serve to us with the rotlas. And within minutes, the simple meal was served up into simple copper and steel utensils, one set per person.

We were then seated for dinner in the front room of the main house – something we were later told was reserved only for very close relatives (this was their one way of treating us as important guests, since we had refused anything special on the menu)! Vishramji Valji, the head of the household, sat with us, while everyone else remained outside. He started us off with a prayer, and then we broke (flat)bread. He himself was fasting that day – a Monday – but watched with pride as we ate, and offered us more.

  

We were again served the Kutchi staple of bajra rotlas, gol, and the fabulous spicy garlic and chili chutney, followed by the dinnertime favorite of moong daal khichdi (boiled lentils and rice). The khichdi, served to us in heavy brass bowls, with a generous serving ghee in the center, was absolutely delicious! Rice was not a grain most houses had in abundance in Kutch in the past, so the recipe for khichdi was two parts moong daal to one part rice, which made it much more robust, flavorful, and heavy than the khichdi I’ve eaten all my life (equal parts daal and rice). What’s more, having been slow cooked in an earthen pot on the coal choolah (as opposed to pressure cooked on a gas stove), it has the most delectable smoky flavor! The meal was of course, finished with a tall glass of chhaas. Naturally, a meal like that promised – and delivered – a good night’s sleep!

What was most interesting for me was to observe the differences in these three meals I had eaten. The first celebratory lunch was modern, full of new ingredients like capsicum, tomato, groundnut oil, and besan, none of which historically belong to Kutch. The second meal, although largely traditional rural fare, featured a masaaledar cauliflower-and-potato preparation, that would not be found in the rural homes of Kutch more than 30 years ago. And the last of the three meals was the closest to the accounts I’d heard of old-style Kutchi staple food. The three meals together were a perfect representation of the evolution of Kutchi food in recent history, something I will tell you more about in my next few posts!