My Taste Note of Assam

I just remember my love for Namrup ,a place where I spent more than twelve years and enjoyed the days in the tea gardens and the memory never leaves you alone,you just keep on examining the flashes to recollect the beautiful pals out of them.Running around tea gardens,dhanani pathar,paddy farm,collecting chalta tenga,travelling around Dibrugarh,Tisukiya,Jorhat,Kokrajhar and locations and having local homemade cuisine were the interesting facts of my life,as I used to stay in  a company quarter of tea gardens I could get the chance to travel various areas of assam for tea leaf collection and as a kid I just used to be part of visit the groups who used to go round to tea garden on daily basis.

I remember the picnic on those gardens ,the bamboo is used to cook rice and mutton and other food items like tea,green veggies and pickle and they offered food in local banana leaf.Even we children used to gather in small cottages in side the tea gardens where local made raw mango pickle,chalta pickle ,ginger pickle and other local food used to be shared by my friends.It was wonderful experience of having traditional local meals in the areas too ,I just remember my friends bringing home made pakoda including some gaja during holi festival.

The highlight  was poita bhat or panta bhat (fermented rice), an ideal dish for hot summer months. It involves soaking leftover rice in water and letting it ferment overnight. Green chillies, chopped onions and a drizzle of mustard oil is added to it before serving. The platter was accompanied by thekerar sorbot (mangosteen mojito), a refreshing and delicious welcome drink.

One of the delectable entrées included duck eggs with tora flower, thekera diya maati dal (black lentils with mangosteen), saah diya mangso (mutton with tea liquor), fish with ridge gourd and orange (to be eaten at the end of the meal), and black chana (chickpeas) with banana stem.  

The amazing variety of accompaniments included xaak bhaji (it is customary to eat 101 varieties of greens during Bihu), a khar (alkaline dish) made of lauki (bottle gourd) and lauki leaves, baby potatoes with black sesame, and butter beans and cherry tomato salad. The traditional pitika comprised mashed boiled potatoes and raw mango. The food was served with joha rice, til (sesame) and banana blossom chutney, and roasted tomato and bhoot jolokia chutney.