|
Food of Jammu & Kashmir
The Kashmiris are passionate about their food and known for spicy meat dishes and the delicate flavor of saffron. Meat being the staple, most of the special dishes have mutton as a major ingredient. Nahari, a special breakfast dish, is a stew of trotters and tongue, seasoned with cassia buds, cardamom, sandalwood powder, vetiver roots and dried rose petals. The sheermal bread goes well with this stew. The Wazwan is Kashmir's most formal meal: a ritual serving before the guest of all the food there is in the house. Wazwan, a multi-course meal ( 36 - course served on weddings and special occasions.) in the Kashmiri tradition, is treated with great respect. Its preparation is considered an art. Almost all the dishes are meat-based (lamb, chicken, beef). Wazwan is mostly restricted to the Muslims of Kashmir and they regard it as the pride of their culture and identity. It is popular throughout the country and served internationally too at Kashmiri food festivals  This taste of hospitality must in turn be fully appreciated by the guest, for the wazwan is not a simple meal but a ceremony. Hours of cooking and days of planning go into the making and serving of a wazwan. Normally restricted to occasions of celebration at homes, the wazwan experience includes table settings for groups of four on the floor where choice dish after dish is served, each aromatic with herbs and the fresh produce of the region. Mutton, chicken or fish are of prime importance in Kashmiri meal and everyday cooking often combines vegetable and meat in the same dish. Mutton and turnips, chicken and spinach, fish and lotus root are also very popular combinations. Pure vegetarian dishes include dum-aloo - roasted potatoes in curd-based gravy, and chaman- fried paneer (cottage cheese), in a thick sauce. Non-vegetarian dishes are considered in Kashmir to be a sign of lavish hospitality and at a Wazwan or banquet, not more than one or two vegetarian dishes are served. Sweets do not play an important role in Kashmiri cuisine. Instead Kahva or green tea is used to wash down a meal.  The methi maz, on the other hand, is a superb blend of mild-tasting entrails and strong-flavored fenugreek leaves. Tracing its roots to Kashmir is the ever-popular rogan josh, which is spiced lamb cooked in yogurt and aniseed, a spice not very commonly used in other regional cuisines. While tabak maz is spiced ribs fried to crispiness, for the qorma, a lightly sour creamy dish, shoulder of lamb and tail are cooked in milk and dried apricots, and the yakhni uses curd as the base for its sauce. Rista, the first gravy dish to make its appearance in a wazwan, is a meatball of pounded lamb that is silky in texture. After a whole range of dishes comes the gushtaba, a giant meatball made of the same, pounded meat, cooked in a curd based gravy. A semolina pudding sometimes follows the main courses of the wazwan, but there are not too many sweet dishes in the Kashmiri repertoire. However, a different preparation, served to freshen the mouth after the wazwan, is the gota-a mixture of aniseed, sugar candy, bits of supari, coarsely grated coconut and kernels of muskmelon seeds.
|
Culture & Heritage 
