A woman prepares traditional dishes at a food festival in Guwahati. Picture by UB Photos

So where’s the big money? Get the big cars, the big rallies, the big bosses, the big power stations… the big of everything, and then have everyone believe that that will sell the Northeast to the world, bigtime. Yet while every second person doling out the big idea does his thing, here are a couple of small thoughts on what could be big for the region:

Was at this beautiful place called Laitlyngkot recently. It’s on the way to Dawki, the Indo-Bangladesh border on the Meghalaya side. Apart from the lovely drive through this part of Meghalaya (I prefer Hynniewtrep for a name really, it’s more local and more enchanting), we, all along, gorged on the food. And there's so much of it.

The Khasis have great culinary nomenclature: any form of meat or fish is a doh. So there’s doh syiar (chicken), doh masi (beef), doh kha (fish), and doh sniang (plain simple pork), but those are but the basics.

See what these folks can do with their sniang. They’re wizards, conjuring up an amazing array of dishes that amaze the mind and so soothe the stomach. Doh kynjat (pork foot stew), doh khlieh (pork head salad), doh jem (nicknacks of meat and intestine and liver), doh sniang (plain pork curry), ja-doh (rice cooked in pork blood), doh snam (sausages prepared by pouring pork blood into pork intestine which are then boiled), doh thad, that’s smoked pork (also beef in that form)… Maybe an acquired taste for some, but once you’re there, you’ll love it! And they’re good with their beef too: Beef tongue salad is doh thylliej salad, doh tdong is a beef tail preparation, doh snier is a beef large intestine preparation… Laitlyngkot has it all!!

Shillong now has a range of shops selling local cuisine, and it’s such a blessing. Jadoh is one such at Don Bosco Square and they’re good. Just like Paradise and Delicacy and Khorika and so many others selling Assamese food in Guwahati. We in this city, of course, are blessed with Manipuri Basti to dig into delicious Meitei food, and, of course, there are the Nagas, the city’s latest band of culinary kings — Naga Kitchen, Morung, the list is growing and fast…

There are so many friends who come here and ask for local food. Guwahati is turning into the food capital of the region. And see their clientele: People who have come visiting to the Northeast.

So what’s the point of this piece? Sell the food, folks. It’s one great way of taking our people to the rest of the country and the world. Sarkari South Block mandarins can black list the region as militant-infested, but why aren’t we taking our food out to the world? Isn’t that one great way of telling the world about this place? Dosas and rosogollas have made it, so why won’t teel pithas and doh sniang and pork in bas tenga paani (bamboo-shoot extract) and patot diya maas, the lovely baked fish from the Assamese kitchen? Isn’t it time we had full-fledged north-eastern food courts in Guwahati and in Calcutta and in Delhi and Chennai and Bangalore? Aren’t people from the country flying out to Thailand and Malaysia and Macau all the time sightseeing, shopping and tasting new cuisine? How about a joint food-tourism project for the Northeast to take out our food? Haven’t our people in power heard of food tourism?