When I first trekked to Manang back in 2009, it rained and snowed the whole trip. Cloud hid the mountain. Snow covered the trail. We crawled to Tilicho on the slippery trail with our four legs and crossed Thorungla Pass with poor visibility, heart-piercing cold wind, and knee-deep snow. I enjoyed it then, but every time I remember crossing the pass without proper gears sends chills down my spine. The trip turned wild and adventurous, but definitely not a wise one. This time, the trek to Manang might be less adventurous but a beautiful one: good weather, clear blue sky, food, festival, and the ..read more

Many Nepalis confuse timmur with sichuan pepper and often use the terms alternatively. Timmur and sichuan pepper are cousins, they both have numbing characteristics but have entirely different flavor profiles. There are more varieties around the world. Timmur (Zanthoxylum armatum) is dark brown in color and has a strong citrusy flavor whereas sichuan pepper (Zanthoxylum simulans) is reddish-brown in color and has a flowery herbal flavor. Sichuan pepper generally has a stronger numbing sensation than timmur. Timmur and sichuan pepper have different flavor profile—one is citrusy and other is flo ..read more

One doesn’t have to wait for Maghe Sankranti or Maghi to eat batuk. Here’s how you can make the easy and nutritious dish. This article was originally published in The Kathmandu Post, 28 August 2020 Prashanta Khanal On Maghe Sankranti eve, my mother would make batuk, a ring-shaped deep-fried black lentil fritter, and also boil a variety of tubers such as yam, taro, and sweet potato. We would eat them the following day. People believe that consuming food cooked on Maghe Sankranti day itself is inauspicious. Batuk is a traditional festive delicacy of both the Magar and Khas communities, more ..read more

When is borrowing a recipe a sign of respect and when a form of appropriation? This article was originally published in The Kathmandu Post, 14 August 2020 Prashanta Khanal Last month, I published a recipe of kwati with goat meat in The Kathmandu Post daily that sparked many strong criticisms on social media. Some criticised the dish for adding a non-traditional ingredient to a traditional dish. Some called me out for being a non-indigenous person appropriating a traditional recipe of an indigenous community. Newas cook kwati, a soup made from nine varieties of legumes ..read more

When Lochan Gyawali posted a picture of methi-ko khir in his instragram, I was excited to get the recipe and cook for myself; I didn’t know earlier that khir can be made of fenugreek seeds. I grew up eating khir, mostly prepared during festivals and religious ceremonies, but made from either rice or sabudana (tapioca starch pearls). He was kind enough to share the recipe from his mother. According to him, methi-ko khir was mostly made during the winter for energy in the past. He has seen that a few bahun families make methi-ko khir. He said that he particularly loves this khir and makes it a f ..read more

This article was originally published in The Kathmandu Post, 31 July 2020 Prashanta Khanal After a couple of months of arduous work on paddy fields, Kathmandu’s farmers nourish their body by consuming mixed sprouted legumes soup called ‘Kwati’ on the full moon festival ‘Kwati Punhi’ or ‘Gunhu Punhi’. Newas celebrate the festival towards the end of monsoon. Also known as Janai Purnima, Hindus celebrate the day by tying a sacred thread around their body and wrist. Kwati is prepared from a mixture of nine types of legumes; some say the nine legumes signify the ninth month of Nepal Samba ..read more

This article was originally published in The Kathmandu Post, 24 July 2020 Prashanta Khanal Last month, Bon Appétit, an American food magazine, apologised to its readers and pledged to address issues of cultural appropriation, cultural de-contextualisation, the white gaze, and tokenisation that are present—consciously or unconsciously—in the magazine’s content. The apology was issued after a racially discriminatory image of the magazine’s editor-in-chief surfaced on social media, bringing to the fore such underlying issues. While the magazine has promised to make efforts to be inclusi ..read more

This article was originally published in The Kathmandu Post, 17 July 2020 Prashanta Khanal In December, on the day when the moon is at its fullest, the Newas celebrate Yomari Punhi, essentially a rice harvest festival. Also known as Dhanya Purnima (in Sanskrit), the festival is observed by offering rice to the goddess of grain, ‘Annapurna’, and making a sweet delicacy ‘yomari’—a steamed rice flour dumpling filled with chaku (jaggery taffy) and sesame seeds or with khuwa (evaporated milk solids) and shredded coconut. On this day, families get together to make yomari, and young people go ar ..read more

This article was originally published in The Kathmandu Post, 19 June 2020 In the book ‘Social History of Nepal’, the authors—Tulasi Ram Vaidya, Tri Ratna Manandhar and Shankar Lal Joshi—account that the people who drink alcohol and eat buffalo meat were looked down upon by supposedly higher castes. Because of this culture, some Newas, who were close to Ranas and employed in high post, gave up drinking alcohol and eating buff publicly even though those customs were followed while worshipping ancestral deities. They considered themselves elevated in social status by abhorring those customs ..read more

This article was originally published in The Kathmandu Post, 12 June J 2020 The Limbus, an indigenous people from Nepal’s eastern hills, have interesting and unique food traditions. Wild edible lichen, known as yangben, is the community’s signature speciality. Limbus cook yangben with meat, especially pork, to make a variety of dishes. And one of the most loved delicacies is yangben-faksa, pork with lichen. Another popular dish is blood sausage, known as sargemba or sargyangma, which is made by adding lichen to minced meat or innards. Yangben doesn’t have any flavour or aroma on its own b ..read more