Foraged feasts: India’s ‘Mother Earth’ cafes promote resilient foodways

It’s 2 in the afternoon and Dial Muktieh is rustling up a feast for her customers. River fish cooks in a bamboo hollow as charred skies bring scattered rains outside. A mother digs into a plate of native rice with tham – a condiment prepared with crabs found in the rice paddies, fermented fish, and prickly ash from the back garden – while a farmer rests on a low bench and sips a cup of tea with ja shulia, sticky rice cooked in a bottle gourd and served wrapped in a green leaf.

Welcome to Mei-Ramew Cafe. 

Here, in a small village in India’s northeastern state of Meghalaya, Kong Dial meaning “sister” in the local Khasi language – serves the native food of the Bhoi people, a subgroup of the Indigenous Khasi people, the state’s largest community.