Tripura’s cultural diversity is reflected in the food habits of its people. For example, the government website for Tripura states that in its urban centres, varieties of Chinese dishes are popular, and dishes with rice, fish, chicken, mutton and pork are favoured too.
A forest food festival in Tripura on 10 June offered visitors a chance to try the state’s unique dishes. A story by the Press Trust of India (PTI) published yesterday shared some highlights of the indigenous foods that were available at the festival.
For example, a sticky rice dish flavoured with ginger and ghee called bangoi was for sale. This rice is wrapped in leaves and steamed in cones. Another dish special to the state is Gudok, which is prepared with bamboo shoots. The recipe also calls for berma, a dried and fermented fish, as the main ingredient along with fresh vegetables like beans, potatoes, chillies, and jackfruit seeds. This dish was available on Saturday at the one-day food festival held in the state’s capital, Agartala.
K.S Sethi, who is the Principal Secretary of the Forest Department was quoted by PTI as saying that the department wanted to popularize forest foods among people living in urban areas. In this way, it would also benefit the people living in forest areas by improving their livelihoods.
A huge selection of forest foods was available at the festival, like muya awandru, a rice-based gravy cooked with fermented fish, vegetables, and basil leaves; wahan mosdeng, a Tripuri-style pork chutney; and tohan mosdeng, a chicken chutney spiced with chillies. Other foods like asokja or roasted fish, and chalta salad (elephant apple salad) were also on sale at the festival. Hundreds flocked to the venue to savour such indigenous Tripuri dishes.
Here's a recipe for Wahan Mosdeng:
With inputs from PTI.
