Mandua Roti
Madua ki roti
Finger millet ground at the water mill below the village, kneaded warm, slapped onto the iron tawa. Nutty, dense, faintly sweet. It carries you up a hill.
Eleven metres
from soil to pot.
Rasoi — the room where the fire never fully goes out
The kitchen
There is no menu because there is no choice.
Kamla cooks what the terrace gave that week. In February that means mustard greens, radish and whatever is left in the potato store. In July it means beans, pumpkin, cucumber and an overwhelming quantity of spinach. In October it means everything at once, because everything ripens at once.
The kitchen has a gas ring. Nobody uses it. Everything comes off a mud chulha fed with fallen pine and oak collected from the forest above the house — which is legal here, under village forest rights, and which is why the dal tastes of woodsmoke and cannot be reproduced on an induction hob in Gurgaon. Several guests have tried. All have reported failure.
The kitchen door does not close. If you want to know what is in the pot, lift the lid. If you want to learn, stand there long enough and the tongs will be put in your hand, usually on the second day, without any conversation about whether you would like that to happen.
0
Soil to pot The distance from the vegetable terrace to the kitchen door0
Items bought in Salt, sugar, tea, oil. Almost nothing else0
Bhatt ki churkani How long the black soybean simmers before it is right0
Meals a day Plus tea, six or seven times, unrequestedThe dishes
What Kumaon actually eats
Not the version served in hill-station restaurants. This is what is cooked in houses on this ridge, most days, for the people who live in them.
Bhatt Ki Churkani
Bhatt ki churkani
Black soybean roasted, ground, then slow-simmered for two hours with jakhya and local garlic until it turns dark and glossy. The dish people write to us about after they leave.
Aloo Ke Gutke
Aalu ke gutke
Hill potatoes — small, waxy, grown at this altitude — boiled, cubed and tossed in mustard oil with red chilli and coriander seed. Eaten with bhang ki chutney.
Jhangora Ki Kheer
Jhangore ki kheer
Barnyard millet cooked down in our own milk for an hour and a half, with jaggery instead of sugar. Served in a steel bowl, still steaming.
Fresh Milk
Dudh
Two cows, Gauri and Sheela. Milked at 5.30 am and again at 5.30 pm. If you want to learn how, be in the shed at dawn.
Organic Vegetables
Sabzi
Everything green on your plate was standing in soil that morning — spinach, radish, beans, pumpkin, mustard greens, whatever the terrace is giving that week.
Mountain Honey
Madhu
From ten traditional wall-hive colonies of Apis cerana kept by our neighbour Bhuwan. Dark in autumn, pale and floral after the rhododendron bloom.
Traditional Breakfast
Kalewa
Roti, ghee, seasonal pickle, a boiled egg if you eat them, and tea. Carried out to whichever terrace has the sun.
The fire
Fallen pine,
fallen oak,
and nothing else
Wood collected from the forest above the house under village forest rights — deadfall only, never cut. Pine for heat, oak for the long slow work. The chulha is relit at 5.15 every morning and banked down at nine at night, and in ten years it has gone fully cold exactly twice, both times because somebody was ill.
The day, from the kitchen
Four fires, four meals
05:15
The kettle, and then the cows
Water on before anything else. Kamla goes out to Gauri and Sheela while it boils. The first tea of the day is made with milk that was inside a cow eleven minutes earlier, and you will taste the difference.
- Milking 5.30 am and 5.30 pm
- About seven litres a day
- Surplus goes to the neighbours
08:30
Kalewa
Roti, ghee, seasonal pickle, a boiled egg if you eat them. Carried out to whichever terrace has the sun, which between November and February is the upper one and never the courtyard.
- Roti straight off the tawa
- Malta orange pickle in winter
- Tea, obviously
13:00
The long lunch
The only meal that is ever late, because it depends entirely on when people come back from wherever they went. Dal, rice, a vegetable, roti, and whatever chutney Kamla ground that morning.
- Always vegetarian
- Bhang ki chutney, most days
- Second helpings are assumed
19:00
One table
Everyone eats. Us, you, Bhagwati, and whoever from the lane has turned up. There is no second sitting and no menu card and this is the part of the day that guests write about afterwards.
- Seven o'clock, sharp-ish
- Three dishes plus roti and rice
- Kheer on Sundays and birthdays
The one people write about
The signature
Bhatt ki churkani, and why you cannot make it at home
Black soybean — bhatt — dry-roasted in a kadhai until it cracks and smells like coffee, ground coarse on a stone, then simmered with jakhya, local garlic and a great deal of patience until it turns dark and glossy and thick enough to stand a spoon in. Two hours, minimum. Kamla says two and a half. It is the dish more guests write to us about than any other, and four of them have sent us photographs of their failed attempts.
- Cooking time2 – 2½ hours
- BeanBlack soybean, local
- SpiceJakhya, garlic, chilli
- FatMustard oil, pressed in Berinag
- Served withMandua roti and rice
- Reproducible at homeApparently not
Dietary
What we can and cannot do
Tell us at booking, not on arrival — the shop is fifty-five kilometres away and the terrace grows what it grows.
Straightforward
- Vegetarian — this is the default
- Jain, with notice
- No onion or garlic, with notice
- Gluten-free — mandua and jhangora are naturally so
- Mild for children, always
Possible with notice
- Vegan — hard, because milk and ghee are central, but Kamla manages it
- Low-salt and low-oil, for blood pressure
- Diabetic-friendly, no jaggery
- Nut-free
- Egg on request
Not possible
- Meat or fish — the kitchen has never cooked it
- Alcohol — bring your own, drink it on your terrace
- Anything requiring an ingredient we cannot buy in Berinag
- A separate menu per guest
- Room service
Just ask
- Second helpings — assumed, not requested
- A jar of pickle to take home — yes
- The recipe — yes, and it will not work
- Tea at an unreasonable hour — yes
- To cook something yourself — very much yes
Where it comes from
Six sources, all within four kilometres
This is not a supply chain. It is a set of neighbours.
The terraces
Four of them, below and behind the house. Vegetables, and the mandua that goes to the water mill.
The shed
Gauri and Sheela give about seven litres a day. Milk, curd, ghee, paneer, and the surplus goes down the lane.
The orchard
Apricot, plum, two apple trees, and the walnut in the courtyard that nobody planted deliberately.
Bhuwan's bees
Ten traditional wall-hive colonies of Apis cerana, two houses down. Dark honey in autumn, pale after the buransh.
The Thursday market
Tea from Puran Singh, mustard oil, and the lentils in the months our own run out.
The water mill
Below the village, still turning. Mandua and wheat ground there for about twenty rupees a kilo.
At the table
Six small things
Eat with your right hand if you can
Nobody will mind if you use a spoon and everybody will notice if you try. Kamla will show you how to tear roti properly on the first evening.
Second helpings are assumed
You will be served more without being asked. Saying no once is not sufficient and you should not take offence at the third attempt.
The chutney is hotter than it looks
Bhang ki chutney — hemp seed, not the other thing — is mild. The green chilli one beside it is not. They look identical.
Tell us before you sit down
If something disagrees with you. Halfway through the meal is too late because the pot is already on the table.
Nobody starts before Bhagwati
She is eighty-one and she is served first. This is the only formality in the entire house.
Take a jar
Of pickle, of honey, of the tea. Ask on your last morning and something will be wrapped in newspaper and pressed on you at the car.
07
Dinner is at seven
There is a place at the table. Tell us when you are coming and Kamla will start thinking about what the terrace will be giving that week.