Meats dominate cuisine in Arunachal Pradesh

Indigenous groups have traditionally relied on cattle, farm, and game for nutrition.

A Monpa woman winnowing maruwa crops in Jang in Arunachal Pradesh. Monpas use maruwa to prepare wheat, beer and other daily food items. | Photo Credit: RITU RAJ KONWAR

The Ziro Festival of Music draws thousands of tourists not just with its gigs but also with its food, which has a cult status among the festival regulars. Here one can get a taste of exotic traditional tribal dishes such as pikey-pila (smoked pork), amin (rice porridge with chicken and bamboo shoot), papuk (banana flower with chicken, red chilli, and fermented bamboo shoot), and fried silkworms and grasshoppers, which are served in shops set up by young entrepreneurs. At the same time, there are the more mundane fried rice, momo, and chowmein, meant to cater to the less adventurous tourists from the rest of India. This time, with the ZFM coinciding with the Dussehra period, the demand for vegetarian food was high and stall-owners had to keep vegetarian versions of meat dishes ready.

Bhoot jolokia is used to make the fiery chutney that accompanies most Arunachali dishes.

In a State like Arunachal Pradesh where indigenous groups have traditionally relied on cattle, farm, and game for nutrition, meats dominate the cuisine. While the dishes of each community vary, they also share similarities and yet remain distinct enough to retain the stamp of the particular tribe. Some common ingredients used in cooking all over Arunachal are the fiery ghost chillies (bhoot jolokia, locally called haathi mircha), bamboo shoot, and local herbs, while the staple is rice. Meat is never shunned unless some taboo related to cultural or religious beliefs is in place.

Sitting inside his general goods store in Itanagar, Gyati Tato, 38, describes in great detail the process of making pikey-pila, which is a signature dish of his Apatani tribe. He made it for himself for the first time when he was studying at Jawaharlal Nehru College in Pasighat. “I missed my food, so I tried to recall what my parents made and recreated it,” he says. Now he has become so adept at preparing the dish that his wife, Nanya, lets him take centre stage when it comes to cooking it and explaining the process.

Fried grasshoppers and silkworm on offer at a ZFM stall. | Photo Credit: Ranju Dodum

The main ingredient is hulyi or pork fat which, Tato specifies, has been smoked for preferably two years. The second ingredient is bamboo shoot. The third ingredient and pièce de resistance is pila, an alkaline concoction made by burning the stem of banana plants (or any other suitable replacement) and reducing it to ash, which is then mixed with chillies and filtered with water. Pila is used under different names in several dishes from the north-eastern states—its Assamese version is khaar. (When the Apatanis did not have access to rock salt or sea salt from the markets of Assam, pila was used as replacement.) Tato says that any other meat—fish, pork, beef, or mithun—can be added to pikey-pila in the course of cooking. Vegetables are allowed too. Tato prefers mithun skin and/or beef innards for his version.

Making noise

In spite of being a BJP-ruled State, meat consumption has not been an issue in Arunachal since meat is standard fare for all its tribal groups. In July 2022, the executive magistrate of Naharlagun, a town close to the State capital and administered as part of the Itanagar Capital Complex, issued an order directing restaurants within its jurisdiction to remove the word “beef” from their signboards.

Arunachali women preparing their traditional rice beer at the celebration of Statehood Day of Arunachal Pradesh in Itanagar in 2014. | Photo Credit: RITU RAJ KONWAR

The order read: “Such open display of the word ‘beef’ on the signboards of such hotels and restaurants may hurt the sentiments of some sections of the community, and may create animosity between different groups.” The restaurants were given less than a week’s time to oblige, failing which they were to be penalised. Following a general backlash and criticism on social media by citizens and political parties who alleged that the diktat was a sign of the right wing’s growing influence in the region, the order was retracted.

There are plenty of “beef hotels” in Itanagar and its suburbs that are run exclusively by migrant Muslim communities from Assam, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh. Most of the cows come from Assam, where the Assam Cattle Preservation Act, 2021, banning beef consumption in the State, prevails. While the Act was implemented last year, meat prices started soaring in neighbouring Arunachal till the Assam government created rules to facilitate cattle transport to other States through a system of permits.

Riyan Ahmed is in Itanagar’s beef trade. He says that each week, about 10 cows are brought from Assam to the Itanagar area. Depending on the size of the cow, each can fetch anything between Rs.10,000 to Rs.20,000, Ahmed says.

Illegal hunts

However, the meat that is considered a delicacy in Arunachal comes from the mithun or gayal. A large domesticated bovine species found all over the north-eastern region, the mithun is a marker of status for most tribal groups. Marriages are solemnised with an exchange of mithun, which are reared chiefly for meat. They are usually allowed to graze freely till they are slaughtered for rituals and ceremonies.

A mithun being worshipped by the Nyshis of Arunachal Pradesh during Nyokom festival celebrations. | Photo Credit: RITU RAJ KONWAR

But the mithun is also counted among the rare and endangered bovine species of India. This contradiction gives rise to occasional conflicts between conservationists and traditionalists that usually stay unresolved. In recent times, the younger generation, especially those in urban areas, has been expressing its disapproval of the large-scale culling of mithun during religious and social ceremonies. In some communities, 15-20 mithuns might be slaughtered in a single day for a wedding.

Then there is wildlife meat, which is sold illegally. Several tribal communities, especially those inhabiting the remote parts of the State, consume and sell seasonal wildlife meat. A report in The Arunachal Times from November 2020 informs that 30 freshly killed emerald doves, barking deer, and wild pig meats were seized from a market in Itanagar during an unannounced raid by a team of the Lobi Wildlife Range forest officials. In December 2020, the All Arunachal Pradesh Students’ Union (AAPSU) demanded that the State government take measures to stop illegal hunting and selling of wild animals and birds in the markets as well as impose a ban on the selling and slaughtering of mithun, except for customary purposes. Then, in May 2022, the Upper Subansiri district administration banned the sale of mithun meat in the open market on the basis of a memorandum seeking a prohibition on the killing of mithun because they are endangered.

Exotic wines

Meat dishes go well with alcohol, which is sold freely in Arunachal although it is banned in some other north-eastern States like Manipur, Mizoram, and Nagaland. Individual tribal groups have their special brews, which are mostly made from rice and millet (one variety called zu, made by the Wancho and Nocte tribes, comes from tapioca). Apong, a rice beer, and marua, a millet beer, are an integral part of Arunachali feasts. The Monpa, Shertukpen, and other tribes living in the high-altitude Tawang and West Kameng districts prefer chhang (made from rice or finger millet) and ara (made from barley, rice, maize, millet, or wheat).

Going strong: A bottle of Naara-Aaba, branded as the first ever organic Kiwi wine in India.

Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL) is also available all over Arunachal. As in Manipur, women’s groups of Arunachal have usually led campaigns against illegal IMFL. Miao Singpho Ramma Hpung and Singpho Women Organisation of Changlang district are two such organisations—recently, they commended the police when it raided several small shops in Miao town that were selling IMFL illegally. In areas dominated by the Adi tribe, Women Against Social Evils are up against the growing substance abuse among the younger generation.

One of the charms of ZFM is kiwi wine, which is brewed and bottled in Ziro. Naara-Aaba, branded as the first ever organic Kiwi wine in India, was launched in 2017. It comes from Hong village near Ziro, inhabited by the Apatanis, who are actively involved in the production. These days, they are also into pear and peach wines. Naara-Aaba’s success has led to the mushrooming of small wineries in the Ziro Valley and people making kiwi wine at home. Naara-Aaba’s website says that the winery is “a gentle wake-up call [to the villagers] to learn new and modern ways to utilise their vast lands”.

Ranju Dodum is an Itanagar-based journalist and blogger writing about the north-eastern region.

The Crux

• In a State like Arunachal Pradesh where indigenous groups have traditionally relied on cattle, farm, and game for nutrition, meats dominate the cuisine
• There are plenty of “beef hotels” in Itanagar and its suburb
• The meat that is considered a delicacy in Arunachal comes from the mithun or gayal
• Several tribal communities, especially those inhabiting the remote parts of the State, consume and sell seasonal wildlife meat
• Meat dishes go well with alcohol, which is sold freely in Arunachal although it is banned in some other north-eastern States like Manipur, Mizoram, and Nagaland
• One of the charms of ZFM is kiwi wine, which is brewed and bottled in Ziro