Now that everyone has said their piece about the absence of galouti kebab, Awadhi biryani and nihari from the Uttar Pradesh government’s new One District One Cuisine (ODOC) list, let me tell you what is truly missing: purpose and context.
Any cuisine is defined by a region’s geographical and cultural makeup, its terroir, local produce, cooking methods and consumption patterns, and not a quick list of street foods. And for a state as diverse as Uttar Pradesh, spanning Himalayan foothills, rich Terai forest, the Gangetic plain and the Vindhya hills and plateau, the range of cuisines is wide. “A few dishes do not make a ‘cuisine’. The list is a gross misrepresentation,” says Sangeeta Khanna, author of Culinary Culture of Uttar Pradesh (2019).
Much has been made of the absence of Lucknow’s iconic meat specialties. To be honest, I am not worried about the erasure of Lucknow’s culinary legacy. The city has been recognised by Unesco as a Creative City of Gastronomy for its sustainable food culture, traditional culinary heritage, and innovation. People across the country associate the city with kebabs and biryani, and its food has been and continues to be documented as well as enjoyed. It is the erasure of the culinary heritage of other regions that worries me—the regions that haven’t even had a chance to flourish and have forever lived in the shadows of Lucknow.
Gorakhpur, the city in Purvanchal where I grew up, has been assigned litti chokha, garlic mini samosas (samosas with garlic in the potato masala!) and barfi. A true-blue Gorakhpuriya will be more excited by the thought of litti mutton. At Tarkulha Devi temple on the outskirts of the city, mutton cooked in an earthen pot with onions and whole spices is offered as prasad to the deity. Called handiya meat or Tarkulha meat, the dish is also available at the local eateries. It is also famously cooked in Hindu-Kayastha homes on Holi.
Not just meat, even fish is absent from the selection even though the state has an extensive riverine network. “The communities that live along the river belt (mostly Mallahs, the traditional fishing and boating community) eat fish and rice. They don’t have land to grow food, and rivers are the major source of food for them,” says Khanna. This is food that never finds mention in any discourse about the state’s culinary legacy.
Kushinagar, Gautam Buddha’s resting place, gets banana chips. The region is known for banana farming, but to feed into the banana fibre cottage industry. The fruit has not become a part of the culinary practice, and definitely not as chips. Raebareli gets spices, while nobody even bothered checking the local specialty of Gautam Buddh Nagar (Noida and Greater Noida) and Ghaziabad—they get bakery products and soya chaap, respectively. Out of 208 selected dishes, 103 are sweets, and the rest predominantly street foods like samosa, kachori.
The scheme is meant to provide sustainable livelihood opportunities to local confectioners and small entrepreneurs. But, with food being such a core part of identity, wouldn’t it be better to highlight dishes and food practices that have always been overlooked? For me, the biggest loss is seeing my home state’s rich food culture reduced to laddoo, peda and barfi.
Shirin Mehrotra is a Delhi-based food writer and researcher.