A jar full of bright red kanji has been the harbinger of spring in my family home. The black carrots — available in the markets in North India for a small window during winters — are cleaned, sliced, and soaked in warm water flavoured with hing (asafoetida), kala namak (black rock salt), and a bit of jaggery. Mustard seed powder is added to kickstart the fermentation process. The mix spends three to four days under the sun (and moon), resulting in a sour and pungent drink. For Holi, my mother used to add vadas made with urad dal to this kanji and store it all in a large earthen pot. The combined fermentation of mustard seeds and urad dal created a strong — mildly offensive even — smell. But after a tiring day of playing Holi, the intoxicating effect of colours and all the fried food, kanji vada felt like a layering of comfort for the stomach; a probiotic that’s good for the gut.

Kanji, in various forms — with black carrots, urad dal vadas, or other vegetables like beetroot, red carrots, potatoes, broad beans, or even turnip — is consumed in Delhi, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and even Jammu & Kashmir. Black carrots, Chef Vanika Chowdhary of the Mumbai-based restaurant Noon tells me, are indigenous to J&K, and the Kashmiri Punjabis make and consume kanji quite frequently — the food cultures overlap in the regions that were once part of undivided Punjab. In some parts of Rajasthan and MP, kanji vada is sold as a street food. With the popularity of kombucha as a good-for-gut, probiotic drink, kanji too has found its spot under the sun and home chefs have started bottling and selling it.

India has had a culture of fermentation that dates back to the Indus Valley Civilisation. The consumption of fermented alcoholic drinks has been documented in the Vedic period. Various millets, grains, vegetables, flowers, fruits, and even meats have been fermented since ages as a mode of preservation, to create more intense flavours, and at times to make them lighter to digest and more gut-friendly. In Ethnic Fermented Foods and Beverages of India: Science, History and Culture, Jyoti Prakash Tamang mentions more than 350 types of region-specific ethnic foods and beverages (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic) produced in India. While we are unsure about the first fermented food/beverage in India, sura and parisrut — made with millets and flowers, respectively — were some of the earliest alcoholic/distilled beverages.

The repertoire of fermented alcoholic beverages in India ranges from chyang/chang (a rice-based drink) of the Himalayas to mahua of central India and toddy (palm wine) and feni (a cashew-based drink) of the coastal regions. However, there is a fair number of non-alcoholic drinks too. In Odisha, kanji is starkly different from its North India counterpart and is made with rice. “Pej, the starchy water from cooked rice, is fermented. This fermented rice water is called torani, which is used to make kanji”, says Chef Alka Jena, who has been creating awareness about Odiya food through her Instagram page and her pop-ups. This fermentation is a three-day process where 50 percent of the fermented rice water is discarded every day and mixed with a fresh batch of pej. “After three days, we add vegetables to it (pumpkin, radish, taro), and drink it or have it with rice. The starchy water gives kanji volume. We also add a tadka of panch phoron (Odiya/Bengali five spice), curry leaves, and garlic”, she says.

Mandia ghol, another fermented drink, is popular among the Adivasi communities as well as coastal regions of Odisha. Ragi or finger millet is cooked with water in the proportion of 1:5, and then left outside overnight to ferment. This fermented ragi called mandia jau is added to torani to make mandia ghol. Jena also adds chopped onions, green chillies, and lime to it to make it more flavourful. In Ethnic Fermented Foods and Beverages of India, Annapure et.al. write about ambil, a traditional fermented beverage in Maharashtra made with jowar or sorghum. Buttermilk forms the base of this drink, which is made by cooking jowar flour in salted water with garlic and cumin seeds. This thick, slurry-like mixture is cooled down and topped with buttermilk and coriander.

The culture of fermentation in India is old as well as vast, and a lot of it is still undocumented. While it’s ambitious to aim to cover it all in a five-part series, we aim to take a dip into different kinds of fermented foods and beverages prepared across India and share with our readers what we learn as we research.