Ferment-nation – Of Axone and Bamboo Shoot

The eight Northeastern states are a treasure trove of fermented foods and beverages. The numerous ethnic tribes in the region have been preserving plant-based foods, meats, fish, and even milk through fermentation, drying, and smoking.

Ferment-nation – Of Axone and Bamboo Shoot

It was over seven years ago when I first got acquainted with the food of the Northeastern states of India. First at an Assamese pop-up hosted by Gitika Saikia in Mumbai, and then in the Northeast itself. I had just landed in Guwahati and we (my travel companions and I) decided to make a quick stop on our way to Sohra (Cherrapunji) for an early dinner. At Mylliem, a small village between Shillong and Sohra, we stopped at a kong shop — quintessential roadside restaurants all over Meghalaya serving local Khasi food. There was no set menu here, we got what was cooked on the day — dal, rice, pork tungrymbai (pork cooked in fermented soybean paste and sesame seeds), tungtap (fermented dry fish chutney), and dohkhlieh (boiled pork salad with ginger and onion) was my first meal in the region.

Tungrymbai or the fermented soya bean is a common ingredient in a large part of Northeast India, including Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland. It’s more commonly known as axone (pronounced “akhuni”), an ingredient that recently received popularity in the mainland thanks to the 2019 Hindi film of the same name. Axone forms the base of many pork and beef dishes in these regions. Soya beans are soaked and boiled until they are soft yet whole. They’re then mashed, wrapped in a banana leaf and placed next to a fire to ferment. The final product has a strong and rich aroma, the very quality that gives it its name — axone translates to “deep aroma”. In cities like Delhi, where a large number of northeasterners migrate to, for education and work, akhuni also becomes a food of conflict due to its special aroma, leading to the othering of the people who eat it. In her paper Eating Akhuni In India published in Farm To Fingers – The Culture and Politics of Food in Contemporary India, anthropologist and author Dolly Kikon writes about the directive issued by the Delhi Police in 2007 called ‘Security Tips for Northeast Students/Visitors in Delhi’. In this guideline, the police advised the Northeast Indian residents living in Delhi to “cook akhuni, bamboo shoot and other smelly dishes without creating a ruckus in the neighbourhood”.

Kikon also mentions a rhyme she often sang as a child, which translated to,

Sema people eat akhuni

Lotha people eat bamboo shoot

Ao people eat anishe

Anishe, like akhuni, is a base ingredient for many dishes of the Ao tribe in Nagaland. It’s made by fermenting and drying the leaves of the Colocasia genus. The leaves are left to turn yellow for a few days, wrapped in banana leaf; they’re then pounded, kept near the fire for a few hours, again wrapped in banana leaf, shaped into flat cakes, and sun-dried. Anishe has a sour taste and is cooked with dry meat. Bamboo shoot too is fermented in various ways to be eaten as pickle or condiment, or used to cook with meat and fish. Another staple, gundruk, is common in Sikkim, especially eaten by the Nepali community living in the region. Gundruk means fermented leaves, usually made with mustard or radish greens and used to make jhol or soup. A similar product is made in Mizoram too where it is called tam-um.

In Ethnic Fermented Foods and Beverages of India, Madhumita Barooah et al. write about namsing/hukoti (also called hentak in Manipur), a fermented product made with small and medium-sized fish. The fish go through a lengthy process of sun-drying/smoking, being turned into powder, turned into a paste along with Colocasia leaves, stuffed inside a bamboo, and left over the fireplace for a couple of months. The final product is used to make chutneys or hukoti mass (a mash made with eggplant). In the aforementioned book, Wahengbam et al. write about a variety of fermented meats and fish made in Manipur — saayung made by boiling pork and fermenting it for days with salt; sathu (also called sa-um in Mizoram) made with pork fat that is fermented and used as taste enhancer. In Mizoram, write K. Thanzami and H. Lalhlenmawia, small crabs are fermented with sesame seeds to make ai-um, which is used to make chutney or added in stews. There is no additional salt added in Mizo cooking, and so adding fermented products make the dish a bit salty as well as enrich it with umami flavour.