This week in Delhi, you can try curry cooked in ash and a GI-tagged wine

December is many things to many people: indulgence, reflection, festivities, take your pick. But for the culture vultures among us, the month is a pilgrimage of art, design, and innovation. Goa, Kochi, Mumbai, Chennai—every city puts its best foot forward at the end of the year. And sorry not sorry, but we’re here to add yet another event to your December calendar. Trust that it will be worth your time. 

‘Journeying Across the Himalayas, Royal Enfield Social Mission’s festival of crafts, culinary practices, and stories from the Himalayan belt, is back for its second annual edition. Held at Delhi’s Travancore Palace from December 4 to December 10, the gathering is hosting over 20 exhibitions and performances, all geared to show you the mountains in a way you have never seen them before. 

Remember when the Raulane Festival went viral and a large part of the internet, embarrassingly, had no idea what it was? Well, events like this hope to bridge that gap. In Echoes of the East, material artist Julie Kagti has curated an interactive exhibition that uncovers the harvest festivals, endangered languages, and draping traditions from the northeast. Meanwhile, monks from Namgyal Monastery in Dharamshala will script a sand mandala live to explore the art form’s Tibetan traditions. 

And it’s not just a feast for your eyes. Food researcher Yash Saxena will acquaint you with the Kargil routes through taste, and chef Anmol Chowdhary will reveal how flavour retains identity in an ever-evolving Kashmir. This is also your chance to experience food by revered chef Prateek Sadhu (of Naar fame) without heading to Kasauli. But a culinary experience that instantly arrested our attention is chef and content creator Avantika Haflongbar’s ‘Memory on a Plate’. On December 6, through a 45-minute interaction, the multi-hyphenate will use plant-based and foraged ingredients to introduce people to Dimasa culture, the Assamese community she belongs to.

In case you’re wondering what that means, we snuck in an early chat with Haflongbar to get you a primer. “Imagine a show-and-tell where I introduce people to our food without romanticising it,” explains the 40-year-old creator. With over 250k Instagram followers, Haflongbar has received one too many comments that exoticise Dimasas. “I don’t want people saying, oh, your life is so beautiful, it’s cute that you live in nature. I just want them to respect it,” she adds. 

The first fix? Well, to create awareness through touch, smell, and delicious nibbles. On the menu for the day you can try judima, a traditional rice wine and the only one with a GI tag from the northeast. There will also be paan-shaped fish mint leaves, perilla seeds, bird’s-eye chilli and gotukola (yes, the Korean anti-ageing elixir) native to the hilly region. A highlight will be the khar, an alkaline that becomes the base of myriad veggie and fish curries for the Dimasas. 

This is also Haflongbar’s way of asserting her identity as independent from a broad-stroke ‘Assamese’ tag. “Others in Assam use the peel of the banana, but my community takes the bark of the banana tree, dries, cleans and burns it to use the ash and water as the khar,” she explains. “This alkaline is very good for your stomach, a healing potion for indigestion.” 

The chef reveals there are roughly two lakh natives from her community, and most live in the Dima Hasao district of Assam and Nagaland. While they follow Hinduism like the rest of their state, Dimasas take pride in animism: the belief that all things, especially nature, deserve respect and care. “I’m one with the environment around me; we have a ritual of praying to the forest before we enter in hopes that it will show us the way,” says Haflongbar. 

It is this spiritual relationship that makes land, and the ingredients it reaps, undeniably political for the chef-creator. A crucial segment of her culinary presentation at the festival will be about the non-consensual encroachment of farmland in Assam. “My husband Daniel and I will discuss how big companies are taking over villagers’ land. To be clear, we are not anti-development, just pro-survival,” adds Haflongbar. “Food is, and always has been, political, and we want the rest of India to know our flavours but also our struggles. One story does not exist without the other.” 

‘Memory on a Plate: A Show and Tell of Dimasa Food Traditions’ will take place at Delhi’s Travancore Palace at 1 pm on December 6. Book tickets to Royal Enfield Social Mission’s mountain festival here