Journal Entry 5

FORGOTTEN TREES

THE EXCITING LIFE AND UNNOTICED DEATH OF INDIGENOUS FOODS

©2018  Kajsa Alger

Journal 5

I am of concrete and urban sprawl.  The city.  But I am also of fallen leaves and forest bathing, shinrin-yoku.  I am from a supportive, loving household and yet I still fell to addiction and destructiveness at a young age.   It took me many years to come through the rebirth of myself, the riddance of guilt, the acceptance of being both dark and light.

I am from a long, healthy, wonderful marriage, that became unhealthy, broken, and ended ...and then was also reborn into a wonderful different relationship, not marriage, again.  I am tough and strong, like my mother.  I am gentle and self aware, like my father.  I am embracing of childhood and rawness, like my son.  I am loving and sexual and self giving like the woman I'm in love with.  I am guarded and quiet and people are often quick to mislabel me "mysterious", when I am simply feeling alone or sensitive of my surroundings.

I don't want to lose my ethnic sense of being, my being born of city and culture and people.  Of being both un-white and white.  Yet, I want to embrace my wild as well.  Relish in slowness and appreciation of dirt in my hands and between my toes.  Eat wild grasses and soak up the knowledge of the living things around me.  I am a horrible dancer, with no rhythm, but I want to dance by firelight.  Or not-to-dance, as in a singular verb. To be without self-consciousness and simply feel comfort in the beat of the music and electricity in the air.  I want to connect with land and people and tell the stories that I live.

I am hard to know and I am also open and vulnerable.  I am both things, all things, unbranded. 

When I first set out to transcribe my journals and write this story, it was meant to be of others.  Of an indigenous people that I felt a sense of connection to, through food and cooking.  What I realize now, is that it is really a self-realization story.  One of me and the discovery of my own true nature, told through the people and life that I have met along the way.

Journal Entry 4

FORGOTTEN TREES

THE EXCITING LIFE AND UNNOTICED DEATH OF INDIGENOUS FOODS

©2019  Kajsa Alger

Journal 4, butter

Bhimsen has sent me a video.  It's of his sister-in-law, Boimo, churning butter.  In the video, she sits on the floor with an aluminum pot held between her feet, which are outstretched in front of her.  There is a wooden base that holds a wooden churn inside the pot.  Wrapped around the churn is a cord with two handles (similar to a jump rope, if the handles were perpendicular to the rope).  The buffalo milk is first heated and then left for a few days until it ferments to a yogurt.  Then it is cooled and put in the pot.  As Boimo sits, she pulls each handle, alternating sides, so that the churn spins one way and then the other.  In the end, she will have a small amount of butter to use for cooking sauces and curries.  The whey will be kept in the pot and used for drinking.

There is something intrinsically important that I must say as I write this story.  As a Chef, I am driven to dive deeper into these forgotten cultures and unfamiliar foods.  To me, there is a magic and almost spiritual connection to the charm of cooking and using my hands in this way to recreate these foods.  A nostalgia for something that hasn't yet passed, but where I can almost see the passing take place.  I already miss it and it's right in front of me.  It's because I know, as we all know, that all things will eventually modernize and become mechanized in some way.

I've written about it before.  Even in the small villages of Tibet and Nepal, the butter churn has started to be replaced by common household blenders.  There is a part of me that screams and pulls at my insides to not let this happen.  I write the stories and document the recipes because I want to fight to preserve what is so beautiful, the craft handed down, with each shift in generation losing a tiny bit of its essence.  But herein is the underlying problem of this mindset.  I ask Bhimsen, rather ignorantly,  "is it that the young  people aren't interested in the old ways any more, or that it simply isn't taught?  Have they moved away? Do they have other things they'd rather be doing? Are they caught up in computers or technology?"  My questions are many.  He listens and then says to me, "Dearest Kajsa.  Have you ever made butter?  It's fucking hard work."

Of course I have, in fact, made butter.  In posh restaurants where we prided ourselves on the purity of our methods, although used machines.  In my home kitchen where I craved a sense of connection to my ingredients, although made one small jar.  I have never made butter, by hand, in a primitive churn, as a way of my everyday life.  I have never milked a buffalo as a chore and then cultured the cream and churned it and separated the whey so that I can have something to drink later.  For that matter, I have never harvested and carried on my back the grasses or the water that will care for the buffalo.  I may have made butter and prided myself in the time it took me and the care I put into it.  However, I have never woken and thought that it is something I need to do or there will be no butter.  I can go to the store and buy butter.  In that one single moment, Bhim has blown my mind and all blinders are off.

Through my eyes, in this place of comfort and privilege, I have no place mourning the "old ways" that are so magically charming.  The methods, as well as the ingredients, are part of that ever-changing story.  It is hard for me to do it, but from this point forward I realize that I must merely watch and record the changes.  I commit myself to both take note of the beauty in the way that things have been done for centuries,  as well as the relief on someone's face when their life struggles are made tenfold easier.

In our world of factory farming and mass production, it is hard to fathom that someone might embrace modern technology overtaking an age old tradition.  If I think though of how the water pipes saved hours of hard labor and walking each day, or how a blender can transform a difficult task into a quick moments work, for someone who has so much hard work in their life, then it becomes easier to celebrate in the joy of it.  Today I'll make butter.
          

Recipe: Chyang (Himalayan Rice Wine)

Chyang (Himalayan Rice Wine)

4 cups     Jasmine Rice
1 ball      Dry Asian Yeast (called Pab or Chanzi), or substitute Koji
5 cups     Water

Before starting, wash and sterilize a glass or ceramic gallon-sized jar.  Set aside.

Wash and cook your rice as you usually would (water and rice only).

Place a clean garbage bag over a large surface area or table.   When the rice is cooked, spread it out over the bag with a rice paddle until it is one, even, shallow layer.  Let cool to room temperature.

You want the rice slightly warm so that it will activate the yeast, but not hot where it will kill it.

Crush the yeast ball in a mortar and pestal until it is in a fine powder.

Sprinkle the yeast over the rice in an even layer.

Make sure your hands are cleaned well with hot water and soap before starting.  Mash in the yeast with your hands until it is thoroughly mixed in with the rice.

Place the rice mix into the jar and cover with a coffee filter, held in place with a rubberband.  Place in a dark, warmish place for 2-3 days to ferment.  (Hotter weather, less days- Colder weather, more days).  If it starts to look moldy, throw out and start again.  This happened to me my first time making it.

When the rice is ready, it will look almost exactly the same, except for a little more condensation in the jar. Once you see that, it's time to add the water.  Another day or two could mold.

Open it up and pour in 5 cups of cold water.  Stir and place in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day you may pour out and strain the rice wine.  You can re-add more water for another batch, but the wine will be diluted the second time.  When finished, the rice is often used for animal feed, but can also go into a compost.

Journal Entry 3

FORGOTTEN TREES

THE EXCITING LIFE AND UNNOTICED DEATH OF INDIGENOUS FOODS

©2018  Kajsa Alger

Tamang Translation and Cultural Guide: Bhimsen Tamang

Journal 3, lost language

In the Kutch region of Gujarat, India, there is a dialect that is dying out.  After a large earthquake struck a huge population of native speakers, the Kutchi dialect started to disappear.  Over 25,000 lives were lost and of them, the majority were Kutchi speakers.  That is over 150 times the amount of Tamang in Tekampur.  In 2015, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal, killing over 8,000 people.  The Tamang areas were severely affected. When you think that in one fell swoop an entire cultural knowledge, such as language or food, can be eradicated, it truly hits home.  It makes me wonder about all the things that we don’t even know we’re missing.  The things that have already disappeared with a handful of elders and the fading memories of the next generation, growing older themselves.  

The Great Grandmother in Tekampur, Amai Rani Tamang, is almost 100 years old.  She is the oldest person still alive in the village today.  It's said that the whole village here comes from one Great Great Grandfather.  A hunter who traveled from Nagarkot, a large city in Central Nepal once run by Kings,  to Temal, a small rural village now populated almost entirely with Tamang.  I put a note in my notebook to make it to Tekampur while I can still talk to Amai Rani and ask her about the Great Tamang Hunter.  When you think about places like Temal and Tekampur, where so much time is taken carrying water to town (up to 3 or 4 hours per day in water transporting), it's not a far stretch of the imagination to understand why trekking for some tree bark would be easily given up for a container of baking powder.  Now with water pipelines and wells bringing water, life can be easier.  It is all about making life a little bit easier.  

Here's a funny story.  I know an elderly Ukrainian couple.  They moved to the United States later in life.  They couldn't believe that you could go to the store and very easily buy peeled potatoes in cans!  They had been peeling potatoes their whole life.  Even though the canned grocery store version is one of the most unpleasant textures and flavors I've tasted, they were blown away by how easy it was.  They bought load and loads of cans and gave them away for Halloween one year (to many a surprised and disappointed child)!

For those of us who grew up in the western world, where things are relatively easy and supplies are plentiful and convenient, it's easy to forget why people would supposedly throw away their heritage and traditions for cheap and easy alternative options.  We don't have the daily reminder of carrying buckets of water over steep terrain, and we're not peeling endless pounds of potatoes.  Learning to do things for the sake of simply doing them and for the preservation of history, honestly- this is the luxury of a privileged life.  Believe me, I struggle with the guilt of telling this story.  It feels personal and invasive somehow, like telling of another woman's childbirth .  At the same time though, I have a deep love for those foods and ingredients that threaten to silently disappear.  I have an admiration for the people and a connection to them and the ancient history held in their fingertips.  This story is a self-inflicted responsibility you see.  My own bucket of water.  My journals fill with the weight of random facts that I'll try to piece together and carry across the terrain of a translated tale.  So onward we go, back towards the world of Tekampur and the Tamang people.  Tomorrow I make Chyang!

Journal Entry 2

FORGOTTEN TREES

THE EXCITING LIFE AND UNNOTICED DEATH OF INDIGENOUS FOODS

©2018  Kajsa Alger

Tamang Translation and Cultural Guide: Bhimsen Tamang

Journal 2, Tekampur

            Can a tree be sexy?  When the bark shaves off to reveal a golden peach colored flesh that is soft and pliable, I may argue that it’s possible.  When that piece of tree is then carried into a village and chopped finely, placed in a bowl of fresh ground flour and made into a dough where speckles of the color fleck and shimmer on the surface, I would say most likely.  That dough is then made into the perfectly round fried pastry called Sel Roti, a staple of the indigenous Tamang and Nepali diet.  You may wrap it up and eat it alone, or dip into some daal or curry.  The tree gives an element of lightness that make the Sel Roti soft and supple.  You dip the Roti into the curry and take a bite.  Your senses explode with the earthy, exotic spices of an age-old comfort food and you realize that yes, a tree can be sexy.

            It is rough country in Tekampur.  The days of farming or herding are long and physical.  The weather is harsh and there is no hot water in Nepal except for hotels.  The traditional Tamang day starts off with a breakfast of Makai Rhoba.  This is a corn kernel, roasted and popped in a mud pot[1] .  Soybeans are also toasted in the pot and combined with the corn kernels and eaten together with achar and either tea or Chyang.  Chyang is a fermented drink made by the indigenous peoples of Nepal.  You can find it made with corn where there are Tamang, Gurung, and Magar tribes. Some Sherpa, Sunuwar and Rai drink as well, but it is less common to make with corn than rice or barley[2].  A cooked grain is mixed with a dried yeast and wild herb flora called Chanzi[3] and then kept in jars or bamboo barrels wrapped with towels for 6 days.  Afterwards, the jars are filled with water and the strained liquid is the Chyang.  The solid product leftover is used for animal feed. 

And so, the day begins.  For the traditional Tamang, some Makai Rhoba with achar and a bowl of Chyang.  Sel Roti and Tea are taken to the fields or for the work day.  The new generation of younger people in Tekampur, as in the rest of the world, opt for quicker and easier foods in lieu of Makai.  Gurulachhin Tamang is 5 years old.  He eats biscuits and tea for breakfast.  It is faster and tastes better[4].  Sel roti is made less and less in the village because of the time it takes, and someone has introduced baking powder into the markets.  Sel made with Damsing is very rare now. 

   

  

   

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[1] A Mud Pot is a pot that has been coated with mud on the bottom and outside so that after cooking over open fire and flame, it can be washed easily.

[2] Chyang is often made with rice, barley, or millet.  The method is the same but corn is also used by the Tamang.

[3] I have heard both the words Marcha and Murcha used for this as well.  The Tibetans call it Pab.

[4] The original Tamang translation of this was “tasty and quick”.  The biscuits are British biscuits, as in cookies.