Smoking, Fermenting Are At The Heart of Naga Cuisine

When Chef Joel Basumatari speaks about food, he speaks as someone carrying home with him. “What you have had is ethnic Naga food. It’s a little different from the food you normally have,” he says at the Naga food pop-up at Sheraton Hyderabad Hotel, smiling at the reactions of diners discovering the cuisine for the first time.

Bringing this experience to Hyderabad has been years in the making for him. “We and Sheraton were in talks to bring Naga food and Northeast food to Hyderabad,” he says. “So, that’s why I am so happy and feel blessed that I got this opportunity to get the food out here in Hyderabad and let people experience it.”

Mustard, he explains, is central to that flavour. “We wanted to bring our own mustard in here. So, we got some from Nagaland as well to make the salad with mustard and orange. And also, we have incorporated mustard into the dishes also.” In fact, almost everything diners tasted travelled with him. “We got almost 50 kg of ingredients from Nagaland,” he says about preparing for the four-day buffet.

For Chef Joel, this moment in Hyderabad is part of a longer journey. “I have been in the industry for 20 years,” he says. “Initially, when we started, nobody knew what Northeast food was. In 2012, 2013, down the line, people started to get a little bit aware of the cuisine.” Cooking competitions helped, but what mattered most was staying rooted. “Regional cuisine is something which I really wanted to promote because I didn’t want to do other cuisine. And then I think we are on the right track because 12 years down the line, at least we are getting invitations from 5-star hotels to come and cook our own food.”

He never limits Naga cuisine to a single face or dish. “I wouldn’t say what should be the Naga cuisine, but I would rather say what cuisine we have to… not just Nagaland, but the whole Northeast has to offer. Because we have 8 states, and so many sub-tribes.” Each tribe, he says, “has a distinctive role to play in terms of cuisine development.”

Names on the menu carry meaning too. “We have given a lot of local names to it because we wanted to let people understand what they are eating. That’s why we are giving traditional names also.”

Modern kitchens, however, come with their own challenges. “Our cooking mostly is done in firewood places,” he explains. “But we will have to adapt. As a chef, we have to adapt.” While he can adjust equipment and technique, he refuses to compromise on ingredients. “If we adapt, then we won’t be able to showcase the real identity of the dishes. That’s why we take all the trouble to bring so much of ingredients to Hyderabad.”

Ask him what someone should taste first, and he immediately thinks of home. “Even if we have so many fancy food, but at the end of the day, ghar ka khana. That one, we love it. So the food that we are cooking over here also is ghar ka khana, but at the same time, we are putting a little bit of presentation into it.”

For him, Northeast food can be summed up in a few words: “simple, healthy, organic, no oil, no masala.”

He knows diners notice the tang, the spice, the bitterness of the leaves. That balance defines the cuisine. But bringing those flavours into a luxury setting takes thought. “We have to think of a way of how we can take our own ingredients and put it in a bit of a modern taste,” he says. Visual appeal matters too. “First we look with our eyes, then eat. So, visual appeal is very important.” At Sheraton, he leaned into rustic presentation. “We have served it with banana leaf and then wooden plates. And the presentation was very rustic. We tried our level best with whatever available resources we had.”

Smoking and fermenting are at the heart of the cuisine. “Fermentation and smoking process has been passed down from generation to generation,” he explains. Bringing these traditional methods into a gas-based kitchen is a challenge. “Most of the cooking in traditional homes is in an open fireplace. But we don’t have a fireplace, we have gas. So, we have to improvise. Fire cooking and gas cooking taste very different.”

For him, food is culture. “Cuisine is something which we are known what we eat by the civilization that we have come from,” he reflects. “The food that we are cooking shows the representation of what culture, ethnicity we have.” What matters to him most is purity. “The ingredients are very important to us because it’s all organic, there is no chemical in it. And even today also… we have not used even one drop of oil into our cooking.”

With two decades of experience, mentoring young chefs is close to his heart. “We have an association called Eastern India Culinary Association,” he says. “We are trying to get a lot of chefs who are getting inspired to come and cook also.” His aim is clear: “We will support them and give them guidance… so that they can take our food to a global level.”

When asked to describe his experience of cooking in Hyderabad, he pauses before saying, “Being born and brought up in Nagaland and getting the privilege and the honor to go to different parts of India and cook in all the big hotels, it’s a dream come true for anybody. I’m doing it because I love what I do.”

He hopes diners notice not just the flavours, but the story behind them. “We have a display of all the ingredients so that people… see, feel, touch and then experience the whole Northeast.”

And when he returns home after an event like this, he cooks there too. “Yes. I cook,” he laughs. “I love home-cooked food and it’s incomparable to anything.”