The culinary landscape in eastern Uttar Pradesh has changed significantly with Dalits shunning food practices traditionally associated with the underclass
There can be no greater happiness than visiting the countryside these days. Happiness, because Dalits are increasingly exiting markers that were associated with the underclass and, most certainly, the Dalits. Caste in action is seen more clearly in people’s occupation, lifestyle and food habits.
In the ongoing series on Dalits’ emancipation that is taking place in east Uttar Pradesh villages, I will narrate the changing food style. Khir is a food that can be usually designated as a north Indian dessert. I would call it a dessert because it is served after meals. Ingredients in khir include rice, milk, and sugar. Sometimes, dry fruits such as kishmish (raisins) are also used.
Making khir is no rocket science. It is simply rice cooked with sugar and milk replacing water. Circa 1995 in eastern Uttar Pradesh countryside, khir was most certainly an upper caste food. “Khir is a VIP food,” says an elderly villager. “Either during festivals or when a guest came, khir would be served.” The underclass and most certainly Dalits didn’t have the luxury of sugar and milk.
Dalits too had their festivals and Dalits too received guests. But they had to have their own khir. Dalits in east Uttar Pradesh ate bakhir. Indian universities do not know much about caste flavoured food hierarchies; therefore, we have very little literature on bakhir. Do an internet search on khir and bakhir, and you fill find several entries on khir. Dalits’ bakhir finds no mention in the cyber world.
Bakhir has the same ingredients as khir barring milk. The sweetener is not sugar but jaggery, which is a raw version of sugar. Whenever Dalits made bakhir, most often during winters, they used sugarcane juice to make their khir. Sugar juice formed part of farm wages and hence was easily available.
Today, Dalits’ khir, that is bakhir, a low social marker, has disappeared from their menu in the east Uttar Pradesh countryside. If at all they make khir these days, it is khir and not bakhir.
Puris are also a high marker food in the north, so in east Uttar Pradesh. Circa 1975, puris were identified with the upper castes. Usually a puri was cooked in clarified butter but the poor cooked puri in mustard or vegetable oil known as Dalda those days.
Since Dalits too received guests and had their festivals they too would want puris. But howIJ In the first place, wheat was inaccessible to Dalits. Puris are made from wheat flour. Here, let me put a caveat on the question of wheat and Dalits. Some friends who have known east Uttar Pradesh have questioned me about Dalits and their inaccessibility to wheat on the ground that landlords paid in kind to their farm workers and paid what the farm worker harvested. In that case, Dalits did have access to wheat because they harvested wheat as well.
True, Dalits did get wheat as wages, but most often, they used that wheat to buy other essentials — salt, turmeric and red chilli for instance. Other grains like millets were non-exchangeable in the market. Dalits, therefore, used wheat as currency.
Back to the issue of puris, to Dalits those days, clarified butter or mustard/vegetable oil was a luxury that had to be used judicially. Puris are basically round chapati type (but smaller in size), wheat-made pieces that would be dipped in clarified butter or oil that was hot. For this, one needed at least a litre of oil where puris could float while cooking.
The Dalits’ equivalent of puri, however, had to minimise the quantity of oil used. Call it today’s paratha, Dalits would not dip their paratha type stuff called dohati. The dohati was a type of chapati that was large in size. Two such pieces would be pasted one upon another and would be flavoured by a table spoon of oil and cooked on a hot plate (tava) used for making chapatis. Oil would be used on both side to make dohatis. The Dalits’ puri just needed a couple of spoons of oil. In my recent visit, I was told that young Dalit girls no longer know what dohati is and how it was cooked.
Dalits had difficulty in procuring pulses and vegetables. They therefore developed several methods that could be used as substitutes for pulses or vegetables. The most common substitute was a sauce of red chilli with salt. Another substitute was onions with salt. In case of severe scarcity, salt was mixed with water and a roti was broken into pieces and dipped in the water and eaten.
The above food practices had clear Dalit markers. At a Dalit hamlet I visited recently these markers have exited completely and the above food practices have ceased.