SHAlINI SAKSENA tells you about the best kept secret of North-East's traditonal rice beer
The fourth edition of Rongali Festival held in Guwahati recently was all about art, culture and food, not to mention the variety of rice beers with exotic recipes that the North-east is famous for.
Interestingly, each household has its own rice beer recipe. Hence, the taste varies. “Since each household has its unique recipe, they use different rice as well. So, you will find rice beers that are whitish in colour (it has a slightly ash flavour to it because it is fermented over charcoal) or apple juice colour (it actually tastes like diluted apple juice) or even greenish rice beer,” says Guatam Gogoi who had put up a food stall to showcase the traditional eats of Assam.
As for the beer recipe, he tells you that it is a closely guarded secret that only women know and the reason why only they make it is because folklore has it that rice beer made by men is undrinkable while the one made by women is perfect.
Also, this rice beer is not available in a bottled form and can’t be carried back home. “It is made from fermented rice and the fermentation continues even when the rice beer is ready. In a day or two it goes bad. To be enjoyed it has to be drunk fresh,” Gogoi explains, telling you that it is called beer even though it tastes like wine is because the process of making this is similar to making beer.
Food blogger Mitali, however, is more open with the secret recipe and shares a couple of them. “This rice beer is called Jumai of the Boro region. Here, rice flour that is mixed with 10-12 herbs that have medical properties and are found in our villages. This cookie shaped dough (peetha in local language) has fermenting agents too. Not all know how to make a perfect peetha. We then cook a sticky rice till all the water evaporates and mix the peetha into the rice. This rice mixture is then put into an earthen pot and put in a dark place. Within 10 days, the rice beer is ready and is scoped out using a bamboo sieve,” Mitali says.
Another recipe has been handed down from mother to daughter and made only on special occasions like Bihu and is unique to Ahom community. “In this recipe, the sticky rice is steamed rather than cooked in water. The rest of the recipe is the same as Jumai,” Mitali says.
She tells you that the rice beer available in the market (if one finds it) is diluted with water. “After all, they have to make money and from one bottle of pure rice beer, they may end up making a couple,” Mitali says and makes you taste her mother’s recipe.
A sip of the drink that is served in bell metal and one realises the difference in taste. While both commercial and home rice beers have a wine like taste, it is the punch that is lacking in commercial rice beer.
“A glass or two of pure homemade rice beer will turn even the most seasoned drinker drunk,” Mitali says and tells you that it is an honour if a family offers a glass to a guest. Usually, the rice beer is only for family and relatives.
Tradition also has it that if one is served rice beer with a meal, one can expect that there will be no desert. Probably that is why Assamese people are not known to have a sweet tooth. Also, khar, a typical Assamese dish served with rice, is the first dish to be served. “Khar, is alkaline and doesn’t go with rice beer,” Mitali says.