Dial Muktieh is bringing back the Bhoi food she grew up with at her tea-shop-turned-café.
At the fireplace in Khweng’s Mei-Ramew Café, a row of smoked fish, tomatoes, and red chillies skewered on bamboo sticks are stretched out along the kitchen hearth. Here, Dial Muktieh—the café’s owner and chief cook—is at ease. From chopping tomatoes without looking down, to boiling chicken broth, there are about ten things she is doing simultaneously. And yet, there is no rush. “Everything takes its own time,” she says.
Off National Highway 37 that connects Shillong to the neighbouring states, you can spot Mei-Ramew Café from a distance, nestled away from the bustling market of Bhoirymbong. On both sides of the café are long lines of parked cars that have transported hungry families from Shillong to the eatery.
I share a table with a couple and their young son who had travelled from Shillong to eat at the café. The husband told me he grew up in Bhoi and that their family no longer eats the dishes he ate during his childhood; they come to Mei-Ramew so his wife and son can familiarise themselves with these flavours fundamental to Bhoi cuisine—at least as he remembers them.
I had visited the café once before, just at the beginning of winter when the rice fields were lush green. This time around, my visit is at the end of winter, with spring just at the doorstep. Tiny purple blooms carpet the entire rice field, across which sits the café, opened in 2019.
A black chalkboard lists various food items, many of which I’ve never heard of, some perhaps long forgotten. For instance, my only memory of one of the dishes—yam cooked with dried fish—was of how my grandmother prepared it, from when I was a teenager. I stood staring at the chalkboard, trying to remember what it tasted like. The menu at Mei-Ramew Café changes from season to season, depending on the ingredients available.
Kong Dial (‘Kong’ is a respectful address for women elders in Khasi) takes me to the café’s recently extended kitchen. With more of her family now working in the café, they needed more space to cook. Now, on any given day, one might find five of her family members navigating the expanded kitchen with practised ease, a certain deftness in their movements.
My only memory of one of the dishes—yam cooked with dried fish—was of how my grandmother prepared it, from when I was a teenager. I stood staring at the chalkboard, trying to remember what it tasted like.
Inside Kong Dial’s bamboo-thatched kitchen, it feels like you’re travelling back in time. Your senses are introduced to familiar aromas—of garlicky mustard and hickory smoke—from so long ago that they almost feel novel. The scent of rice cooking in bamboo tubes made my mouth water from its pungency. Green vegetables stewing, meat slow-cooking, and fish frying bring the small space of the café alive with dancing smells. Almost all of the dishes are slow-cooked in the wooden fireplace.
Kong Dial reveals that the café currently serves a special monsoon menu of delicacies made using ingredients that distinctly capture the earthy smells and flavours of the season. Among patrons’ favourites are crab foraged from nearby paddy fields, and mushroom rice made with wild fungi that thrives in the rain.
In Ri Bhoi district, Khweng has the highest agrobiodiversity of cultivated and wild plants—319 in particular. One can still find ‘traditional crops’ such as the khliang syiar (Centella asiatica), roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa), and jatira (Oenanthe javanica) growing wildly amongst the rice fields and home gardens of Bhoi. The café serves bamboo shoot preparations and ktung (various fermented dried fish), different types of rice, salads, and meat dishes too—foods considered to be staples in Bhoi.
But along with these, Kong Dial makes sure to incorporate micro-nutrient-rich wild plants like nettle, sow thistle, and fish mint which have been found to have medicinal properties. Ñiangming leaves, when eaten raw, alleviate toothaches, shares Kong Dial as she neatly arranges them in a small basket called shang. In most eateries, these wild edibles are rarely served alongside the dishes. “Actually I’m not so sure if most Bhoi households still eat them either,” she tells me.
Back in 2013, Kong Dial had opened a small tea shop by the roadside in Khweng. It served what we refer to as ‘ja bad sha’, which means ‘rice and tea’. Found widely along highways in nearly every village and town in Meghalaya, these local eateries serve meals of rice and meat curries with stir-fried vegetables, finished with a warm cup of light black tea (sha saw).
Kong Dials’s approach to serving food evolved significantly after having attended cooking and training workshops by North East Society for Agroecology Support (NESFAS), a Shillong-based organisation preserving Meghalaya’s agrodiversity. NESFAS first proposed the idea of developing eateries focused on bringing traditional foods—such as foraged foods—and ways of eating back to regular Meghalayan diets. It is in collaboration with local food entrepreneurs such as Kong Dial that this initiative became a reality. “These workshops taught me how to pair dishes and use different ingredients to make a balanced meal,” she says. While earlier she might have served dishes like bamboo shoot curry as is, she now pairs it with a wild leafy soup, which makes the meal more nutritious and the flavours more balanced.
But it was really her grandmother who taught her most of what she knows about cooking—“Meieid jong ngi hi ba pynhikai,” recalls Kong Dial —from foraging to stewing curries and mixing salads. When her meieid had started losing her eyesight, she would sit in the corner of the kitchen and give instructions on how to wash vegetables, recommend ingredients, and narrate recipes step by step. Kong Dial tells me that her meieid was a popular cook in the village. It’s hard to miss the warmth of her tone as she remembers her childhood with her grandmother.
“After all the chores were done, meieid would take us on walks to forage wild edibles, just before sunset so the leaves remain fresh for the morning,” says Kong Dial. Under her grandmother’s care, she was responsible for cooking dinner for the family after attending school in the morning. “I was also in charge of packing lunches for my uncles before they set out early to work in the fields,” she adds.
“After all the chores were done, meieid would take us on walks to forage wild edibles, just before sunset so the leaves remain fresh for the morning,” says Kong Dial.
At the crack of dawn, she would wrap dried fish, bamboo tubes, rice, and side dishes in leaves. Usually, farmers from the village would cook rice and dried fish inside bamboo tubes over fire in the fields, so they could relish a piping hot lunch every day.
I ask Kong Dial if she had always served these dishes, before her shop transformed into Mei-Ramew Café. “Even back when it was just a village tea shop, we used the vegetables grown in the village and our own vegetables,” she says. She also used to serve a variety of snacks made with refined flour, which was more typical of tea stalls, as that’s what customers generally liked to eat. “[In the recent past], people have not been eating in a balanced way. Even at home, people ate only rice, potatoes, dal, and meat. More importantly, they weren’t eating locally grown foods, but that’s slowly starting to change again,” shares Badarishisha Nongkynrih, Lead Associate of Food Services and Nutrition at NESFAS.
In Shillong, throughout my childhood, I’ve witnessed how our eating habits have evolved over time. While rice, potatoes, fermented fish, and bamboo remain staples across Meghalaya’s tribes, I’ve noticed subtle shifts in our culinary landscape. It’s now rare to see someone eating raw leafy greens in Shillong’s cafés or restaurants. Even in my own home, I admittedly used to steer clear of anything bitter, such as wild edibles (jhur kthang). It’s only recently that I’ve begun incorporating these native plants—from my mother’s home garden—into my diet.
Households in Khasi, Bhoi, and Jaiñtia districts are slowly reintroducing traditionally eaten raw leafy vegetables (jhur bam im) into their meals as side dishes. People in the village are slowly going back to traditional forms of home-cooked food—typically made without oil, using local greens and ingredients, and by boiling meat or dried fish to make thick soups. The food at Mei-Ramew Café fittingly embodies this change.
At Mei-Ramew Café, the meals are served in a pdung—a basket plate propped with little ceramic bowls containing a range of items. While at first, customers visiting the tea shop had the liberty to choose, Kong Dial realised that most of them enjoyed tasting every item at Mei-Ramew Café. There was a shift in mindsets about how food was served: one can now sample all of the dishes available in a rich, nutritious meal replete with a bounty of diverse vegetables and cooked using a variety of techniques. Foraged fish—fried, in curries, or stewed—is a staple in the pdung.
“There’s nothing like the taste of freshly foraged fish—try!” exclaims Kong Dial as I sampled them. Kong Dial loves to eat the small fish, doh shalynnai, fried until it is crispy and golden-brown. I was struck by its distinct earthy flavour—a taste that is hard to come by in regular fish markets. It was as if I could taste the paddy fields they came from. Doh um, or paddy fish, can be prepared in many ways: one can fry the fish, which highlights their natural unique flavour, or make doh byrthi by cooking them in a numbing colocasia curry, Kong Dial shares with me.
I was struck by its distinct earthy flavour—a taste that is hard to come by in regular fish markets. It was as if I could taste the paddy fields they came from.
The ceramic bowls on the periphery of the pdung feature the various cooked dishes: chicken soup, roasted pork, vegetables seasoned with white sesame seeds, and more. In the centre of the plate lies the basket of foraged greens. Ñiangming leaves and kynbat maloi—rarely found in the local markets—are some that Kong Dial serves.
These names sound foreign to me, and according to Bhogtoram Mawroh, a senior researcher at NESFAS, these are labelled as NUS (Neglected and Underutilised Species). Due to a dwindling awareness of these plants, and inadequate attention from farmers, consumers, and policy-makers, these species have evaded markets and value chains.
Having grown up in a changing Meghalaya, it is no surprise that certain varieties of wild and green vegetables are marginalised. Our preferences have undoubtedly shifted and, with it, our indigenous food practices have transformed to incorporate more popular ways of eating. I often find myself caught between nostalgia for traditional flavours and the realities of our changing cities.
In the face of this change, Mei-Ramew Café exemplifies indigenous resilience and adaptive wisdom. The techniques practised by the café and Kong Dial are deeply rooted in the local biodiversity and seasonal rhythms that have allowed communities to thrive for generations. As communities go back to eating locally, keeping in mind the diversity of their fields and forests, efforts like those of Mei-Ramew Café are as important as ever.
Nidaphi Hynniewta is a freelance writer with an inclination for art and culture who also organises events in Shillong. In her spare time, she experiments with photography and studies folklore.
Inside My Kitchen
Every kitchen has a unique story to tell. Attempting to capture some of these stories from across India, Inside My Kitchen is a series that examines the relationship between the kitchen and the people who inhabit it.
Login with Google