Priyadarshinee Shrestha and Roshan Rai explore what making kinema—a fermented staple popular in the Eastern Himalayas—looks like in a rapidly changing world.
During an interview, I asked Roshan Rai and Priyadarshinee Shrestha—editors of the book Farmed Foraged Fermented: Celebrating Food Cultures of the Mountains (2023)—if they had a photograph of kinema curry. Priyadarshinee said I had just missed it, she had eaten it the day before. Roshan laughed and replied that he had eaten it for lunch that very day. “I can still smell it on my fingers,” he said, holding them to his nose, “even after washing them with soap.”
Kinema is steamed and mashed fermented soybean, traditionally mixed with woodash, and wrapped in ghurpis ko paat (Leucosceptrum canum leaf), nebhara (ficus) ko paat or kera ko paat (banana leaf). It is a popular fermented staple, eaten as curry, soup, or a chutney. Though it predominantly comes from eastern Nepal, Darjeeling, and Sikkim, these histories are hard to define within a transboundary landscape.
The communities that make and eat kinema—including Sherpas, Gurungs, Tamangs, Limboos, and Rais— have historically faced prejudice for consuming fermented foods, often dismissed as “rotten”. This applies even today, Roshan asserts. In the mountains, however, fermented foods take on a nuanced role: while still a source of stigma, they are also integral parts of food culture and culinary identity. Priyadarshinee shares, “In the mountains… the lines are very blurry, it isn’t black or white.”
These realities are not often seen in present-day discourses on fermented foods, which tend to focus on gut health and probiotics and follow a language of wellness that is largely decontextualised. But to Priyadarshinee and Roshan, they stand as a testament to traditional knowledge that communities practise and share. One that is older and outside of the extractive ‘Big Food’, where food systems are increasingly corporatised and dominated by reductionist ideas on food.
In kinema, Priyadarshinee and Roshan have tasty and healthy food within their own locale and ownership. It is the embodiment of their ancestors’ wisdom and practice of fermentation that improved the taste and nutrition of food and, in doing so, set the course for their distinct mountain food culture.
Kinema-making processes vary depending on the region and community, using traditional skills passed down through generations by women in the family. In this feature, speaking to two women in their respective neighbourhoods, locally referred to as badis (aunts)—Bimla Gurung from Darjeeling and Maiti Limboo from Gangtok—Roshan and Priyadarshinee explore what the process of making kinema looks like in their neighbourhoods.
“We know with the aroma that comes, that a good batch of kinema is on the way” — Bimla Gurung, a kinema-maker in Darjeeling, tells Roshan Rai
The aroma that kinema emanates generates a wide range of responses amongst people. While its strong pungency deter many, for us, this very same aroma draws us in at a multisensory level.
The first whiff, rich and savoury, hits you as soon as you open the leaf packet. When you feel the soybean’s lyash-lyash—a soft spider web-like stringiness—you know it is good kinema. It did not draw me in at a tender age, but when I was reintroduced to kinema in my early teens at home, I got into it with a gusto.
In Darjeeling, badi’s (aunt) shop at Tallo Bazaar (lower market) sells the best kinema. So claims Anita, who helps with the grocery supplies for my house, and there is no reason to disagree. Also called Gundri Bazaar, this open market space was set up during the establishment of Darjeeling Town in the 19th century, and still remains the most important vegetable and traditional food market space for locals.
Here, Bimla Gurung, a third-generation kinema-maker from the Gurung community, has been making kinema following an age-old process passed down generations. “Our kinema has flavour and consistency due to our slow cooking,” she says.
The process begins with the selection of the best soybeans, which are soaked overnight and boiled till they become a little soft. “We wash [these soybeans] with water from our gagri (copper vessel to store water), slow-cook it on a stove for over six hours in a special dekchi (metal pot), and stir it with a dabilo (wooden ladle),” explains Bimla.
“We [then] pound the soybeans in an imamdista (mortar and pestle) before wrapping them in our bamboo basket and keeping them in our fermentation room bundled with blankets and warm clothes.” Inside the bamboo baskets, they ferment over two days.
During earlier generations, wooden pestles were used as larger quantities of kinema would be made. Bimla’s grandmother, Sukmaya Gurung, used to make it in batches of 15 to 20 kilograms. Only family members are allowed into the fermentation room and when the soybeans were being cooked and smashed. Precautionary measures such as burning chilli would be taken if outsiders made their presence during the kinema-making process. There is a belief that the wrong person or the wrong gaze would spoil kinema.
After Bimla’s grandmother, her phupu (aunt), Pampa Gurung, took over the process of making kinema and selling it, later passing on the knowledge to Bimla. She has stopped selling it from the shop since 2017, but delivers it directly to her regular customers, at rupees 300 a kilogram.
Bimla makes kinema in weekly batches using three kilograms of soybeans which gives her around five kilograms of kinema. “We know with the aroma that comes, that a good batch of kinema is on the way,” she says.
“Kinema is what has helped provide education for my children” — Maiti Limboo, a kinema-maker in Gangtok, tells Priyadarshinee Shrestha
Kinema for me is surely the smell of home and the craving for home-cooked food—when the family gathered for lunch over a weekend and everyone ate together. While visiting other cities, such as Delhi, where there are policed suggestions to avoid cooking strong fermented foods in apartment complexes, it pulls at many strings. There are questions of the need of toning our food cultures down for acceptance in the national capital. For those from the margins, it isn’t just a discussion about food, but a complex issue of ethnic, regional identity within the nation-state.
Even now, when returning from a long trip anywhere outside the state, kinema is the official welcome-back food in my family.
Recently, I have been buying kinema from 70-year-old Maiti Limboo. Belonging to the Limboo community, she occupies a small but prominent floor space right at the entrance of Lal Bazaar, Gangtok’s bustling weekly market for all things local and fresh. For the past 50 years, she has been making kinema as her main source of livelihood.
Maiti opens her shop only on weekends when the footfalls are higher. She keeps a large sackful of kinema in front of her, and a stack of large ficus leaves is on her right. She expertly wraps the kinema in the leaves, securing the parcel with a rubber band before handing it over to the customer.
Maiti, like Bimla, follows a similar process, using a large aluminum vessel for boiling kinema, except that she uses firewood and not a kerosene stove. She lives in Aho village at the outskirts of Gangtok, where firewood is still predominantly used for cooking.
Maiti prefers the slow-cooking method, which allows for larger quantities to be cooked. She makes larger batches of around 15 kilograms during the week, following a process of breaking the soybeans down slightly using a mortar and pestle, wrapping them in leaves, and placing them in a bamboo basket. She learnt this by observing other elderly women in the family. “No one taught me. When I was young, I used to look at how they made it and help them out,” she says.
Sometimes when the leaves are difficult to procure because of the rains, Maiti uses newspapers. It takes around three to four days for the kinema to ferment and be ready for the market. In the winters, it takes a day or two longer due to the dip in temperature.
Maiti buys soybeans at around rupees 110–120 per kilogram from the market. While Roshan and I were sitting at the bazaar, badi sold the kinema mostly in batches of rupees 20. This was purely done by her eyeballing the amount in the leaves; it appeared to be around 50–60 grams.
While she also sells vegetables at the market, it is mainly the income from selling kinema that helped Maiti fund her children’s education. “Kinema gives me the most profit. In fact, kinema is what has helped provide education for my children,” she says.
For kinema-makers like Bimla and Maiti, making and selling fermented foods is a vital means of livelihood. This is true for most rural women in mountainous areas who rely heavily on interconnected relationships and ecologies.
A Frontiers study on Himalayan food systems published in 2026 notes that fermented staples passed down through oral tradition are particularly vulnerable to loss in the absence of structured documentation and community practice. As younger generations move away, the transmission of that knowledge becomes fragile.
The process of fermenting kinema also depends on temperature and altitude, taking anywhere from three to seven days. The higher the altitude, the longer the process. Over the last 25 years, the Himalayas has warmed by approximately 1.5°C—three times faster than the global average. The effects on agriculture and ecosystems are being felt too. A 2025 Springer Nature study on indigenous fermented foods and climate change found that traditional fermentation processes are being disrupted through temperature fluctuations, water scarcity, and soil degradation, further altering microbial activity that makes fermentation possible in the first place.
Moreover, the concern of rising consumption of ultra-processed food has reached the mountains, say Roshan and Priyadarshinee, who are also members of Zero Waste Himalaya, a Darjeeling Himalaya Initiative. Audits by The Himalayan Cleanup since 2018 have consistently exposed this problem, with discarded plastics being the largest contributor to the trash accumulated.
Roshan notes, over 80 percent of plastic waste comes from non-recyclable packaging. In the face of this onslaught, it is increasingly difficult to introduce fermented food to children, who prefer processed food high in salt, sugar, and fat. Roshan and Priyadarshinee say this is resulting in a looming waste crisis and that the mountains are becoming irreversibly scarred.
In the face of such a crisis, they assert that it is our indigenous food systems that are not only nutritious and sustainable, but also offer wellbeing to us and the planet. Are we giving them their due? Will we respond to the pull of the kinema’s strings?
Kinema Curry
Roshan Rai and Priyadarshinee Shrestha
Ingredients
Onion, 1 large
Tomato, 1 large
Garlic, 3 cloves
Dalley Khorsani or green chillies to taste
Mustard oil, 2 tablespoons
Kinema, 50 grams
Salt to taste
Water 350 to 450 ml
What You’ll Need
Kadhai or heavy-bottomed frying pan, wooden spoon or spatula.
Directions
- Begin by peeling and dicing the onion into approximately 1-cm cubes. Next, chop the tomato into roughly 1-cm pieces. Peel the garlic and either slice it into thin slivers or pound it into a coarse paste using a mortar and pestle. Finally, finely chop the Dalley Khorsani or green chillies into small rounds. The seeds are removed for a milder curry.
- Heat the mustard oil in a kadhai over medium heat until it just begins to smoke lightly. Reduce the heat slightly, add the diced onions, and sauté for 5 to 6 minutes, stirring frequently until softened and translucent.
- Add the garlic and chopped chillies. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring continuously, until the garlic is fragrant and no longer smells raw.
- Add the kinema and stir well to coat it in the aromatic oil. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Add the chopped tomatoes and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until they soften completely and begin to break down. Continue frying until the mixture starts sticking lightly to the base of the pan and the oil begins to separate around the edges.
- Add the salt and pour in the water. Stir well, scraping the bottom of the pan to release any caramelised bits. Bring the curry to a gentle boil.
- Reduce the heat to low and simmer uncovered for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the curry thickens to a rich, gravy-like consistency. If it becomes too thick, add a splash of water. If it is still too thin after 15 minutes, continue simmering until it reaches your desired consistency.
- Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed. Serve hot with steamed rice, alongside vegetables and, if desired, a meat dish.
Tips:
- Increase or decrease the quantity of water depending on whether you prefer a thicker or slightly runnier curry.
- Vegetables such as potatoes may be added for a heartier meal, though the traditional preparation is often kept simple to highlight the flavour of the kinema.
Ishani Banerjee is the Culinary Research and Outreach Coordinator at The Locavore. She wants to explore what food means across India’s many contexts while amplifying sustainable food systems.
Roshan P. Rai is a development practitioner with DLR Prerna, Darjeeling-based NGO. He is a member of Integrated Mountain Initiative, a pan – Himalayan civil society collective initiative for recognizing the value of mountain regions and also a core member of Zero Waste Himalaya.
Priyadarshinee Shrestha has been in the conservation sector for the last 25 years, and she led WWF – India’s work in the Sikkim Darjeeling landscape. She currently works with Zero Waste Himalaya that works across the Himalayan region to promote sustainable waste management policies and practices. and is also a member of the Integrated Mountain Initiative.
‘Farmed Foraged and Fermented: Celebrating Food Cultures of the Mountains’ (2023) edited by Roshan Rai and Priyadarshinee Shrestha, features photographs from the Indian Himalayan Photography Contest, organised by the Integrated Mountain Initiative (IMI) and Darjeeling Himalaya Initiative (DHI) in 2021.
Editors: Deepshika Pasupunuri, Oishika Roy, Yamini Vijayan
Copy Editor: Khorshed Deboo
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