Rovi Chasie
Kohima Town
‘You are what you eat’, has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. If you want to be a Naga, eat Naga food.
It is all very well to wear Naga clothes and ornaments, sing Naga songs and speak in your dialect. But to be a true Naga you need to have Naga blood flowing in your circulatory system. This will only happen if you consume traditional Naga food.
Due to the advent of free trade there has been an invasion of imported food items in our market. Easy to cook, ready to eat tasty snacks with questionable ingredients but with affordable price tags are available off the shelf. This is largely an urban problem but gradually seeping into the rural areas.
Ask any Naga school or college going student what their comfort food is and you will come to know the alarming state of affairs. The time has come for all of us to go on a war footing to make Nagas have Naga food. This may go a long way in solving many of our health and economic ailments.
Naga food is healthy. This is not a tall claim, most of our food items are organic and our local vegetables are medicinal as well. The forest is our herbal garden.
According to Ruair Robertson of Health line, people living in the Blue zones are healthy and live long largely due to their healthy diet.
One huge merit of the Hornbill Festival is that it makes most of us focus on our cultural and traditional heritage which is commendable but being a Naga for only ten days will not work. It may serve as a beginning but should not be the end. Very often we tend to forget the core issues and run after what is trending.
Seriously, Mom! Dad! What’s cooking?
The writer has published two cook books: 1. Dine with Confidence 1997 and 2013; 2. Naga Cuisine 2003. The new and expanded form will be released soon.
