India’s Fifth Taste: From the Kitchen of the Northeast

Unknown to the larger world, the Indian food story has its own fifth taste if one peeps into its Northeastern kitchens. Call it Khaar, Kola-khar, Kharsi, Kharwi, Kalchi, Kangmoi, or Khari — this earthy flavour, made from the ash of banana peel and bark, ensures that dishes cooked with it can’t be pinned down within the four basic human tastes in which we box the Indian food story. It is time, therefore, to amend the story and carve out an Indian food atlas that truly lays its claim to a uniqueness that is as much its own Umami as it is an ancient practice.

Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty is the National Affairs Editor of The Wire, formerly a special correspondent of The Hindu. She receives critical acclaim for her documentation of the Assam Movement in her debut book, Assam: The Accord, The Discord. Sangeeta begins her career at the national news agency United News of India and becomes the first woman from Northeast India to be employed at the agency’s New Delhi headquarters.

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