A Seat at the Table: An Excerpt from Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada

Food can be so many things – everyday sustenance, the taste of home, fine dining, and in a casteist society, yet another source of discrimination and stigma. Shahu Patole’s groundbreaking 2015 Marathi book Anna He Apoona Brahma, translated by Bhushan Korgaonkar into English as Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada, documents all this and more.

The dominant image of “Indian” cuisine is as heavily influenced by caste and class as any other part of our culture. This is evidenced by the fact that when Patole wrote a column about Dalit food, the food he knew and loved, a few decades ago, no newspaper or magazine was willing to publish it. Luckily for all of us, that was the beginning, not the end, of this book.

The dominance of one narrative around food practices leads to the invisiblising of the variations and differences across communities. In this book, Patole documents the practices of the Mahars and Mangs, breaking the silence around Dalit food and challenging the stigma attached to the processing and the consumption of meat, offal, blood, millets and other foods.. The book is rich with culinary details, tracing the food from how each ingredient is acquired, to how it’s cooked, to the cultural history and emotional memories each dish evokes. It documents how caste, Hindu scripture, and notions of purity and vegetarianism have shaped the food practices of different caste groups. As Patole states in the book, if eating ‘sattvic’ food really made one ‘satshil’ (good-natured), caste and class would not still exist. 

In this excerpt, Patole talks about the importance of Dalit cuisine, and the lived experiences of those who recorded these recipes over the years. This chapter also introduces us to butchering practices for meat, the societal context of these roles, and the culinary applications that arose from them.

The following excerpt has been published with permission from Harper Collins India.

Exploring the diverse food culture of these two castes, Mahar and Mang, while using a regional lens warrants its own independent research. Even in Maharashtra, there are two broad regions, namely Konkan and Ghat. Instead of getting into such divisions, this book reviews the caste-based and regional food cultures mentioned in Marathi Dalit literature. The reason for selecting Dalit autobiographies is simple. These are honest experiences by writers who have lived those lives and had that food. There is (and should be) no room for fictionalization or imagination. It is reliable. Moreover, Dalit literature (whether one really likes it or not) has been read by most Marathi readers. This can be confidently stated because the popular humourist and writer, the iconic P.L. Deshpande, had praised Dalit autobiographies wholeheartedly. Going by the patterns of his followers, mostly comprising Marathi middle-class readers, they must have read or at least skimmed this literature out of curiosity.

Baluta (Daya Pawar), Taral-Antaral (Shankarrao Kharat), Athavaninche Pakshi (P.I. Sonkamble), Katyavarchi Pota (Uttam Bandu Tupe) and Akkarmashi (Sharankumar Limbale): these are the representative Dalit autobiographies from which we have selected the names and references of the food mentioned. Listed below are colloquial names for different body parts of different animals. These are not mere words, but every word encompasses an organ, its taste and its recipe. Some parts change their taste and colour when mixed with other ingredients. When cooked together, they produce a different recipe and a different taste. The following is a description of the parts of various animals or types of meat and how they are cooked. The names have been taken from the representative books mentioned above as well as from the memory of the writer. The interpretation is according to the writer’s recollection. An altered form of these words may be used in different regions but usually the base form remains unchanged.

In a strict literal sense, it means ‘fall’ or ‘fallen’. The corpse of an animal that died naturally was called ‘pad’. Those who did not eat pad referred to it as ‘mati’ (clay, corpse, waste) while those who did, called it ‘bhaji’ (curried dish, edible thing). The term covered all animals associated with agriculture. It was an important source of meat for these two castes.

Animals that were considered sacred when alive, became impure once they died. Only these two castes—Mahar and Mang—could perform the processes for animal disposal. To keep the rest of the village pure, a piece of barren land called hadki-hadawala was reserved near the village just for the use of these castes for this activity.

If any animal died in the farmer’s field or barn, a message was sent across to the disposal experts. If the animal was very heavy, it was carried in a bullock cart, otherwise four people tied its feet to a strong rod and carried it to the hadki-hadawala. Many animals used to fall sick during the monsoon.

The skin of the pad usually belonged to the animal owner. Care was taken to ensure that the knife did not pierce the skin when flaying the carcass: damaged skin had no market value. It was essential to apply salt immediately on the skin, otherwise it started rotting and became useless. It was next sent to the Chambhar (cobbler) or Dhor household for further processing and sale.

The edibility of the meat depended on the time since the death of the animal. Sending a message immediately after an animal died was crucial.

Helya, halya, halgat, mahish, reda, redi, redku, vagar, vishwamitri are various names by which the buffalo is known. The meat of this animal is called helya. Buffaloes have existed in southern India and southern Asia since pre-Vedic times. Approximately 4,000 years ago, humans started taming this animal. In Marathi saints’ literature, the buffalo is called ‘vishwamitri’. In Sanskrit it is called ‘mahas’ and the cow is called ‘maha’.

The term halal came to India with Islam. Castes like Kalal (Hindus) were engaged in slaughtering animals in the pre-Islamic era. Even today, there are Hindu butchers in Maharashtra. They are known as khatik. But meat from Muslim butchers is favoured even by Hindus. After the arrival of Muslims in the south, many Hindu khatiks must have handed over their butchering work to them: a new kind of caste, Mulani, came into being—it comprised Muslim butchers. In some places it has been included in balutedars. There was at least one Mulani household in every village. They would recite Faati (verses) from the Holy Quran before killing animals.

In halal, the animal’s neck is severed in a slow and painful way, unlike the method in which it is severed in a single stroke (jhatka). Halal meat has low blood content, whereas the meat looks bright red when the animal’s neck is severed in a single stroke. The flesh of naturally dead animals also looked red.

There is also a difference in the nomenclature of butchers, depending on which animal they kill. Those who kill goats and sheep are called khatik and those who kill cows, bulls and buffaloes are known as kasai or kasab. In villages with no Mulani, there were others who learnt the halal technique of killing animals.

In the following sections we will look at the terms and nomenclature used for various types of meat and non-vegetarian food. Also interspersed are the recipes and ingredients needed to make those recipes and various anecdotes linked to these meats and various body parts.

It is customary to let the animal drink water before slaughtering it. The animal’s legs are tied and water is poured into its mouth. With water intake, the knife moves swiftly; else the blood will coagulate quickly. This may be the main reason behind offering water. The blood gushes out of the main blood vessel in its neck. This is collected in a large pan or pot. The same method is used for large animals as well as goat and sheep. The collected blood clots in some time, turning black from its original red colour.

Recipe

Ingredients

1. Blood
2. Salt to taste

Method

1. Pour the blood into a heavy-bottomed pot and put on the stove for boiling.
2. Add very little salt as the blood is already salty.
3. When the colour becomes a dark chocolate brown, it is ready. Cooked blood is very thick—thicker than tofu and paneer. Hot rakti tastes delicious when eaten immediately after cooking.

It is a dish prepared from blood. When the cooked blood cools down, these thick chunks are broken and mashed gently by hand.

Ingredients

1. Oil or animal fat
2. Onions, chopped (finely or roughly per taste)
3. Yesur powder
4. Green chilli paste or crushed green chillies or red chilli powder
5. Mashed cooked blood
6. Green coriander leaves, chopped (optional)

Method

1. Place a heavy-bottomed pan or a tava on the fire.
2. Add fat or edible oil.
3. Add chopped onions and fry till brown.
4. Add yesur and mix well. Do not let it darken or burn.
5. Add chillies and mix thoroughly.
6. Immediately after that, before the masala turns dark, add the mashed blood and sauté.
7. Cook for five minutes, garnish with green coriander and serve.

Lakuti can be eaten by itself or along with bhakri or chapati. Food-lovers of all age groups love this dish. Its specialty is that it keeps for longer, because it does not contain water. Adding coriander leaves enhances its taste.

The main disadvantage of lakuti is that it causes temporary constipation, which lasts for a couple of days. Many abusive phrases were prevalent among women using the word rakti and they were mainly addressed to men such as ‘bathes in mud and eats in blood’ or ‘rakti-chatya’ meaning blood-licker.