Rediscovering lost flavors: Restaurateurs from Ladakh preserve culinary heritage in a changing world

Succulent, lightly spiced pieces of lamb nestled in long-grain rice bathed in sweet oil arrive in golden bowls. This Yarhandi pulao, pure white and garnished with meat and all the spices. It traveled along the Silk Road and is one of the sweetest gifts the Chinese nobles gave to Ladakh. According to local legend, merchants once smeared the oil on their lips like a salve, as true wealth was measured by how much dripped from your elbows after two bites.

How many generations does it take to forget this delicious dish?

Stonehenge is “just one,” says Ladakh founder Stanzin Tsephel.

During our walk through the Leh market, this hotelier, a passionate advocate of Ladakhi culture, stops to point out the multitude of shops and cafes that have mushroomed in the last decade. “Here you will find momos, noodles, dal chawal and chilli chicken. Is this the food of Ladakh? I would argue otherwise,” he says.

One of the greatest losses of globalization is originality; collateral damage, culture. Since the 2000s, as tourism began to flourish in Ladakh and development entered the conversation, including better roads, sewage systems, and high-altitude passes that now operate year-round, two key ingredients central to India’s diet have become readily available in the union territory: rice and fresh vegetables. Rice and its supply through the Public Distribution System (PDS) scheme has greatly helped the average Ladakhi cook food faster. However, it appears that an entire kitchen was lost in the process.

“This was not the case before,” says Padma Yangchan, whose venture Namza Dining brings traditional Ladakhi dishes to the world’s elite restaurants. As a young girl, she remembers buying a kilo of tomatoes at an alarmingly high price (₹400). “Earlier, families would dry and store seasonally harvested herbs, especially in summer, and keep them during winter months when growing food was difficult and commuting in the Union Territory was difficult. We used to do the same for tubers like carrots, turnips, potatoes and the like,” he says.

While both Padma and Stanzin are excited about the development as it leads to an increase in tourism, an industry they depend on to make a living, there is a loss of the food they grew up eating.

This is why a significant movement has emerged in Ladakh; area chefs, hoteliers and culinary enthusiasts traverse this region’s vast mountains and valleys, scouring phone books to talk to grandmothers, uncles, neighbors and strangers to preserve recipes that once comforted several generations.

Buckwheat, barley, wild garlic, chives, nettle and capers dominate here. In a country where measurements have disappeared and are evaluated by a handful of people, it has been an adventure to document food and present this culture with cutlery in a tangible form to an audience that perceives it as foreign. This is something they each intend to address.

around the fire

“Each of the seven divisions of Ladakh has its own cuisine, which is completely differentiated by each tribe. The staples in the Damascus Valley are completely different from Turtuk, where I come from. We are on the other side of the mighty Karakoram mountain range, which is part of the Greater Gilgit Baltistan belt.” [stretching all the way from Afghanistan to China]says Rashidullah Khan, founder of Virsa Baltistan, a boutique property located in one of India’s last villages before the Pakistan border.

A local pasta in vegetable and broth at The Heritage Kitchen | Photo Credit: Special Editing

After spending years in Japan and Bengaluru, Rashid returned home to Turtuk with the intention of showing people the blessings, people and fresh produce his village has to offer. In the facility where Balti Farm is located, Turtuk women who cook at home prepare a meal full of fresh fruits and vegetables at the hotel for an authentic Balti experience. These include salads, hand-rolled noodle soups. chuffa (dry cottage cheese), buckwheat pancakes and prakuA pasta made with creamy walnut sauce. The meal usually ends with a fruit-based dessert.

If you’re lucky enough, pick apricots or apples from the trees in season as an after-dinner snack. Since Turtuk became part of India only in 1971, after the Indo-Pak war, the women of the village remain the custodians of a cuisine that transcends war and long geographical borders. “I also invite my relatives, many of whom live across the border, for some recipes,” he adds.

Many of chef Jigmet Mingyur’s dishes are influenced by the time he spent cooking in Kathmandu’s Zhichen Bairo Ling monastery, where he served as a monk for two decades.

“I learned at the monastery that the product has to shine,” he says. This ascetic, who gave up his robes to become a cook, searches for herbs in the mountains and hills near his restaurant Tsam Khang in Leh. Hailing from Khemi village in the dune-strewn Nubra Valley (just 30 kilometers from the Siachin Glacier), the Ladakhi chef is an expert at making the hearty churpi, or cheese made from Yak milk. During the winter months, Jigmet does two things: talk to his family about other old recipes and travel to different parts of India for a pop-up.

“Ladakhi food is medicinal. It was created to cure the cold and fill our stomachs on days when there are six hours until the next meal. That’s why you find things like nettles and capers in our kitchen. When I travel to other cities for pop-ups, my boxes are filled with dried fruits, vegetables and herbs. There is something about the air and water of the mountains. Even our turnips are so sweet,” he says.

Women from Turtuk prepare food for Virsa Baltistan’s Balti Farm | Photo Credit: Special Editing

Chef Nilza Wangmo agrees. Nilza, who hails from the Damascus Valley in Ladakh, is accustomed to drying meat from yak and lamb over fire and preserving it for harsh winters.

His eponymous restaurant, located in Alchi, the village where he grew up, serves delicious soups and meat-based dishes. “I learned most of my recipes after helping my mother and grandmother in the kitchen. Serving yak is now banned but the process of curing and drying the meat is quite a challenge. We now serve mutton and lamb. You must try Ladakhi mok-mok [a version similar to the momo] and paba, a doughy multigrain bread served with thangthur, a yogurt made from caper shoots. Interestingly, we throw away the capers,” he says, speaking from Japan, where he is hosting a Ladakhi pop-up.

Stanzin Tsephel, who runs The Heritage Kitchen in Nubra Valley, welcomes us into his family home where the kitchen is the center of the home. “We saved this house from demolition and realized that very few houses now have Ladakhi architecture. How times have changed,” he says, slurping barley noodles with peas and potato chips. Stanzin says that both he and his wife search for family recipes because many people are related to each other in Hunder, where his property is located. “But it’s full of trial and error. Nobody uses measurements in India,” he says, chuckling and complaining at the same time.

Namza’s Padma notes that in remote places like the Zanskar valley, home of snow leopards, measurements are not much of an issue as documentation is lax. “But that’s where the most interesting dishes are found. Here’s what I learned on one of my visits: gyuma Interestingly, it is made from minced sheep and also from blood. At Namza, we serve someone who has no blood because where will we go to look for blood? It will be very barbaric, won’t it? he says.

His favorite story is how he picked up the Yarhandi pulao recipe, which is now on every Ladakhi chef’s menu list. “My neighbor used to make this pulao at home and called it Hor pulao. Hor or Horpa refers to the community originating from Yarkhand but also refers to the region. Imagine going to a fine dining place and asking for this dish,” he says with a chuckle. He then adds, “The food of this region has always been extraordinary. Our aim is to take it to various parts of the world. But for now, we want it to fill every Ladakhi’s plate too.”