By Sainkupar Syngkli
The Mei-Ramew Café is an indigenous café promoted by the North East Slow Food & Agrobiodiversity Society (NESFAS) that serves local food and encourages innovation in local recipes, with maximum use of locally available ingredients.
Plantina Mujai is a resident of Khweng, which is 5 km from the Bhoirymbong C&RD Block and has been running her own food shop since 1992. Initially, the shop was located at Umdingiang, however, accessibility was an issue. Following the construction of a new road, she shifted her shop to the present location. That did not affect the sale, as people continue to come and taste the traditional cuisine, in particular, the special food items of the Bhoi community.
Mujai is a mother of three sons and seven daughters, and the café is a family business since 1992 where the children and her husband help her with all the work. Her early years were one of struggle – an orphan since childhood, her mother passed away when her younger brother was just two months old. She lived with her grandmother at Syntumaw from the age of 13. It is from her that she learnt how to prepare traditional dishes and collect wild edibles.
Now, 60-year-old, she shared, with a smile that she doesn’t know her exact date of birth.
Mujai is adept at traditional Bhoi community cuisine and has been innovating to add variety to the menu and cater to the demands of her customers.
When she began her food stall 30 years ago, she cooked what she calls ‘market food’, dishes that customers wanted to eat, like white rice, dal, and potato dishes. The ingredients for these dishes were purchased from the market, with no indigenous ones used.
Currently, she uses wild greens, bitter tomato, dried or fermented fish, and many other indigenous ingredients for the recipes. Mujai also resorts to traditional techniques, like cooking in a bamboo tube or the Tyndong, ice cream made of Jajew (Roselle-Begonia spp), tamarind and Soh shang (wild olive or bastard oleaster), among others. To make tapioca (phandieng) tastier, she came up with the idea of a phandieng cake.
Her fame has spread beyond the Bhoi community. She reminisced how she had participated in different festivals and events – the Monolith Festival, Mawphlang, and as a resource person on traditional food where she delivered her speech at NEHU for the second ITM event in 2015, where she was hosted by the Khasi indigenous communities. Over 600 delegates representing indigenous communities, research scholars, youths, UN agencies and donors from 62 countries participated in a conference, a three-day event, which addressed the rights of indigenous peoples.
Mujai said, “I remember the International Foods Festival (IFF) in the year 2015. Over 50,000 people attended the festival, they kept on coming. After a point, we had nothing left to serve by the evening.”
She also served her specially cooked food for guests at Pinewood Hotel twice, in 2015 and 2019.
Praising the NESFAS, she added that they acknowledged her special item in 2013 and helped her café with branding and marketing as Mei Ram-Ew Café, “Before 2013, only a few people knew about the dishes I served, but with their help, my stall has a name, an identity. Mei Ram-Ew refers to Mother Earth.”
Mujai also shared interesting anecdotes about the nutritional value and medical properties of many traditional dishes. Speaking on jamahek (Rhynchotechum ellipticum), she said, “A long time ago, one of my relatives was admitted to a hospital and the doctor said that he needed blood. Because we were poor, we could not afford to buy blood or even pay someone for blood donation. With no other alternative, we returned home.”
“My grandmother told me to give jamahek daily in his food. After a few weeks, he recovered,” she added.
The café owner also told us about the medical properties of Roselle to control blood pressure, the fruit called Soh Syrlei that she prepares as juice – drinking it helps with diabetes. Um Jajew (Roselle) has a high demand, with people ordering in bulk.
Traditional cuisine is a big part of oral culture. Mujai is keeping this alive by training Dial Muktieh, a Khasi woman from Bhoi, on how to prepare and serve the different indigenous dishes, and setting up another Mei Ram-Ew Café in Khweng in 2019. By doing this, she is ensuring that indigenous knowledge is passed on to the next generation. That said, the popularity of the original stall is unbeatable.
Speaking to a few customers shows which stall is faring better. They said, “Old is gold. Kong Dial is new here, but we hope that she will be like our Kong Plantina, whose food is much better.”
Another visitor said, “Whenever we want to taste the traditional food, we come here. We feel that the dishes are natural. The way they’re cooked speaks… perfect in its own way, compared to the biggest hotel in any city.”
A traveller from Bangalore chimed in, adding, “I wish we had this type of food items in our city… I would visit such a space every day to taste original, unadulterated cuisine.”
Mujai had received training from the Meghalaya Basin Development Authority (MBDA) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). They provided support in the form of training and gave them a platform to sell their food, as seen in the 2022 SHG Mela, organised at Bhoirymbong.
Her dishes are cooked in bamboo. Some of her dishes include the special rice (Khaw Lakang), wild edibles like Jatalo, Yam leaves (Wang), Jalympu, and Jakyrweng, including local eel and prawn, along with barbeque fish that come from her own pond.
Keeping in mind the younger generation, her café also offers popsicles in the traditional flavours of roselle and tamarind.
Mujai shared how many of the ingredients learnt from her grandmother are now forgotten.
Her parting words reflected her worldview. “As an old woman now, I have observed how we forget our culture from the way we eat, dress, and talk. In the end, we return to the nest that we call our land. Losing our identity is akin to losing our land. Traditional cuisine is, therefore, one of my identities. I am a citizen of the world and it gives me joy when people from Germany, Spain and other European countries visit my small café. If they enjoy the dishes I prepare, I feel they love my culture too.”