Timmur: Stories and Flavours from Nepal
Ruth D’souza Prabhu visits Raithaane, a restaurant in the ancient city of Patan, in Nepal, that focuses on the preservation of ethnic Nepali cuisines and traditional ingredients. She meets Prashanta Khanal, author of the book Timmur, and co-founder of the restaurant, who is working to revive techniques and ingredients related to forgotten foods of Nepal.
I came across Raithaane in Patan, when I was researching places to eat a traditional meal in Nepal. Here is a restaurant, co-founded by three friends who bonded over all things food. Of them, I connected with Prashanta Khanal, a writer who explores food cultures and whose work focuses on sustainable cities, urban mobility, and climate change. Prashanta’s food stories in the Kathmandu Post, and his blog The Gundruk that documents Nepali food, became my bedtime reading in the days leading up to our Nepal visit. I was doubly excited because Prashanta’s book Timmur: Stories and Flavours from Nepal was slated for release around the time of my visit.
We were already at the restaurant sipping on uwa raksi (alcohol distilled from naked barley) when Prashanta cycled into the premises. As he took us through the Raithaane menu he explained two reasons this restaurant was opened — the first was to promote ethnic cuisines, and the second, to revive the use of traditional ingredients. Prashanta explained that similar to other ethnic cuisines around the world, where a few dishes become representative of the food of the region, Newa food of Kathmandu Valley had grown to represent Nepal.
“We have more than 100 ethnicities, food cultures and cuisines within Nepal, yet there are no restaurants that represent this, and often Nepali folk themselves don’t know of them. The idea with Raithaane was to introduce Nepalis to their own cuisines,” Khanal adds. A task he has taken forward with his book Timmur.
I was disappointed when Prashanta told me the publication of the book was delayed and I wouldn’t be able to pick a copy that day. But I was in for a happy surprise. As we waited for our order to arrive, Prashanta’s publisher walked into the restaurant with the first author copies in hand! And I had the privilege of going through the book before it officially hit stores.
There is a unique kind of pleasure in having a traditional meal, representative of several ethnicities, while speed-reading through their significance in a hot-off-the-presses book. I bit into Batuk — a ring-shaped, deep-fried snack that is made from a thick batter of black lentil paste and spices. This, Prashanta’s book told me, is the essential cultural food of the Magars. It is one of the key dishes eaten during Maghe Sankranti, one of the largest festivals celebrated by the community. It derives its name from vataka, the name for the dish in the ancient Dravidian language.
I had my copy of the book shipped to me about a month after my trip, and continued to tie together the meal at Raithaane with its cultural and historical significance as documented in the book.
Batuk at Raithaane
Chamre Yangben Phaksa
The title of the book, Timmur, is an ingredient that cuts across all Nepali ethnicities. This pepper, from the same family as the Sichuan pepper, grows wild and has been an essential part of Nepali food for centuries, with its unique pepper and citrus flavours.
The coffee-table book, with excellent illustrations and photographs, documents 125 recipes across the cuisines of the Thakali (originally from Mustang), Newari (Kathmandu Valley), Sherpa, Tamang and Tibetan (Himalayan Frontier region), Rai and Limbu (Nepal’s Eastern hills), Tharu and Maithil (Southern Plains), Magar and Gurung (Gandak region) and food of the Khas (mid-hills of Nepal).
Timmur ra Golbhenda Achaar
Within each segment, the reader is introduced to the cuisine and its cultural and geographic significance. Having fallen in love with the pepper after eating the Timmur ra Golbhenda Achaar (a tomato relish with Timmur), along with pan-roasted black pig (an indigenous variety), I bought some at Asan market in Kathmandu. Prashanta’s recipe helpfully suggests I use a cast iron pan to roast my tomatoes instead of the oven. While I used a mixer to bring this relish together, the original suggestion of a mortar-pestle is the ideal way to go, to ensure the right texture and flavours.
The Waksya, made by the Magar community with sungur (a domestic pig variety) uses the most basic ingredients — yet its flavours are so elegant, my family had me cook it twice within the same week!
Waksya
The book, not only has recipes for, but also places, several dishes we ate during our time in Nepal, into context. The Chamre of the Rai and Limbu community, for example, is a sweet dish from the western hills. But in the eastern region, it is a savoury one made with mustard oil, cumin and fenugreek seeds. The consumption of Yangben, a lichen, probably has its origins in the Chinese Yunnan province and is had only by the Limbus. “It is found in Kathmandu, but almost nobody knows how to harvest or prepare it,” says Khanal. He documents the process in his book.
I was curious about why the Juju Dhau — a thick yoghurt made of buffalo milk, and left to set with a touch of cardamom, is made only in Bhaktapur. The book told me the story of its origin but did not answer the question. Asking Khanal, he said, “Not much research has been done on it but all things point to its origin in Bhaktapur. Additionally, unlike Patan and Kathmandu, Bhaktapur has easy access to a steady supply of fresh buffalo milk, making production easier.”
Reading Timmur is like diving down a rabbit hole of Nepalese ethnic cuisine. Most of the recipes are easily adaptable to the ingredients we have on hand. And if not, are an encouragement to explore the less familiar in our kitchens. In keeping with the trend of cookbooks designed as collector’s editions, Timmur is a hard-bound volume, published by Nepal-based FinePrint Books. It goes the extra mile by using Forest Stewardship Council-certified paper with eco-friendly vegetable inks. The book is a visual delight, with photographs by Nabin Baral and Gagan Thapa bringing the colours of the food to life, almost willing your senses to smell and feel it. It brings to mind books on Nepalese cuisine like that of celebrity chef Santosh Shah’s recent book Ayla: A Feast of Nepali Dishes from Terai but offers a collection of recipes that may never make it to the mainstream.
Timmur: Stories and Flavours from Nepal (published by Fineprint Books) is available in India with Darjeeling Connection and is priced at INR 1600. You can also whatsapp Hamro Kitab Ghar on +91 98830 59670 to order.
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