‘Garh Bhoj’: A social activist’s mission to popularise traditional Uttarakhand foods

Dwarika Prasad Semwal talks about the challenges in helping people develop a taste for traditional Uttarakhandi food while also giving a push to farming of local crops

At the peak of Uttarakhand's statehood movement in the 1990s, the hills would often reverberate with the " Kodo-Jhangora khayenge, Uttarakhand banayenge" slogan, remembers Dwarika Prasad Semwal, a social activist who has pioneered a mission to popularise the State's traditional foods.

The slogan appealed to Mr. Semwal, at the time a teenager helping his father run a small eatery that frequently served savoury local dishes made of ' manduwa' and ' jhangora' (category of millets) grown abundantly in the village.

"Though just 18 or 19 at the time, I had no doubt that the struggle for statehood was a movement for Uttarakhand's separate identity and its traditional foods and dishes were an integral part of it," Mr. Semwal told PTI in an interview.

When Uttarakhand was created in 2000, Mr. Semwal's strong conviction about the delicious taste and high nutritional properties of traditional hill food set him on the mission to popularise a typical Uttarakhandi ' thali' made of delicacies of the mountains named " Garh Bhoj".

The purpose was two-fold — to keep the State's culture alive by helping people develop a taste for traditional Uttarakhandi food and give a push to farming of local crops, especially millet-based produce by creating a market for them.

Twenty-three years on, Mr. Semwal has a sense of achievement as kodo, jhangora, manduwa and dishes made out of these crops, which grow aplenty in the State, are being served to students in government schools across the State at least once a week as part of the mid-day meal.

Garh Bhoj stalls dealing in traditional food items like " mandue ka halwa", " jhangore ki kheer", " swale ki puri", " gahat ka fanu", " gahat ki patungi" and " gahat ki roti" can now be seen in all cultural fairs of Uttarakhand, he said.