Cuisines of Bihar

Enjoy the most traditional Bihar Cuisine on your visit to Bihar in India.The Bihar is famous for its varied and distinct cuisine .All the regions have their own cooking styles and tastes.But most people prefer simple food consisting of bhat(Rice),dal(lentils),roti(wheat),vegetables and achar. Uncooked sprouts soaked in water is also consumed with choora bhunja and Makhana.

The famous jhal moori (puffed rice with sprouts,peanuts and green chillies)is a favouite snack in most parts of the state. Khichdi, the broth of rice and lentils, seasoned with spices, and served with thick curd, chutney, pickles, papads, ghee (clarified butter) and chokha (boiled mashed potatoes, seasoned with finely cut onions, green chilies) constitutes the diet for most people of Bihar.

Staple food

As stated earlier, much of the food consumed by people in Bihar is vegetarian and very healthy. The staple food is “bhat, dal, roti, tarkari(vegetables) and achar”, prepared basically from rice, lentils, wheat flour, vegetables, and pickle. They use uncooked sprouts soaked in water and consumed with choora bhunja and Makhana. The famous "jhal moori"(puffed rice with sprouts and many more incredients) is a famous snack. Traditionally, mustard oil and ghee has been the popular cooking medium. "Khichdi", the broth of rice and lentils, seasoned with spices, and served with several accompanying items like thick curd, pickles (more than 5000 varieties of pickles are prepared by women in a year), papads, ghee (clarified butter), chokha (boiled mashed potatoes, seasoned with finely cut onions, green chilies), baigan ka chokha(baked and mashed brinjal with chillies,onion & little mustard oil) and dhaniya ki chatni(Corriander leaves paste, mixed with garlic, tomato n clillies) constitutes the lunch for most people of Bihar on Saturdays.

Rice- Main Course of Food

References to rice abound in a variety of sources. During the days of the Buddha, rice was the staple food. The elite consumed the superior quality of rice while the inferior quality fell to the lot of the poor. At Nalanda, Hiuen Tsang was given mahasali rice to eat. Each grain was as large as a bean, and when cooked, was aromatic, and shining like no other rice.

Centuries later, presenting an account of the different varieties of rice around the Gangetic basin, Abul Fazal said that if a single grain of each kind of rice was collected, they would fill a large vase. The Mughal chronicler described the rice cultivated in Patna as being ‘rare and unequalled in quality’. The shali rice was popular and much in demand in Europe, while Indians preferred the shahpasand and basmati variety of Patna rice.

Bihari cuisine is a melange

Bhat, dal, tarkari and achar (rice, lentil, vegetable and pickle) have been part of Bihari cuisine since the days of yore. With the advent of Jainism and Buddhism, its followers took to a vegetarian diet, while others preferred goat, pig, deer, peacock, etc. In fact offering meat to a guest was as meritorious as performing the dvadasah (twelfth day) sacrifice. Thus slaughterhouses thrived alongside the Jain and Buddhist philosophies of ahimsa (non-violence). A variety of meat was openly sold in the market, and lavishly consumed during festivals. After inviting the Buddha for breakfast (this was also the Buddha’s last breakfast), Chunda, a blacksmith, served him a dish called sukaramaddava, that translates to tender pork. Unlike Mahavira, the Buddha sanctioned fish and flesh as lawful though with some restrictions. Mahayana Buddhism rejected this altogether. The followers of this denomination believed that the sukaramaddava was some aromatic mushroom. Speculations abound about the unusual breakfast that none of the Buddha’s disciples were allowed to consume, and the remains of which were buried.

The Tribal Cuisine

Situated in the southern half of Bihar, Chotanagpur is home to numerous aboriginal tribes that differ from each other in their food habits and cuisine. Their general daily diet consists of boiled cereals, millet and a curry of boiled vegetables or meat, or edible roots and tubers seasoned with salt and chillies. Some of the tribal specialities of Chotanagpur are asur pittha (cake) prepared from the flour of mahua (a tree that yields the hallucinogenic mahua flower), rice, or maize. Similary, asur khichdi is cooked by adding mahua flour when the rice is half cooked. When maize is crushed and cooked like rice, it is called sauria ghata. It takes two days to prepare the korwa lata, which is cooked by mixing the seeds of mahua to sarai (sakhua fruit). Korwa jatangi is another dish for which jatangi is fried, pounded and its oil extracted.