Nambie Jessica Marak moved to Chennai for her upper schooling. Hailing from Higher Rangsa, a village within the West Khasi Hills of Meghalaya, she overlooked house meals. Whilst she liked the dosas, idlis and biryanis, she ached for her convenience meals — a rustic hen soup with fiddlehead ferns. Sadly, what she were given within the TN capital used to be simply momos, which didn’t reduce it.
What stricken her extra used to be the belief of the Northeast tradition and meals. In need of to teach her pals in regards to the intricacies of her meals, she seemed for YouTube channels. Discovering that lots of the channels have been in native languages, in 2015, she determined to start out her personal referred to as ‘Consume Your Kappa’ to file Northeastern meals.
Being some of the few meals bloggers from the area on the time, Nambie shot to status, as she gave the audience a glimpse into existence within the hills.
What moves me about Nambie, observing her movies, and later, chatting with her, is her simplicity, authenticity and realness. She takes her audience on a adventure to Higher Rangsa, appearing how they pick out recent greens, culmination, and spices, and prepare dinner them on a fireplace range out of doors their area.
She has over 60,000 fans throughout social media channels.
The recognition of her channel and the authenticity of her meals resulted in a possibility to audition for MasterChef India. Lately, she’s a number of the peak 8 finalists and has stumped the judges and audience along with her leading edge use of Northeastern elements in quite a lot of dishes.
Married to a South Indian, she additionally makes attention-grabbing dishes combining the 2 cuisines.
Any other hat that the 35-year-old proudly wears is that of a instructor. Along side her husband Sunny, she has followed a college in Higher Rangsa, taking duty for the schooling of over 85 kids from their village and the neighbouring ones.
In a dialog with The Higher India, Nambie unpacks the outstanding adventure that took her throughout Shillong, Chennai, Karnataka, and again to her roots.
Taking us to Meghalaya thru her lens
Rising up in Shillong, Nambie’s initiation to the kitchen began moderately younger as her mom inspired the kids to make their very own foods.
“I’ve been cooking for so far as I will bear in mind. My mom labored actually onerous to position meals at the desk. She would weave garments, do embroidery and a few small companies. Whilst she did this to offer us with a just right existence, she would make certain that we cooked our personal foods,” says Nambie.
Even after successful over peak cooks — together with British Chef Marco Pierre White — she says that she’s “no longer so just right at cooking!”
“I like to consume probably the most. I understand how to prepare dinner however what I actually revel in is consuming and discovering new recipes in books and YouTube channels,” she says.
Whilst she calls herself a “rookie prepare dinner”, the root for her stint as a prepare dinner used to be reinforced in class, the place she took house science as an optionally available matter. It used to be reinforced additional when she began dwelling through herself in Chennai, the place she moved for her postgraduate research and labored for a couple of years.
Whilst running as an assistant professor in a faculty, she additionally discovered time for her YouTube movies. She would cross house throughout holidays and shoot movies each unmarried day. Since her village doesn’t have web connectivity, she would edit and add the movies after returning to Chennai.
On her channel, she’s breaking stereotypes about Northeastern delicacies. Other folks regularly assume it’s all about “consuming atypical meals” or “consuming the rest that strikes”, in keeping with her.
A harbinger of hope
Kappa is the cooking methodology utilized by the Garo tribe, to which Nambie belongs, during which meat and greens are cooked the use of liquid alkali (referred to as kalchi in Garo). She calls Kappa “synonymous with Northeastern delicacies”.
In families within the West Khasi Hills, meals is actually easy and made the use of in the neighborhood sourced elements, in most cases from their farms.
“We’re rice eaters and don’t consume breakfast. Our mornings start with some pink or black tea. We consume lunch through 10 am, which supplies the citizens, most commonly farmers, power to paintings right through the day. We now have dinner through 5 pm,” she stocks.
“We consume a large number of meat because it will get very chilly throughout wintry weather. We save our meat and fish through smoking them. A standard meal comprises rice, dal, meat or dried fish, and quite a lot of greens to be had in our yard (root, wild, leafy greens) with a facet of chutney. We additionally dry greens,” she provides.
In her dishes, Nambie heroes elements grown in Meghalaya — like fiddlehead ferns, elephant apple, elephant foot yams, pink yams, Indian sorrel, fish mint leaves, sohiong (blackberry), sohplhang (a root vegetable) and extra.
She makes chutneys the use of elements like brinjal and dry fish, fermented fish chutney, dried roselle with hen pura (rice flour), jadoh (a Khasi rice recipe), pork trotter soup, muskmelon and red meat gravy dish, and a lot more.
Whilst she used to be liked through many, she additionally confronted vicious trolling and hate. Trolls ridiculed her for cooking outdoor, the meals she cooked, or even the truth that she wore slippers.
“There have been some actually harsh feedback. Other folks mentioned such things as “Your meals seems like pet food” and “Why are you dressed in the ones slippers?”. I prepare dinner out of doors as we don’t have electrical energy more often than not at house, and I sought after to turn our environment,” she stocks.
The trolling reached some extent the place she regarded as quitting social media because of the over the top negativity. All she used to be looking to do used to be exhibit her house, atmosphere and meals. Realising that she would let the naysayers win if she gave up, she determined to conquer the dislike through rising a thick pores and skin. She centered at the certain feedback, that have been additionally many in quantity.
“I determined to just accept that there can be negativity and other people looking to pull you down. What issues is that you simply will have to consider in what you do. I didn’t need to let the haters win. What I’m doing is making an attempt to exhibit my delicacies and damage the stereotypes related to it,” she provides.
She overcame the xenophobia and changed into a harbinger for lots of extra YouTubers from the Northeast, which resulted in her cementing a place in MasterChef lately.
Offering a brand new hire of existence to kids
Whilst her YouTube channel used to be flourishing, she needed to transfer again house as her mom used to be sick. In 2019, she packed her luggage and moved to Higher Rangsa along with her toddler daughter. A couple of months later, her husband, additionally a instructor, packed his luggage, surrender his task and adopted go well with.
Being the 2 maximum trained other people in all of the village of 150 other people, they have been quickly offered with a possibility to create trade, when a personal college within the neighbouring village used to be about to close down.
“Ultimate 12 months, the individual operating the college discovered it tough to regulate the college. He deserted the college and the kids and left. The village head got here to us and requested us to lend a hand as it’s the best college for the kids within the neighbourhood,” says Nambie.
Introduced a college on a plate and a possibility to lend a hand villagers, the couple took up the problem. They followed the college and the nineteen scholars on the time.
“Our village sits close to the border, and with deficient roads, commuting to colleges out of doors day-to-day isn’t possible. If this college closes, it’ll disrupt many farmers’ lives. They could want to transfer to Assam, straining sources and dropping their source of revenue. We didn’t need them to fret about the place their youngsters cross to university. We best need them to concentrate on their farms,” explains Nambie.
Prior to now 12 months, the energy of the college has larger from 19 to 85. They do that without cost, best charging a nominal price to pay the opposite lecturers.
Of their spare time, the couple has a tendency to a farm, cultivating lemongrass. They promote lemongrass oil, whilst Nambie pursues her interest for pickling through beginning a pickle industry. She additionally goals of opening a cafe at some point.
What’s extra vital to Nambie — instructing or cooking?
“I’ve at all times been hooked up to meals and I actually revel in being round kids. You be informed one thing new in each instructing and cooking. On a daily basis is a brand new day within the kitchen in addition to the study room. I like it. Why would I make a choice from the 2?” laughs Nambie.
Edited through Pranita Bhat