BHUBANESWAR: Her Santali identity and food habits associated with the tribe were the reasons why Madhusmita Soren Murmu was bullied all through her school life.
At the English-medium school where she studied in Bhadrak, the common taunt that she faced was that her tribe consumed snails, ants and other meat that are usually considered taboo by people in the mainstream.
The remarks, however, made the little girl curious to know more about her community’s food practices. As years passed by, Madhusmita pursued a career in engineering but nurtured a wish to put Santali cuisine on the world map. Today, at the age of 32, she has succeeded.
Madhusmita, a self-taught chef and a tribal food consultant hailing from Rairangpur of Mayurbhanj district is popularising food central to the Santali tribe by fusing it with international cuisine, Italian in particular.
That is not all. She is also working with several chefs, popular restaurants and hotel training institutes to include tribal cuisines in their menus.
Although she wanted to work in this direction since her college days, Madhusmita was able to do so only during the Covid-19 pandemic. The shutdown and lockdowns provided her the scope to research, learn and experiment with her own food. Later, for a year, she visited many Santali villages in her home district to know more about the food practices.
“I come from a conservative family and my parents wanted me to become a government servant after completing my engineering degree. But I wanted to break people’s notion about my community’s food,” said Madhusmita, who instead of choosing a conventional job, began as a food-blogger highlighting Santali cuisine.
Subsequently, her interest shifted to creating fusion tribal food. Prior to Covid, she won a ‘Odisha Home Chef’ contest which gave her the confidence to go ahead with giving a contemporary twist to Santali food while keeping the traditional elements intact.
In 2022, she took part in the MasterChef where her two dishes - Polenta with pan-seared chicken infused with red ant (Kai) chutney and Patla Pitha with Palwa chutney - were a hit among the judges.
While Polenta is an Italian dish traditionally prepared with cornmeal, Madhusmita prepared it with a local variety of red rice and added chicken cooked in Sal leaves (an ingredient central to Mayurbhanj) as a side while serving it with Kai chutney. “Polenta mimics our traditional dish Letto. I just thought of changing the Italian ingredients with local ones,” she said.
Similarly, she served Patla Pitha, an authentic and traditional dish of the Santal community and made during festivals like Sakrat and Parab, to the judges. Made of chicken curry and rice flour, she served the ‘pitha’ with a chutney prepared from dried tamarind leaves powder and local spices.
Although Madhusmita did not make it to the second round, her fusion Santali food fetched her appreciation from various quarters in both Odisha and other states.
“This is when people and institutions related to the food industry began approaching me to show them how to do fusion with tribal food while keeping the authenticity intact,” said the alumnus of CET, Bhubaneswar.
Her fusion menu is an extensive one but some of the hits are mojitos that she prepares from Tang Handi (fermented rice beer), the Santali ‘Pithas’ that Madhusmita makes with sal leaves, her roselle flower sauces and drinks, the red ants which she uses to prepare Kai chutney, sauces, chilli oil, and even vegetable fritters that she prepares from Khesari dal or Grass Pea dal, grown in tribal areas, instead of ‘besan’.