Experiences

A lesson in cooking the deliciously simple cuisine of rural Rajasthan

Rajasthani food can be heavy and rich and this is certainly the case when you are eating your way through a fiery Laal Maas (a meat curry in heavy yoghurt sauce, spiced with hot chillies and plenty of garlic), mopped up with liberally buttered roti.

However, beyond the royal and noble households and festive occasions, Rajasthan’s nomads, pilgrims and hunters, perfected cooking nutritious and incredibly tasty foods with few utensils and ingredients. And it is this cuisine that we get to sample and prepare as part of our hands-on cooking experience in Jaipur.

Rajasthan is largely an arid landscape, vegetation is sparse (and often thorny!) so cow and camel dung are collected, shaped into a large patty and left to dry out in the sun. For many people in rural Rajasthan, these “poo-patties” are still the primary fuel source for cooking and heating in village homes.

Depending on time and interest our cooking experience starts with a short visit to the nearby vegetable market. All our included meals at Dera Mandawa incorporate seasonal produce and this is where it is all sourced from. Fruit and vegetables come into the city every day and from the wholesale markets make their way to the local markets throughout the city with vendors stocking only what they envisage that they will sell on that day.

Returning to Dera Mandawa, the cow-poo pattie fire has been lit and as soon as there are hot embers the Batti – balls of dough are buried in the hot embers to cook as our hosts regal us with the tales of life, commerce and the practicalities of cooking sustaining food in this often unforgiving climate.

Once cooked through the ash is wiped from the surface of the Batti bread balls before they are broken in half and smeared with ghee. Traditionally these would be enjoyed piping hot dipped in Dal that has been prepared over the same fire. Skewers of marinated mutton (goat) could also be hung over the coals and basted with ghee as they slowly cooked more up to an hour until the meat is melt in your mouth tender.

While our Batti are in the fire we venture into Dera Mandawa’s rear courtyard which is former days was part of the ‘zenana’ quarters of the house for a hands-on lesson in preparing delicious and simple local home-cooked “curries” and breads from scratch.

Vegetarian and options for those that are coeliac or gluten intolerant group members are easily incorporated into our lesson as we learn to navigate the typical whole and powdered spices used in rural Rajasthani cuisine.

This is undoubtedly one of the many highlights of our stay in Jaipur during the Fabric Food & Fabulous tour.

Discover the simple beauty of Warli Art at a workshop in Mumbai.

India’s art story is as extensive and diverse as the country itself.  

Outside of India, we may be familiar with the refined and intricate Rajput miniature painting style of Rajasthan but across India, the richness of mythology and folklore has inspired a myriad of beautiful and unique tribal art forms.

While visiting Mumbai, you can discover Maharastra’s indigenous tribal art, Warli, that dates to 3000BC. Using the geometric vocabulary of a circle, triangle and a square, Warli is beautifully simple in its depiction of human life and indigenous customs & traditions.

Simple and Accessible to Non-Artists

Given this simplicity, it is an accessible art form for those who consider themselves as ‘non’ artists This is something that our good friend creative & sustainable tourism entrepreneur and passionate Mumbaiker Harshvardhan Singh Tanvar is hoping will work in Warli’s favour.

Like many tribal art forms worldwide, Warli is threatened by the progresses of modern life and the transformative effect it is having on traditional cultures.

Traditionally Warli art was painted by women on to the walls of huts contructed with branches, earth and cow dung. This provided the often red ochre background with the white paint created via a mixture of rice paste and gum. Bamboo sticks were then chewed to create a rudimentary paint brush. Paintings were only created on special occasions, such as to celebrate a wedding or harvest.

In the 1970’s Jivya Soma Mashe took this ritualistic tribal artform and started painting Warli for artistic virtues and creating artworks for commercial sale. Both of his sons are also talented proponents of this artfrom.

Creating Your Warli Story

Led by local Warli artist will help you create your own Warli art story. Past group members on our India Fabric Food & Fabulous tour have been inspired by grandchildren, childhood memories, life on the farm and hobbies with each member capturing these people and moments in time in the simple and bold geometric forms.

Today artists use a mix of traditional and modern techniques, such as a cow dung wash on cotton and paper to create an authentic base, with the detail created using modern paints and paintbrushes.

For your work of art a more familar stretched canvas pre-painted a rich brown forms the background with white acrylic paint and various sized brushes used to paint your own ‘Warli’ story.

For the ladies joining us on the Fabric, Food and Fabulous tour it is a wonderfully creative calm pause near the end of our busy adventure of amazing food, hospitality, on and off the beaten track sightseeing, shopping and hands-on workshops.

With its innate beauty, it is no wonder that our block printing workshop in Bagru is a highlight of our Women Only India: Fabric, Food & Fabulous tour.

The hands on element of creating our own scarves is only one aspect of our time spent in Bagru, the other is visiting the homes of a collective of artisans who continue to work together as a traditional printing community.

Located 30km outside of Jaipur, the fabric of Bagru is traditionally characterised by its colour palette of deep red, iron black and indigo highlighted with green and yellow.

Originally the fabrics produced here was used to produce clothes for the local community of merchants, agriculturalists and artisans. And as in many textile traditions, each fabric print and colour combination provided a unique identifier, allowing people to discern at a glance the community the person belonged to and their marital status.

Fast forward to recent history and block printing like many textile crafts, has not remained static.

From the 1970’s freelance designers, both Indian and international, have created contemporary designs which have ensured the continuing appeal of block prints in fashion circles beyond India’s borders.With increased demand, there is also the the pressure to produce more quickly.

This has seen some traditional natural dyes replaced with synthetic colours, screen-printing replacing traditional block prints. For the artisans it also means low pay as they are disconnected from the market for their products – it is the middle men are making the money.

Outside of the printing factories, in a corner of Bagru, you will find a collective of chhippas (printers), rangrez (dyers), dhobis (washers) and block carvers that continue to preserve the traditional methods. They are happy to keep their business specialised while working directly with the local and international designers who appreciate (and are willing to pay) for their handcrafted fabrics.

Bagru itself is a nondescript Rajasthani town, there is little aesthetic joy in the architecture. It is a hodge podge of concrete buildings divided by streets and narrow lanes. Pye dogs roam and goats wander. The hogs joyously wallow in the muddy drains and holy cows sun themselves where they please.

It is against this backdrop that we will be accompanied by one of Bagru’s master chhippas to learn about different block print fabrics produced in Bagru and visit the home based workshops of the people engaged in each step of the production process.

As we walk from our bus through a wide gateway we quickly see that it is a hive of activity at the communal fabric drying ground. Men and women speed in on motorbikes laden with indigo resist dyed fabric that they lay out on the dusty dirt. The area is the size of a rugby field, with long coloured bolts of cotton suspended over the sides of the surrounding buildings, flapping in the warm desert winds.

It is pretty clear from the outset that this is not a normal ‘tourist show’ where you get to play around with a few blocks and colours in a ‘workshop’ before being funnelled in to see what souvenirs you’ll open your wallet for…”with no obligation madam to buy of course!”

There is no shop here. Fabrics are exclusively commissioned by and produced for the collective’s domestic and international customers.We weave our way through the village from house to house seeing the artisans at work on each step of the fabric producing process.

For the indigo resist fabrics we see an elderly man stomping away to produce the mud-resist paste in a courtyard, while another gentleman rhythmically works at stamping the prepared paste with a large wooden block onto cotton that has been dipped in a natural fixing agent before being dried.

Once finished he shakes sawdust over the whole bolt of fabric to absorb the moisture and fix the dabbu paste. The fabric is then spread out on the ground to dry in the sun.

When it is dry, the fabric will move on to another home to be dipped in an indigo dye bath. This process will be repeated until the correct shade of blue is reached and a dhobi can wash off the mud resist paste, the fabric can be dried again and folded ready for delivery.

One thing that is evident is that in each household it is a team effort with the husbands and wives largely working side by side. This is quite different to some other artisan communities where the roles of men and women are clearly segregated.

Full of knowledge after seeing each step of the fabric printing process from block carving, to preparation of colours, block printing, indigo dyeing, washing and drying; we all make our way to a workshop to have a go at block printing our own scarves.

The cotton is pinned out on long tables and from a shelf crowded with blocks big and small we make our choices. Personally I’d quite happily sit there for hours sorting through the different options and planning what block I am going to use where.

Some of the ladies in the group quickly settle on what blocks they want while others make a few return trips to the shelves to find a block that might just work a little better with their plans.

After some instructions about ‘loading the colour’ on to the block and ensuring it gets transferred onto the cotton without leaving gaps or smudging we are away.

A group of chhippas are on hand to help us. They step in periodically to provide tutelage in any of the technical aspects such as pattern matching and what to do as you approach the edge of the material.

If you would like to find out more about joining our India: Fabric, Food & Fabulous tour or you would like to include a visit to Bagru as part of a tailor-made tour, please get in touch.

The group of artisans that we visit in Bagru depends on availability. These are real working businesses and as such commercial demands means that we work with several master artisans in the Bagru community to ensure that we can offer this unique experience.