Marketing mystery tour leads to culinary experiment.

Is it the cockerel across the alley letting us all know he is still alive, the sounds of hand-made brushes on hard baked mud as the women carry out the first tasks of the day, or the now familiar guttural contortions that resound as men remove the nights flem from their throats, that wakes me early. Or is it just old habits die hard. Whatever the cause I’ve been waking early to take a walk and cross the  Marsyandi Nadi who’s waters whilst still grey from the silts they carry, are a mere dribble compared with the torrents we witnessed back in August, as the monsoon rains fell. The return journey to our ‘sano gumba’ flat takes me across a second steel suspension bridge and near a few shops at which I’ve taken to buying our vegetables. The choices are always good and fresh since women from the nearby villages call here first as they sell their produce in Besisahar.

The 'doka' used by everyone to carry, and a blue plastic bag of jungle veg

A smile despite the long walk to market.

Her 'shriman' wears a topi wrapped in a towel, the weather
has dropped to a freezing 20c!!!

As I ponder over the choice of cabbage, beans or the carrots, which have suddenly appeared on the market, I notice a woman taking off her ‘doka’, the basket that is carried by a strap around the head. She takes out a blue plastic bag and carries it to the back of the shop to show the shopkeeper, who exchanges the contents for a few rupee notes. Unloading a 5 litre container from deeper in her doka the women  then slips into the next door shop and returns with more money. I’m intrigued as to what she is selling, and the shopkeeper explains.

 The hands always show
who is doing the work, and this woman is no exception.

Together with her shriman (husband) the woman has walked from a village, Duwar,  with ‘bantaru’, a root vegetable, she had dug up in the forest. This vegetable that looks not unlike ginger apparently has a lovely taste, is popular with the locals and I’m keen to give it a try. After buying half a kilo for 40 rupees, and getting a simple recipe I continue my homeward journey, but I’ve also discovered some other information which puzzles me. The shopkeeper had given just 80 rupees for the entire bag of bantaru weighing 6kgs, and I had paid 40 rupees for half a kilo. A simple bit of maths calculated the 600% mark-up the shopkeeper was making. The contents of the black plastic container the woman had sold next door was raki, millet alchol, for which she received 200 rupees but was marked up by 100%. 






The old skills from distant geography lessons remain as I investigate the route to market.

 

Later that day, before trying my culinary skills on our newfound vegetable, I checked the whereabouts of the couple’s village Duwar, and so discovered how much effort she had put into this value chain. The woman had found the plant in the forest, dug it up, walked the 6.5Km from her village to the shop and then done the return journey. During that walk she had climbed 1400m (slightly more than the height of Ben Nevis UK’s highest mountain) and all for 80 rupees (50p). To put it in context a kilo of rice costs 60 rupees.

'Bantaru' before and after peeling

 

Leaving this all too common tail of marketing woe behind, that evening we cooked the bantaru. After peeling and washing like a new potato, it was into the pressure cooker with a little salt and water It would be cooked after one ‘hiss’ of steam. Whilst that was heating I chopped a few onions, green pepper and beans. All these veg are available in the bazar, and we are keen to use them since seasonality still operates here. Cooking in oil is most common in Nepal, alongside the use of pressure cookers. So into the only 'karaai'(pan) I put sunflower oil, salt and pepper. There is a limit to the number of curries you can eat so using less spice is welcomed from time to time.

Our 'karrai' ready for the veg

A great selection of local produce

The two old bone handled knives from home are used for everything.
 Good old Sheffield Steel!

The silantaa is a hollowed stone with a round
cobble used to crush garlic and spices



Ample supply of dried chilli hang beside the door.



 

Just waiting for the cauli florets

 

Whilst the onions, beans and green pepper sweat up, I crush some garlic cloves on our silantaa, and add them to the pan. Cauliflowers are very popular and very available in the dry season, so I break up a few florets and once in the karaai I cover for a few minutes.



No whisk so the eggs are stirred not shaken and added
Yak cheese is hard and tasty so on with the lid to melt. 

 Our diet is quite short of animal protein so the final stage is to gently add three beaten/quickly stirred eggs and a handful of Yak cheese cubes. The cover goes back on the melt the cheese, and finally like all good omelette’s I fold it over(tricky when there is so much veg and the pan is half round) and dish up.

Fold that omelette

It all looked ok till this photo and now it resembles a dogs breakfast!!! Simon don't give up the day job.

 

The bantaru has been ready a few minutes and when added to the plate it looks a little unappetising. Its texture is very tofu-like but taste is virtually non-existent and we wonder if all that effort was worthwhile. We are left baffled by the whole experience. From forest to plate the only real winner seems to be the shopkeeper.

Our forest delicacy came from over the dark horizon in front of the snowy mountain, Manaslu.