In fall and winter, Kashmiris cook with root vegetables, greens (kale and spinach primarily), yellow lentils, and kidney beans to create some of the most flavorful dishes I’ve found so far in India.
Their vegetable curries always have a spicy, red-chili gravy to mix with rice, which is the staple for every lunch and dinner, and people have their meals without utensils: they eat with their right hands and use the left to serve the dishes (spoons are used here) and drink water. When finished, they pour water over their right hand to wash.
To start the day, Kashmiris keep breakfast simple with sweet tea and a piece of flat, crispy bread (these along with Kashmiri biscuits, shown above, are baked in bulk in large clay-walled ovens and because no one has an in-home oven these are the only food item that Kashmiris don’t make from scratch in their own homes). Breakfast is light, and since lunch isn’t served until early afternoon it’s customary to take a late morning snack of sweet milk tea and a sesame seed biscuit.
The stove is on the floor, and the women sit on low stools as they work over the burners, usually chopping in their hands right over the pot. The sink to wash dishes is also low to the ground.
Their homes are without furniture. Each room has wall-to-wall carpeting with pillows against the walls, and all meals are served on the floor on top of the dasdarkhan, a sort of tablecloth for the floor.
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