Save Our Precious Food
Listen brothers, listen sisters!
We must save our precious food!
No-one refuses good things to
eat and everyone wants
contentment.
Our market now is full of
packaged food, enticing but
unhealthy; so many follow
foreign fashions and scorn our
local dishes.
We ignore a priceless jewel in
the hand but weep when it is
lost forever.
Maybe imported foods can
bring us health and strength;
but where outside Ladakh will
we find our nutritious paba,
our thukpa and our kholak?
Listen brothers, listen sisters!
We must save our precious food.
Sonam Sopari
Translated by Tsering Angmo,
Anthony Tootal, Gabriele Reifenberg
From Ladakhi Kitchen
by Gabriele Reifenberg
Ladakhi Kitchens
Embodied in the trinkets lining the shelves, or langs, of the Ladakhi kitchen are clues of the region’s historical status as an important centre of trade on the Silk Route.
Look carefully and you will recognise Kashmiri pottery, Russian samovars, Chinese thermos flasks, Indian tea sets and various other vessels both native and hailing from Baltistan to Central Asia and beyond.
Colourful carpets cover the seating – zhug-ran – that line the walls, and low tables – chogtse – are intricately painted or carved, a nod towards the dwellers’ faith. Nevertheless, the kitchens reveal much of what binds people together here as well as what demarcates their differences.
Traditionally, the kitchen was located in the centre of the house, the beating heart of social activity, a place to gather, create bonds, and share stories, wisdom and values. As the political and social landscape changed, and women’s roles shifted, so too did the materiality of the space and the activity within it.
The act of cooking and the ingredients used contain stories that speak of culture, identity, modernisation, and urbanisation. These spaces are records of transformation. They are the nucleus of the home and a manifestation of all that exists beyond it.
This work was made as part of an artists’ residency with Farside Collective in 2018.