Stepping into the kitchen is like entering a living library of local ecological knowledge. For the Bhil community, food is not just nourishment—it carries generations of learning about living with the land and its seasons in southern Rajasthan. While the Sambhaav Trust seed bank protects traditional rice varieties like kala badal ot paatriya, native legumes, and hardy gourds, these seeds thrive only because families know how to prepare and use them.
The Bhil diet reflects the landscape. Families grow grains like maize and millets that suit the local climate. Women use hand-woven soopdis to separate grains from their husks, then grind them on stones to make flour for rotlas cooked over a Chulah. The main staples and their preparation shift with the seasons.
Nothing goes to waste in a Bhil kitchen. Radishes and Bhindi are used for both their roots and leaves, the vegetable is dried and stored for year-round use. Cowpea vines offer green pods for winter dishes and dry beans for summer daals. When wild greens like bathua are abundant during the monsoon, families sun-dry the extra leaves for later use. Sometimes, they mix these greens with pulses to make badis, which are stored and cooked during dry months when fresh greens are scarce.
Flavour is drawn from the forest and wild plants. The channe ki bhaji is not washed after picking to preserve the saltiness and wild melons like kachhri are sliced and dried. These dried ingredients are later ground with garlic and chillies for spicy chutneys that lift simple meals. The masalas remain basic, sometimes using bhindi leaves to add sourness to curries.
Recipes and food traditions have been documented with the help of many people across generations—women and men, from younger daughters-in-law to the family patriarch. Each has played an important part in preserving and sharing these practices.
This documentation is part of our ongoing work to create a community-based seed bank that preserves local crop varieties and landraces from the region. To see more of the documentation work on YouTube and Flickr