AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Four years ago, a pretty famous Indian American, Mindy Kaling, introduced another famous Indian American on her cooking show.
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MINDY KALING: We have a very special guest - Senator Kamala Harris.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Hi, guys.
CHANG: The two women go on to make a popular vegetarian snack from south India, and Harris says...
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HARRIS: South Indians, it's vegetarian...
KALING: Yes.
HARRIS: ...It's all vegetarian.
CHANG: Now, while vegetarian cooking is widespread in India, one survey suggests that about two-thirds of all Hindus in India do eat some meat. And a new book tells part of that story. NPR's Diaa Hadid reports from the village of Khamgaon in western India.
DIAA HADID, BYLINE: Pork crackling, dried squirrel, spicy fish eggs - "The Dalit Kitchens Of Marathwada," by author Shahu Patole, is part anthology, part cookbook and part angry rebuke to Hindus who convey the idea that India is a vegetarian nation. It's sparsely written, not for the squeamish.
OMKAR KHANDEKAR, BYLINE: (Reading) Ingredients - blood, and salt to taste.
HADID: This is recipe one - blood - read by NPR producer Omkar Khandekar.
KHANDEKAR: (Reading) Method - pour the blood in a heavy-bottomed pot and put on the stove for boiling. When the color becomes a dark, chocolate brown, it is ready.
KRISHNENDU RAY: Mashed, cooked blood. How many people think about Indian food when they think about mashed blood?
HADID: Krishnendu Ray is a sociologist who studies the intersection of food, class and caste. He describes "The Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada" as arguably the most important cookbook to come out of south Asia. That's because...
RAY: It undermines this peculiar one-dimensional understanding of Indian food - it's rich in spices, low in meat.
HADID: The book spotlights the culinary traditions of Dalits. They occupy the bottom of south Asia's ancient caste system and were once called untouchables. Despite decades of Dalit activism and government reforms, they're among India's poorest. They're also a sizable minority - about a fifth of all Indians. Yet...
RAY: We know very little about Dalit cooking.
HADID: Ray says that's because ideas of what Indians eat largely come from upper-caste Hindus, including Brahmins. They're at the top of the caste system. Brahmins are largely expected to be vegetarian, and they dominate places where ideas about food are formed - like cookbooks, cooking shows - so it's their food traditions which have come to be known as Indian food. In that way, Ray says "The Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada"...
RAY: It's a dynamite that explodes the idea of Indian food from the bottom up.
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HADID: At least that's what author Shahu Patole hopes.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: We meet him in his childhood home in the western state of Maharashtra. His home is on the fringes of Khamgaon village because Dalit families like his were once forbidden from living near upper-caste Hindus. Patole wants to make us a childhood dish, an offal and meat stew.
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HADID: We head to a market town, down a muddy road...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: ...To a closet-size butcher shop filled out by a carcass hanging from the roof. A plastic partition keeps out the flies - kind of. Patole requests rib cuts, liver...
SHAHU PATOLE: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Intestines.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Intestines, yeah.
HADID: ...And intestines. The butcher hacks away...
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HADID: ...And pops the cuts into a black plastic bag. The meat's hidden, in part to avoid angering Hindu extremists. Over the past decade, they've attacked and even killed Muslims and Dalits they accuse of eating beef or slaughtering cows. It's an animal sacred to many Hindus. But Dalits, like Muslims, traditionally have eaten beef. As we chat, the butcher nervously smiles and assures me this is buffalo meat. Patole sighs. It doesn't taste as good, he says.
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HADID: Back in Patole's kitchen, he heats up a pot, adds spice, garlic, ginger, pops in the meat and the offal.
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HADID: He speeds up cooking time in a pressure cooker...
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HADID: ...And he presents us with a stew - made richer with liver, fattier with intestines.
PATOLE: (Speaking Marathi).
HADID: Patole mops it up with a millet flat bread. He says his cookbook was published in his native language, Marathi, through friends. HarperCollins put out an English version.
PATOLE: (Speaking Marathi).
HADID: But he says no other publisher has sought to translate the book in any other Indian language, like Hindi.
PATOLE: (Speaking Marathi).
HADID: He says, "other Hindus don't even recognize Dalits as human. Why would they care about our food?"
Patole has progressive Brahmin friends but says, in his own village, many upper-caste residents still refuse to eat food prepared by Dalits, even if it's vegetarian.
PATOLE: (Speaking Marathi).
HADID: Shahu says the stigma of impurity surrounding Dalits and their food has led many in his caste to feel shame surrounding their food traditions. He wants his book to prompt Dalit readers to ask...
PATOLE: (Speaking Marathi)?
HADID: ..."What deprivation and discrimination compelled your ancestors to eat food like this? - offal, cast-off meat, squirrels."
He also hopes he'll see their food traditions as a product of tenacity and survival.
PATOLE: (Speaking Marathi).
HADID: Patole says, "you exist because your ancestors ate that food."
Diaa Hadid, NPR News, Khamgaon, in western India. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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