The food of Dalits -- once called "untouchables", between a fifth and a quarter of India's 1.4bn people -- is one of the world's richest yet most invisible culinary traditions. It is shaped by centuries of caste exclusion, scarcity and ingenuity.
Dalits sit outside (not at the bottom of) the Hindu caste hierarchy. Their cuisine features ingredients shunned by upper-caste Hindus: pork, beef, offal, blood and foraged wild plants. Skin, intestines, tongues, feet and ears all find their way into Dalit pots. Staples that upper-caste kitchens take for granted -- ghee, asafoetida -- are often out of reach. Dalit women, who are likelier than other Indian women to work outside the home, have devised recipes that are quick, simple and ferociously flavourful.
Signature dishes include blood fry (spicy cubes of congealed goat's blood with onions and garam masala), honeycomb curry (made from wild bee eggs and larvae), and various preparations of offal and foraged greens.
Hindu scripture classifies food into sattvic ("pure" -- rice, fruit, fresh vegetables), rajasik ("fit for kings" -- meat, spiced dishes) and tamasic ("sinful" -- beef, offal). Dalit food falls into the lowest category.
Cow-killing is banned in most Indian states. Incidents of "cow vigilantism" have grown more common since the BJP won national power in 2014. In July 2016 four young Dalit workers were flogged and paraded through Una, Gujarat, for skinning a cow that had died naturally. Maharashtra banned not only cow slaughter but also transport of cows for slaughter elsewhere in 2015, giving vigilantes a pretext to harass anyone dealing in bovine products.
Meat is far more widely consumed in India than Hindu nationalists pretend. Surveys suggest about three-quarters of Hindus eat some form of meat. Among members of "backward" castes, nearly nine in ten do.
Shahu Patole, a Dalit historian, published Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada in Marathi in 2015; an English translation in 2024 drew interest from food writers and sparked discussion on social media. Sri Vamsi Matta, an artist, performs solo shows exploring Dalit food history. Dalit cuisine is seldom listed on restaurant menus, though vendors at busy intersections in Bangalore sell blood fry, beef curry and goat-trotter soup.
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