Newa People - Cuisine

Cuisine

Meals can be classified into three main categories: the daily meal, the afternoon snack and festival food. The daily meal consists of boiled rice, lentil soup, vegetable curry and relish. Meat is also served. The snack generally consists of rice flakes, roasted and curried soybeans, curried potato and roasted meat mixed with spices.

Food is also an important part of the ritual and religious life of the Newars, and the dishes served during festivals and feasts have symbolic significance. Different sets of ritual dishes are placed in a circle around the staple rice flakes to represent and honour different sets of deities depending on the festival or life-cycle ceremony.

Kwāti (क्वाति soup of different beans), kachilā (कचिला spiced minced meat), chhoylā (छोयला water buffalo meat marinated in spices and grilled over the flames of dried wheat stalks), wo (वः lentil cake), paun kwā (पाउँक्वा sour soup), swan (स्वँ stuffed lung), syen (स्येँ fried liver), mye (म्ये boiled and fried tongue), sapu mhichā (सःपू म्हिचा tripe stuffed with bone marrow) and sanyā khunā (सन्या खुना jellied fish soup) are some of the popular festival foods. Dessert consists of dhau (धौ yogurt), sisābusā (सिसाबुसा fruits) and mari (मरि sweetmeat). Thwon (थ्वँ) and aylā (अयलाः) are the common alcoholic liquors that Newars make at home.

At meals, festivals and gatherings, Newars sit on long mats in rows. Typically, the sitting arrangement is hierarchical with the eldest sitting at the top and the youngest at the end. Newar cuisine makes use of mustard oil and a host of spices such as cumin, sesame seeds, turmeric, garlic, ginger, mint, bay leaves, cloves, cinnamon, pepper, chili and mustard seeds.