Guwahati, Dec. 16 -- There is a moment every year in the Northeast when the roads thin out. Tourists leave, festivals conclude, and the region settles into a quieter stretch. It is during this time-when movement slows-that the Northeast's food culture becomes most revealing. Not louder, not celebratory, but deeply intentional.

Food here has never been about excess. It is about continuity.

Across the region, kitchens begin to rely less on markets and more on memory. In Assam, households turn to preserved fish, sun-dried vegetables, and rice stored carefully from the last harvest. In Nagaland and Manipur, smoking and fermenting take precedence-not as culinary trends, but as survival skills refined over generations. Bamboo shoots, axone, n...