Tradition
Food is one of the important variables in Tai Ahom culture. Most Ahoms, especially in rural areas, are non-vegetarians, still maintaining a traditional cuisine similar to that of other Tai. Rice is a staple food Typical dishes are pork, chicken, duck, beef slices, frogs, many kinds of fish, hukoti maas (dried salted fish mix), muga lota (endi worm coconut seeds and muga), and red ant eggs. Certain insects were also a favourite food of the Ahoms Luk-Lao or Nam-Lao (rice wine, pure or diluted) is the traditional drink. They consumed ‘Khar’ (an alkaline liquid extracted from charred banana peel/bark ash), ‘Betgaaj’ (young shoots of sugarcane), and many other natural plants with medicinal value. However, beef for Hindus in general and pork for Vaisnavites are shunned. Under the reign of Siva Singha, people gave up the gratuitous consumption of meat and drink.
Ahom’s speciality cuisine is similar to Thai cuisine. Like the Thais, the Ahoms prefer cooked dishes cooked with some spices and prefer to cook fish, meat, and vegetables such as eggplant, tomato, etc. directly. Some of them are Thu-dam (black lentils), Khao-Moon (Frumenty rice), Xandohguri (a powder made from dry-roasted rice), ChewaKhao (steamed rice), Chunga Chaul ( boiled in soft bamboo sticky rice), Til pitha (sesame rice rolls made from sticky rice flour), and Khao-tyek (rice flakes). Apart from the Ahoms and the Thais, no one knew anything about the preparation of this project. Khao (raw sweet rice made with special glutinous rice with a unique technique), Tupula Khao (rice cooked and wrapped with a special type of plant leaf which has a good smell, a bamboo soup called “Tora pat” and preserved are some of the favourite foods of the Ahoms, similar to their traditional diet
Ahom Kingdom
The Ahom or Tai-Ahom, are an ethnic group from the Indian states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. Members of this group are mixed descendants of the Tai people who arrived in Brahmaputra’s Assam Valley in 1228, and local indigenous peoples have joined them throughout history. Sukaphaa, leader of the Tai group, and his 9,000 followers founded the kingdom of Ahom (1228–1826 AD), which controlled much of the Brahmaputra valley in modern Assam until 1826.