Bihar’s litti chokha is having a tough time these days as the state’s signature cultural dish. Its cousin—Champaran mutton—is racing ahead. And no, this race didn’t begin with Lalu Prasad Yadav, Misa Bharti and Rahul Gandhi at the INDIA alliance meet in New Delhi last week. Champaran mutton has always lurked self-effacingly behind the humble litti chokha.
Cuisines play a pivotal role in the identity of any state and city. Through a limited cultural scope, many dishes gain national fame and highlight the region they originate from. In a way, they also break old notions.
That’s what Champaran mutton, named after a region in Bihar, has done in the last few years.
Whenever the cuisine of Bihar was mentioned, only the name of litti chokha was heard, sometimes with dahi-chuda and sattu. But now that’s changing. And everybody is talking about Champaran mutton, a unique stew cooked in earthen pots after mixing meat with generous amount of sliced onions, whole spices, garlic bulbs and mustard oil in one go.
When the cultural rise of sattu made way for litti-chokha in Bihar and Purvanchal, politicians popularised it by serving it during meetings and on tours. In 2004, when Lalu Yadav was Union Minister for Railways, he took sattu with him on his tour of France, Germany, Switzerland, France and Austria.
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Mutton politics
Since Litti chokha resembles baati chokha of Purvanchal and dal baati of Rajasthan, it might not have originated only in Bihar. But unlike biryani and rasgulla, there’s no dispute over litti chokha yet.
Now litti chokha is being challenged by Champaran mutton. And it has now gone from political reconciliation to symbolic messaging.
Recently, the discussion on Champaran Mutton intensified when Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was seen making the dish in Lalu Yadav’s kitchen. Gandhi was all up for ‘political gyan’ from the veteran RJD leader. In a video titled Lalu Ji’s Secret Recipe and Political Masala, Yadav and his daughter Misa Bharti teach Gandhi how to cook mutton in Champaran style. Then Gandhi asks Lalu, “Everything is mixed together in this, what is the difference between this and politics.” Yadav laughs in his peculiar style and says, “politics is impossible without mixing”.
“He (Rahul) liked it so much that he even took some for his sister (Priyanka Gandhi),” Yadav told ThePrint.
The mixing Yadav mentioned hinted at the coming together of 28 parties to form the INDIA alliance.
The growing popularity of Champaran mutton outside Bihar in recent years and how it is associated with a significant population, could be why Gandhi made it the centre of a political conversation.
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Champaran’s fame
Litti chokha is probably a dish made in every region of Bihar, but it’s more popular in the districts near Patna like Buxar, Arrah, Chhapra, Siwan. The Panchkosi Mela, which lasts for five days in Buxar, is famous for litti chokha. So, the dish doesn’t represent one particular region. But Champaran mutton does. It’s a region holding the glorious history of India’s Independence.
After MK Gandhi came to India from South Africa, he led the first Satyagraha movement in Champaran. For a long time, the place was remembered only by the name of Gandhi and civil resistance. But the present is adding a new chapter in Champaran’s history. By the time Champaran Satyagraha completed 100 years in 2017, the region’s mutton dish had also become famous.
A dish doesn’t become popular on its own, culture offers a lift. Even with litti chokha, many factors and stakeholders were involved. It began with International Litti Chokha song in Manoj Tiwari’s film Daroga Babu I Love You (2004). The video has been viewed a million times on YouTube.
Later, Bollywood actor Aamir Khan was seen eating litti chokha in the streets of Patna when he was there to promote PK (2014). It changed the game for the humble snack. New litti chokha kiosks started opening from Boring Road to Frazer Road in Patna, they all had Khan’s picture on the posters. It was seen as a promising source of income. And who can forget the picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi eating the same dish at Hunar Haat in Delhi before Bihar assembly elections in 2020.
Now Champaran mutton has a similar medium to become the poster boy of Bihari cuisine.
Gopal Kumar Kushwaha, who runs Old Champaran Meat House on Patna’s Frazer Road, claims that he has popularised the dish. His shop is considered to be the first to serve the dish in Patna and even the government of India has recognised it now.
Indian food critic Pushpesh Pant told Scroll that when he visited Champaran 30 years ago, he was served the mutton dish but then it did not have the branding it has today. Pant considers it as an ‘assertion of the Bihari cuisine’.
If Bihari cuisine was only about vegetarian litti chokha, sattu and dahi chuda to non-Biharis, Champaran mutton is an exciting introduction to the cuisine’s greatly diverse palate.
Litti chokha’s popularity is also because the dish is easily available and that too at low cost outside metro stations, markets, food joints. But mutton is priced at Rs 700 per kg at present and yet in great demand. In India, where mutton curries on the menu can never be enough, rogan josh, mutton barra, dahi mutton and others have found a rustic-spicy addition to their team.
The dish got international fame when Ranjan Kumar made a short film named Champaran Mutton, which reached the semifinal round of Oscar’s Student Academy Award this year. The dish is now a star of food menus in Delhi-NCR, Pune, West Bengal, Chandigarh, Tamil Nadu. Recently, the dish reached Dubai’s Mohalla restaurant, where food bloggers flocked to finally taste it.
The fact that Champaran mutton is everywhere on Instagram reels, YouTube videos and food blogs also confirms the popularity of this Bihari dish.
Politics is one dish that’s always present on the plates of Biharis. Will Rahul Gandhi’s be able to find a way to the state’s voters cooking Champaran meat? It’s a slow preparation, wait till 2024.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)