CREAM OF THE CROP
Getting to the village of Nongtraw in northeastern India involves navigating down 2,500 steep steps. The hourlong descent is one reason the 200 or so people who live deep within the valley where the village lies, all members of the Khasi tribe, rarely travel far from home. The beauty of this place pulls you in. From the top step, you can just make out a small rectangle of reddish-brown soil, mostly hidden by tropical vegetation and tree cover. This is the only clearing amid the miles of thick and lush green below.
As you walk deeper into the valley, you begin to see that the rectangle is Nongtraw’s village square, the community’s focal point, surrounded by some 30 bamboo houses. Toward the end of the descent, tree branches seem to reach out toward you, most laden with fruit and filled with flowers, their colors heightened by the sunlight that filters into the valley. This secluded village is difficult to access and even more difficult to leave.
Anything from the outside world, including food, must be carried by hand down these 2,500 steps, so for centuries the people of Nongtraw have produced as much of their own food and drink as possible. A tea, sha shiah krot, is made from dried roots foraged from the surrounding forest and sipped from bamboo cups. Honey is harvested from bees that nest in tree trunks purposely hollowed out by the villagers. But the most important food of all in this place—that is, until recent decades—was millet, a grain that is one of the most nutrient-packed foods domesticated by humans.
Long before the Khasi people
