Think Rajasthani cuisine and dal baati, churma, laal maas, safed maas, come to mind. In touristy places like Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Udaipur, restaurant menus often feature these popular dishes. However, they highlight only a fraction of the region’s culinary heritage.
Dig a little deeper and you realise that food in the land of royals has been heavily influenced by the region’s arid climate and scarcity of water, not to mention a past laden with warfare and survival. “Rajasthani cuisine is a masterclass in resourcefulness, especially in the arid regions of Marwar and Shekhawati. The short crop season, from August to October, means fresh ingredients are available only for a brief period.
This scarcity led the people to use preservation methods to make the most of what they have,” says Dipali Khandelwal, founder of Jaipur-based The Kindness Meal, a community and content platform preserving India’s disappearing food cultures. “The ingenuity is a testament to the region’s resilience and creativity, transforming what might seem like constraints into culinary strengths,” she says. Avijit Singh, owner, House of Rohet, a collection of boutique hotels in Rajasthan, says the limited variety of ingredients puts a strong emphasis on utilising every part of what is accessible—from root to stem—to create flavourful dishes like hare tamatar ki sabzi and dried lotus stem in gravy.
Earlier, the diet primarily consisted of locally available millets like bajra, jowar and jau, .