Slow Food in Meghalaya

Dine At Mother Earth Cafe, Khweng

We all know what fast food is - you open a bag of pre-processed food add liquid heat and eat.

Now, what if we ate seasonal foods that come straight from the field - that is what you find at Mother Earth Cafe.
Recently, we were invited to visit a village called Khweng, where the North East (India) Slow Food and Agro-biodiversity Society (NESFAS) located in Shillong, has been doing research.


MaizeYam, beans, and okra varieties, and even baskets
They discovered that many hill and mountain villages are a rich resource of local germplasm. In the village homes, they found many types of rice, chilies, beans, maize, and millet stored. Many seeds had disappeared with the introduction of new varieties or were damaged over time.
When they went to look for local millet varieties an unexpected amount of agro-biodiversity was found. 
Rice - many different types were found stored in homes.

Vegetables 

Ginger
To find markets for the village products they helped start a small processing center. 

Then it was time to try some slow food - fresh from the fields to the plates.


The Mother Earth Café sprouted to encourage the use of the different seed varieties that would rejuvenate the local foods.
There were 9 different dishes of “slow food” - so with a plate full of rice, beans, yams, banana flower curry, greens, raw flowers and leaves and chutney it was time to dig in. It was delicious - spicy, crunchy, bitter, and a totally refreshing mix of new and different foods.
Mother Earth Cafe 

The setting is ideal - near the fields where the food is harvested and directly brought to the cafe. The food changes with the seasons and the variety is refreshing.
So with high recommendations please eat "slow food" and visit Mother Earth Cafe or even better - help start one of your own.
Location: Meghalaya, India

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