A kashmiri wakes up to first drink tea or it would be appropriate to say eats bread with the tea. The tea is noon chai which means “salty tea”. First tea leaves are boiled with water to make a concentrate, which is done usually a night earlier. Then when you want to drink it you would add milk, salt and boil it. It is pinkish in colour. You would drink it with roti or any form of bread. Dip and eat or throw it all in and then eat with the help of the spoon are the two options.

Traditionally noon chai is prepared in a special copper utensil called samawar, which is a kettle shaped utensil with a circular pipe going through the middle in which burning charcoal is added to cook and keep it warm. It gives the tea a smokey flavour. It's not used now on a daily basis. It's hard to operate, only feasible in large joint families which are now rare. Although it continues to be used in weddings.

It's followed by a cup of sugar tea usually between 10-11am. Kashmiris eat bread with their tea. It's usually one cup only.

Usually at home among the things that you eat with tea you would only make rotis at home. Rotis are made using three general varieties of flours namely: wheat flour, rice flour & corn flour. The rice and core is cultivated locally. Generally in both urban and rural areas people will cultivate their basic needs. This includes vegetables, rice, corn, fruits and oil. Provided you have land which most possess because land redistribution was recently done in the 1950's.

Rice makes "tomle-cxotchy" (lit. rice bread) that is the same as the plain dosa. Traditionally food was cooked on fire. A special pottery utensil was used called "kres" on which you would cook the dosas. The other ones called “maed-cxotchy” (wheat bread) or “makä-cxotchy” (corn bread) are generally cooked on a pan. They have chapatti like texture. They are first mixed with water to create dough which then is shaped into thin circular discs. Then they are baked on the pan. A little bit of ghee might be added to help it cook. Several hot dosas with hot noon chai on a snowy day is unbeatable.

The traditional breads we buy from outside are from the “kandur”, a local baker who bakes “Cxotchwory”, “Aapycxotchy”, “Lawase”, “Kultche”, “Girde”, “Schilmaar”, “Baekerkhany”, “Khan-cxotchy” etc. A typical “Kandur” will only have the first three or first four. Others can be bought from main bakeries. “Cxotchwory” and “Aapycxotchy” are made on the walls of the drum like an oven. It's lit inside on the bottom & and open from above. “Cxotchywor” is small doughnut shaped although without the hole going through. It's only a deep indent from top side. Its crust is hard & crunchy and the core called “gool” is soft.

Then we consume rice at lunch. The Zuhr Aazan marks the time. Boiled rice which is traditionally cooked by first washing the rice then boiling it with some water until it comes to a boil. Then the water is removed and then it's left to cook on a low flame until it's cooked. One funny word used particularly in some parts of north kashmir is “bate-mcttur” which means “rice motor” and refers to the rice cooker. The rice is a new variety which was introduced by Sheikh Abdullah which gives more rice. I don’t know much about it but, a way of mine is trying to describe its quality by using a comparison with rice that is given by the government ration shops. It is a subsidy system. The local rice is something that you could eat raw and it actually tastes good. As kids we would mix sugar with it and eat it as a snack. Not as many times as the older ones have done. The rice from ration shops which come from outside is bitter and almost has no flavour. It is generally consumed by the poor and those who want to lose weight.

Kashmiris eat a heavy serving of rice. It is eaten alongwith cooked vegetables called “sün”. Sün includes the occasional meat but daily meat consumption is something very few can afford. Kashmiris eat meat on a weekly or monthly basis as per their financial condition.

The vegetables that Kashmiris consume include collards, onions, carrots, radishes, turnips, peas, tomatoes, cauliflowers, cabbages, bottle-gourd, potatoes, eggplants, beans, dals, spinach, pulses and many others. The general method is to first fry the vegetables in a heavy amount of oil then by adding water, salt, kashmiri chilli powder, turmeric and optionally other spices. The Kashmiris eat rice with sün by mixing it with rice. They eat using their right hand.

Kashmiris usually have a collection of zinc-coated copper utensils. A set of cooking degs, few thal-ban (rice eating utensil for men), few kenze (rice eating utensil for women), few “donge” (traditional sün storing utensil), few “tramy” (a large plate in which four people eat from four sides) are the classics. A style of these copper utensils is kandkaer. Which have handmade indented designs upon them.

The vegetables are also dried for consumption in the winters.

Vegetables generally are cooked solo or in pairs or triplets & rarely in a larger mix. Potato-onion, collard-potatoes, brinjal-tamato, dried bottle gourd-razma just to name a few.

The milk or curd might also be eaten “mixed with the rice”.

The paneer, meat and eggs when available are added to the sün after frying. Boiled eggs are fried first before adding them to sün.

The meat includes chicken, mutton and beef. Beef was banned in Kashmir. Beef is found everywhere in Kashmir especially after 1990's when Kashmiri Hindus left.

Pickles (“antchar”) are also sometimes consumed with rice. It is generally a pickle of carrots, radishes and collards.

Then around 4 pm noon chai is consumed again. Dinner is the same thing as lunch. Lunch is mostly consumed after the Isha prayers.

In Ramadan the rice is eaten alongwith noon Chai at sehri (just before the dawn) and then the fast is generally broken at dusk with dates or “babry-tresh”. A sweet pudding called “feeriny” is consumed. It is milk, suji and sugar boiled together. Then followed by rice immediately. Then after sometime the noon chai is consumed.

Wazwan is a class of kashmiri cuisine that is consumed by the rich and the poor middle class eats it in weddings. It is a series of meat dishes like “Riste”, “Goshtaab”, “Kabaab”, “Tabakhmaaz”, “Aabgosch”, “Korme” etc. Traditionally they are served with rice. In weddings the rice is served at lunch on a “tramy” (a big plate on which four people eat). A lot of meat is poured onto the “treamy” one dish after another. So much that you cannot eat it all so you have to pack some home. Although not so long ago it was served in a normal quantity but now has evolved into this. Before the escalation of militancy in the 1990's the food in weddings was served at night as the dinner. Now along with carnivals and cinema halls it might come back.