Pakhala, From Odisha With Love: Memory, Identity, and the Ecology of No-Waste Sustenance

During this July 4th weekend, at the 56th OSA Convention in Dallas, Texas, the most memorable meal wasn’t a gourmet, catered dish by a celebrity chef. It was pakhala—fermented rice steeped in water and curd, served with green chilies, sliced onions, and cucumber, accompanied by maccha bhaja (fried fish), sautéed greens, and baigan bharta. Over 2,000 Odias stood patiently in line, waiting for their bowl of comfort.

The welcome dinner at the 2024 Labor Day weekend retreat in Santa Barbara featured traditional pakhala. The aroma of saaga bhaja (sautéed spinach), badi chura (fried lentil balls ground with spices), chingudi (prawn), cauliflower fry, and green mango chutney uplifted my spirits. That meal instantly transported me back to Odisha, which I left 36 years ago to settle in California. Ahh! I am home. On Odia celebrations, pakhala has served as a marker of cultural identity.

Today, as pakhala travels thousands of miles through the Odia diaspora, it carries with it more than taste—it brings memory, identity, and nourishment. Despite globalization, urban kitchens, and protein shakes, pakhala endures. Yet, its meanings shift depending on who eats it, and where. As an ethnographer and diasporic Odia, I examine how this humble dish intersects with climate, ecology, caste, class, and gender. Through observation, interviews, and lived experience, I reflect on what it means to serve, share, and survive on pakhala.

In the 1970s, on scorching April afternoons in Cuttack, I would return from school by 11 a.m., my sweat-drenched sky-blue uniform clinging to my back. The Secondary Board High School was a stone’s throw from my home. I’d run through our green raipani fence, calling out, “Bou, pakhala badhe! Bhoka lagilani!” (“Mother, please serve the water rice! I’m starving!”). Lunch was always the same yet never boring—fresh rice soaked in water, curd, or lemon, served with aloo and baigan bharta, green mango chutney, and backyard greens like drumstick leaves, kosala, khada or leutia. Occasionally, a crisp fish fry joined the plate.

As Nandita Das, the acclaimed actress, says, “Odia cuisine is about showcasing the natural flavors of the ingredients without overpowering them with excessive spices or elaborate techniques.”

When relatives from the village arrived unannounced in the summer heat, my mother would scramble to feed them. With only pakhala in the kitchen, she would rush to the backyard, gather drumstick greens, and prepare a quick saag by sautéing them in mustard oil with garlic and green chilies. The simplicity of that meal, and the satisfaction it brought, remain etched in my memory.

aAs Nandita Das, the acclaimed actress, says, “Odia cuisine is about showcasing the natural flavors of the ingredients without overpowering them with excessive spices or elaborate techniques.” Pakhala defines that simplicity. Though I grew up in urban Cuttack, our food was rooted in local resources. My mother cultivated many varieties of greens, which were staples with pakhala. Simple preparations like santula (boiled vegetables with a little mustard oil, mustard, green chilli, onion and garlic seasoning) or saaga were both flavorful and nutritious.

Pakhala: Poor People’s Food?

Natabara Sarangi, a renowned organic farmer and seed conservator in Odisha, recalls that in his village, the wealthy would often serve their laborers pakhala that had been sitting for days, sometimes spoiled. The same dish that now nourishes the elite diaspora once marked boundaries of class and labor.

In neighboring Andhra, fermented rice or ganji is a staple of the poor. Nagesh Rajnala, President of the Odisha Society of the Americas (OSA), a Telugu raised in Odisha, never ate pakhala growing up, seeing it as a class and ethnic marker.

In the villages, farmers began their days with basi pakhala and mashed vegetables before heading to the fields. Women in the family who ate last, often had pared-down meals of pakhala, vegetables, and green chilies. Yet these humble meals fortified the body. Saaga and aloo provided essential nutrients, sustaining generations.

The Cultural Geography of Pakhala

Itishree Padhi, retired principal of BJB College, Bhubaneswar, from Berhampur, recalls eating torani pakhala, fermented overnight. In Cuttack, it’s called basi pakhala. I remember returning from a night-long jatra during the summer holidays to eat basi pakhala before sleeping.

Dahi pakhala is ubiquitous in Odisha—fresh rice mixed with curd and seasoned with chhunka (called paraja), which includes mustard, cumin, red chilies, and curry leaves. In Bhubaneswar, onions and garlic are often added, while small spring onions remain a sought-after pairing.

Kasturi Mohapatra, a longtime Southern California resident, notes that in Western Odisha, they add hendua (dried bamboo shoot) to enhance flavor. Overnight fermentation makes it sour, eliminating the need for curd. Sometimes a simple baghara (tempering with mustard seeds and dried chilies) is added.

These regional variations reflect differences in climate, flora, caste, and migration patterns.

Rooted in the Village

Though I grew up in Cuttack, every summer and winter we traveled to Haripur, my ancestral village in the princely region of Gadajat. I vividly recall visiting Jeje Ma (my father’s mother) Bada Ma (my father’s older cousin’s wife), and Khudi (my fathers younger brother’s wife). From the bus stop, a bullock cart would take us to their home. The smell of roasted tupuri baigan and channa saag lingers in memory.

Bada Ma would finely slice channa saag, cook  it with peja (rice water) and vegetables, and serve it with pakhala and green chilies. I helped pick these greens, knowing exactly where they came from. Even in our small yard in Cuttack, my mother gathered wild greens during the monsoon. Papayas, green bananas, and pumpkins were our cheapest vegetables. We consumed every part of a banana plant: leaves for serving food, raw bananas as vegetables, banana flowers as delicacies, and the stem as manja.

Ecology of No-Waste Sustenance

Even after 35 years away from Cuttack, the food I grew up with remains a part of me. Of the 100,000 Odias in the U.S., many keep pakhala alive in their kitchens and gatherings.

When I first moved to Delhi at 19, I discovered Punjabi dishes like chhole bhature, but I missed chakuli pitha, santula, and mango chutney. Compared to heavy, oily foods in the commercial kitchen, Odia cuisine emphasized seasonality and subtlety. My mother could make magic out of kitchen leftovers with pakhala. Odia food is about creating abundance from scarcity.

Pakhala represents an ecology of no-waste sustenance. Today, fast food and hormone-fortified meats dominate our diets. Backyard greens are rare, replaced by commercial produce. This shift is linked to rising lifestyle diseases and disconnection from nature.

To eat pakhala is a cultural act. It is an affirmation of frugality, resilience, and ecological wisdom. Reclaiming traditional diets may restore not only our health, but our harmony with nature.

Pakhala is more than a meal. It is a memory, a method, a marker of identity.

Top image, courtesy of www.thetalentedindian.com.

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Annapurna Devi Pandey teaches Cultural Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and was a postdoctoral fellow in social anthropology at Cambridge University, the U.K. Her current research interests include diaspora studies, South Asian religions, and immigrant women’s identity-making in the diaspora in California. In 2017-18 she received a Fulbright scholarship for fieldwork in India. Dr. Pandey is also an accomplished documentary filmmaker. Her 2018 award-winning documentary “Road to Zuni,” dealt with the importance of oral traditions among Native Americans.