Santali Food : A taste of Nature by Santals

Santali food is as much as simple as their life, unlike mainstream community, they don't include much spices and oil into their diet .And this is the reason they don't get fatty,Nature as being the main source life, they utilize everything and whether be it their living or building houses and thus they get all the nutrition from nature itself.

dah madi
Picture Courtesy: Shakuntala Marndi

Cultivation of rice is the primary source of food in their diet but the way of cooking and eating rice is different by Santals. After the rice is cooked they don't pour out the water from rice instead,  they take it whole and it is called 'Da Madi' in Santali, where 'Da' means water and Madi means for Food.

With Da Madi, they mainly take green leafy vegetables which is either grown around their house or picked from nearby Jungle. They take non-veg food in regular basis which consist of  varieties of fish,frog,crabs,ants,rodents,birds,eggs etc.In short their food is as simple as they are.

Santal puts a small portion of their food to floor for their ancestor just before having food, this shows Santals are of very hight morale, whether be it festival or daily life they never forget their ancestors.


  • Haw utu ant santali cuisine

Pic Courtesy : Shankuntala Mandi

1 Comments

  1. Thank you so much for this info helped me a lot I couldn't find santhals food anywhere and found here

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