Naga Cuisine Trail

Naga food is bold, smoky and deeply tied to the land. Meals revolve around rice with meat or fish cooked simply with fresh herbs and chillies, and key ingredients include smoked pork and beef, fermented bamboo shoot, axone (fermented soybean), anishi (fermented colocasia leaves) and the legendary king chilli (raja mircha), one of the world's hottest.

A guided food trail in Kohima starts at the local market, where stalls sell smoked meats, river fish, wild greens, insects and larvae — traditional protein sources in Naga diets — and dozens of varieties of chilli. You will then sit down to a home-style meal: perhaps smoked pork with bamboo shoot, pork with axone, chicken with anishi, galho (a rice porridge) and fresh chutneys, washed down with local tea or rice beer.

Vegetarians can try galho, boiled greens, potato and chutneys. Heat levels can be adjusted, though most Naga chutneys are proudly fiery. During the Hornbill Festival, each tribe's morung serves its own specialities.