Tourists, locals relish traditional dry vegetables, demand increased to 30 percent: Restaurant owner
By Ovais Gull
Srinagar: In a bid to promote and express the tradition of Kashmir, the Valley restaurants have made the ‘hokh suen’, traditional dry vegetables available for both locals as well as tourists, visiting Kashmir.
The famous restaurants across Srinagar have taken the initiative to promote and preserve the tradition of Kashmir by making ‘hokh suen’ available at their eateries.
The hokh suen is always in a great demand during winters as it is an integral part of the winter diet of Kashmiri people and known to be rich in several nutrients.
For decades, people here have been sun drying vegetables to preserve for winters. In the absence of a cold storage facility and canning units, sun-dried vegetable does the job for Kashmiris.
The demand of ‘hokh suen’ by the tourists visiting the Valley has also increased, a local restaurant owner told INS, saying that the restaurant has made dun dried vegetables available from last year but the demands has increased to 30 per cent this year.
“I had made it available for the locals but there is a great demand from tourists as well,” Roohi Nazki, an owner of Chai-jai told INS, saying that it is surprising that the people relish the hokh suen and other Kashmiri cuisines.
She added that the initiative taken to express Kashmiris culture is becoming successful here. “We started serving hokh suen from last year. We served it as hokh suen pie in the first instance following which we served it in different concepts and surprisingly people including locals as well as tourists relish it,” she added.
Stating that ‘hokh suen’ is attracting the people here, Naki added hokh suen is synonym with Kashmir and people on social media follow them for expressing the culture at different platforms.
The ‘hokh suen’ is also available at other restaurants axcross Srinagar, who echoed the similar views in this regard.
Notably, the hokh suen is also costlier than fresh vegetables. One kg of any dried vegetables costs over 200 rupees.
It is worth to mention here that the medicos have also warned against the use of dried vegetables, saying that people should see whether the preservation methods are healthy.
