Cuisine Culture - Akhuni or Axone

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  Cuisine Culture - Akhuni or Axone

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Key point - 

1. Axone — or fermented soya bean — is cooked, eaten and loved in Nagaland, and many tribal communities in different parts of Northeast India and beyond.

What is axone -

1. Axone — also spelled akhuni — is a fermented soya bean of Nagaland, known for its distinctive flavour and smell.
2. As much an ingredient as it is a condiment, axone used to make pickles and chutneys, or curries of pork, fish, chicken, beef etc.
3. Flavours generated by axone are comparable to that of Japanese miso, which is quite mainstream in Japanese restaurants.

How popular is it in Nagaland - 

1. Axone is prepared and eaten across Nagaland but is particularly popular among the Sumi (also Sema) tribe.
2. Many students, professionals from Nagaland move to cities like Delhi and Mumbai and it is common for them to carry axone there.
3. Moreover, there are now number of eateries serving ethnic Northeastern cuisine which have opened in these cities, and axone is a prominent part of the menu.

How is axone prepared - 

1. Axone is prepared by picking and cleaning the soyabeans well in fresh water, and then boiling them until they are soft, but still whole.
2. The excess water is drained and the soybeans are placed into a pot or degchi and put either out in the sun or next to the fire to warm and ferment.
3. This takes three to four days to ferment in summer and around one week in winter.
4. After it is fermented, the beans are mashed, made into cakes and wrapped in banana leaves and kept near the fireplace to ferment further.
5. This paste-like form of axone is used to make curries and stews of fish, pork, chicken etc. 
6. The drier form of axone, on the other hand, is not mashed, but further dried in the sun till it becomes dehydrated.
7. One can then fry it with ginger, garlic and chilli powder, make powdered chutney or pickles.

What lends axone its characteristic smell and taste - 

1. Axone is made by fermenting soya beans. Fermentation is what lends it its distinct smell and taste.
2. Does the ingredient play a role in tribal identity and culture - 
3. Tribal folklore has references to the ingredient. For example, as per a Sumi folktale, axone was an “accidental discovery.”
4. Legend says that a young girl, who worked as a domestic help, would be sent to the fields to work only with boiled soya bean and rice to eat.
5. It was inedible, so the girl kept the soya bean aside, wrapped in a banana leaf. A few days later, she found the soya had fermented, with a unique smell.
6. She decided to use it in a dish and that is how axone was discovered.
7. Some people become lifelong connoisseurs, while others detest it and develop a long-lasting repulsion to it.

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