From the thab’s warm glow in Leh to Balti kitchens in Turtuk, Ladakh’s traditional kitchens continue to shape how people cook, eat, and endure, fusing ancient rituals with modern life
A recent visit to Ladakh was an eye-opener; it gave me fresh insight into its food culture. The people continue to practise age-old systems of organic farming, making the freshness of the produce palpable even to the most oblivious diner. Eating seasonally and locally is a way of life in Ladakh, considering the extreme climates and accessibility issues in this highly mountainous region. But it is the traditional kitchens, split into summer and winter spaces, that caught my attention.
These kitchens, centred around the thab (a wood-fired, clay or metal box-like hearth), have anchored families in the community and inculcated resilience in the face of challenges. Perhaps it is where the strength for powerful people’s movements, like a hunger strike for government accountability, is derived from.
My first look at a part of a traditional kitchen set-up was at Namza Dining, a fine-dining Ladakhi restaurant in Leh. At the centre of the circular dining area done up in wood-and-glass stands a now non-defunct, black metal thab, complete with cookware placed over it. Shelves on one wall are dedicated to heirloom crockery. Savouring a meal with dishes like Gyuma (mutton sausage), Zathuk (dried wild nettle soup), Kabra-Tingmo (caper greens and a steamed bread, a blend of Ladakhi and neighbouring Tibet styles), with the thab to gaze at was a great first experience.
Thab: the female deity of the hearth
In her book, Traditional Kitchen and Ethnic Food of Ladakh (2024), author Rashida Kousar Kalikhan explains that thabs were traditionally made of clay, but with time were replaced by metal versions when missionaries brought such stoves to Ladakh. The thab is worshipped as the home of a guardian or the female deity of the hearth, the thab lha gyal mo, and is honoured with ritual offerings during important occasions such as Losar (New Year).
The traditional kitchens in Ladakh are centred around the thab, a wood-fired, clay or metal box-like hearth.
On the open side of the thab, is the thabma, a special seating place reserved for the lady who starts the fire and cooks. This is positioned next to the food, drink and supply storage, enabling easy reach. Burning coal and ashes needed to keep the kitchen warm are usually stored in an area next to the thab.
Rashida also explains that “the Chansa, (winter kitchen) is usually on the ground floor, and is a multi-purpose kitchen and living room with a thab in the middle and a seating space around it. The ground floor’s windows and doors are small, and the ceilings low, to trap heat in. Families would even sleep here or in adjoining rooms because the hearth would keep the space warm in winter. Yarkhang is the summer kitchen, often on the second floor.”
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We dined in a summer kitchen, 160 kilometres from Leh at The Heritage Kitchen, in the over 150-year-old family home of Stanzin Tsephel, set inside Stone Hedge, a resort in Nubra Valley. Saved from demolition and after some restorative work, Stanzin now opens this home on pre-booking for a traditional meal curated by Chef Jigmet Mingyur, well-known on socials as The Ladakhi Chef. As you enter the narrow wooden door, a wall of family photos leads you to the wooden-floored summer kitchen. This is surrounded on two sides by glass-encased wooden shelves (langska) that hold a range of traditional cookware from the family’s collection.
The staff excitedly explain the many artefacts in the home: dZem (a tub-like willow wood container, for chang, the local alcohol), thumbu (ladles), gormos (delicately carved metal bowls to eat out of and also to make roasted barley dough). The Yarkhandi Pulao for the evening is served in these bowls and we are poured cups of Khunak (salted tea) from a Thagu (a kettle with an ornately designed handle and spout).
As we ate buckwheat crackers with Tangthur (caper greens mixed in curd) and sipped on Namthuk (barley soup with churpi, a yak cheese), we were regaled with stories of how, as children, most of the staff and Stanzin included, would quickly mix together barley flour, butter and sugar into balls that they would put into their pockets to snack on and how the first snow would trickle in through the wooden rafters of the kitchen and form a puddle on the floor.
Traditional kitchens and the Balti meal
Going further, into the frontier village of Turtuk (around 200 kilometres from Leh), the Balti culture here is influenced by Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Persia, because of its geographical location on the historic Silk Route. The traditional kitchens are best seen in their original forms at The Balti Heritage Museum and Cultural Centre, which is housed inside a 140-year-old Balti home.
The architecture is primarily wood, and you walk through the summer and the winter kitchens, designed to keep the homes warm and well-ventilated during harsh weather. Firewood was kept dry in storage spaces above the hearth. Living spaces, including one dedicated to small children and babies, surrounded the central kitchen.
Hearth in the winter kitchen.
On display are vessels like the Samovar (to brew tea), Tanos and Tanos Bhu (stone mortar and pestle), Daek (copper pot to cook vegetarian food), Zan Qoat, a vessel used for making Zan (savoury buckwheat cake), Shing-Photoo, a wooden bowl to drink tea or Ba-leh (noodle soup with vegetables) and the Pheygrom, sturdy wooden trunks made of apricot, walnut or juniper wood used to store flour.
Turtuk is also home to Nangchung, meaning cold house in Balti. Around 400 years ago, local families are said to have found these cavities in the mountains that were several degrees cooler than outside, even in summer. They built walls within these cavities to trap the cold air and used the space as a refrigerator before electricity was available.
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Glacial water flowing through the gaps in the stones keeps the space cold, though villagers say no real research backs this claim. Eight such cold storages exist, and today these belong to the whole village. Besides cupboards, two-foot deep cubby holes in the ground were used for storage. Some families still store butter wrapped in yak skin that is around 50 years old. The smell can send you scurrying for fresh air!
Where you can experience a Balti meal, traditionally cooked on a double-burner metal stove, is at Virsa Baltistan’s The Balti Farm. Here, owner Rashidullah Khan offers a tasting menu cooked by local women with dishes like Chonmagramgrim (salad), Ba-leh (hand-rolled noodles in broth), Moskot (buckwheat pancakes with a walnut sauce), Praku (thumb-pinched walnut sauced pasta), Kisirnagrang-Thur (buckwheat pancakes) and Phading (an apricot dessert).
Today, when traditional kitchens are largely a thing of nostalgia and not lived in, Ladakhi kitchens remain strikingly present, a reflection of resilience and of a modernity that coexists, rather than competes, with tradition.
