The Naga dish that defines a festival: smoked pork and the calculus of feasting

At the Hornbill Festival’s food village, one stall reliably draws the longest queue: the smoked pork, hung over woodsmoke for weeks and cooked with fermented bamboo shoot.

The dish is a Naga constant — festival food, Sunday food, argument-settling food — and its preparation is a matter of family pride.

Chefs from Delhi have come to learn; Naga cooks have come to hold the line.