Food Culture in the Bhutanese Diaspora

Food culture in the Bhutanese diaspora encompasses the culinary traditions, food practices, and food-related enterprises maintained by resettled Lhotshampa communities in the United States, Canada, Australia, and other resettlement countries. Food occupies a central place in the cultural life of the Bhutanese diaspora — perhaps more so than any other single domain of cultural practice, because the daily preparation and consumption of traditional foods provides a continuous, sensory connection to homeland and heritage that persists even as other aspects of cultural practice may diminish over time. The kitchen, more than the temple or the community hall, is where Bhutanese cultural identity is most consistently practised and transmitted in the diaspora.

The culinary traditions of the Lhotshampa draw on both Nepali and Bhutanese food cultures, reflecting the community's position at the intersection of South Asian and Himalayan culinary traditions. The staple meal of dal-bhat (lentil soup with rice), supplemented by vegetable curries, pickles (achar), and meat dishes, remains the daily diet of most Bhutanese households in the diaspora. Around this staple, a rich repertoire of traditional foods — from the elaborate preparations of festival cooking to the everyday fermented and preserved foods that connect families to the agricultural traditions of southern Bhutan — continues to be practised and adapted in new environments.

Staple Foods and Daily Cooking

The foundation of Bhutanese Lhotshampa cuisine is dal-bhat, a meal of steamed rice accompanied by a soup of lentils (dal), vegetable side dishes (tarkari), and one or more types of pickle or condiment (achar). This meal structure, shared across Nepali-speaking communities throughout the Himalayan region, is consumed by most Bhutanese families in the diaspora at least once and often twice daily. The preparation of dal-bhat is a skill transmitted from mothers and grandmothers to younger family members, and its daily preparation serves as a rhythmic anchor of domestic life that connects diaspora households to the routines of kitchens in Bhutan and the refugee camps.

Rice is the indispensable staple, and diaspora families typically purchase it in large quantities from Asian grocery stores. The specific varieties preferred — generally long-grain white rice, though some families favour particular Nepali or South Asian varieties — have become more readily available in resettlement cities as Asian grocery stores have expanded and as Bhutanese entrepreneurs have entered the grocery business themselves. Lentils, spices, and other cooking staples are sourced from South Asian groceries, mainstream supermarkets, and increasingly from online retailers.

The daily cooking of traditional meals in diaspora kitchens faces practical challenges. The time demands of work schedules in resettlement countries — where both parents in a household often work full-time, frequently in shift work — can make the from-scratch preparation of dal-bhat with multiple accompaniments difficult to sustain. Some families have adapted by simplifying weekday meals and reserving more elaborate traditional cooking for weekends and festivals. Younger family members, particularly those raised in resettlement countries, may also develop preferences for the faster and more convenient foods of their adopted countries, creating tensions with parents and grandparents who regard traditional food practices as fundamental to cultural identity.

Iconic Traditional Foods

Several specific foods hold special cultural significance in the Bhutanese diaspora, serving as markers of identity and occasions for communal preparation and consumption:

• Momo: Steamed or fried dumplings filled with seasoned meat (typically buffalo, chicken, or pork) or vegetables are perhaps the most widely recognised Bhutanese and Nepali food. Momo preparation is often a communal activity, with family members and neighbours gathering to fold dumplings together — a practice that reinforces social bonds while producing a beloved shared meal. In the diaspora, momo have also become a commercial product, with Bhutanese-operated restaurants and food stalls featuring them prominently.
• Sel roti: A traditional ring-shaped rice bread made from a batter of ground rice, sugar, and butter, deep-fried to a golden crisp. Sel roti is particularly associated with the festivals of Dashain and Tihar and is considered indispensable at festival celebrations. Its preparation is a skill passed down through families, and the quality of a household's sel roti is a source of pride.
• Gundruk: A fermented leafy green vegetable — typically mustard greens, radish leaves, or cauliflower leaves — that is dried and preserved for later use. Gundruk is a quintessentially Nepali food with deep cultural resonance, representing the agricultural traditions and preservation techniques of the hills. In the diaspora, gundruk is prepared by families who grow appropriate greens in their gardens or purchase them from Asian markets, and it is also available commercially from Nepali importers. Its distinctive sour, earthy flavour is intensely evocative for those who grew up eating it in Bhutan or the camps.
• Achar: The broad category of pickles, chutneys, and condiments that accompany every meal. Bhutanese Nepali achar ranges from fresh preparations — such as tomato-chili achar made on the spot — to fermented and preserved pickles that develop complex flavours over time. Common varieties include radish achar (mula ko achar), sesame seed achar (til ko achar), and a fiery preparation of fermented bamboo shoots. The preparation of achar reflects both regional cooking traditions and individual family recipes, making it a deeply personal food connection.
• Dhido: A thick porridge made from buckwheat or millet flour, traditionally eaten with the fingers and accompanied by vegetable or meat curries. Dhido is a food associated with the hills of Nepal and the southern Bhutanese districts, and its preparation in diaspora kitchens represents a deliberate act of culinary preservation, since it requires ingredients and techniques that are not common in Western cooking.

Community Gardens

Community gardening has emerged as one of the most significant and celebrated forms of cultural preservation in the Bhutanese diaspora. Many resettled Bhutanese come from agricultural backgrounds, and gardening provides not only a source of familiar vegetables and herbs that are difficult to find in Western supermarkets but also a therapeutic and culturally meaningful activity that connects diaspora members to the land-based traditions of their homeland.

Bhutanese community gardens have been established in numerous resettlement cities across the United States, often with the support of local resettlement agencies, urban agriculture organisations, and municipal programs. In these gardens, Bhutanese families grow traditional crops including various leafy greens (used for gundruk and tarkari), bitter gourd (karela), bottle gourd (lauka), ridge gourd, chilies, mustard, coriander, and other vegetables and herbs essential to Nepali cooking. Some gardeners have successfully cultivated crops that many assumed could not grow in North American climates, demonstrating a resourcefulness and agricultural knowledge that reflects generations of farming experience.

Community gardens serve social functions beyond food production. They provide gathering spaces where elders who may be socially isolated in the diaspora — lacking language skills to navigate public life, separated from extended family networks, confined to apartment living — can engage in familiar, meaningful outdoor activity and social interaction. Gardens have been described by resettlement workers and community members alike as among the most successful integration supports for older Bhutanese refugees, addressing issues of mental health, social isolation, and cultural continuity simultaneously.

Restaurants and Grocery Stores

The growth of Bhutanese-operated restaurants and grocery stores in resettlement cities represents both an entrepreneurial achievement and a form of cultural institution-building. Bhutanese and Nepali restaurants serving momo, dal-bhat, thukpa (noodle soup), and other traditional dishes have opened in many cities with significant Bhutanese American populations, including Columbus, Ohio; Akron, Ohio; Manchester, New Hampshire; and others. These restaurants serve multiple constituencies: they provide familiar food for the Bhutanese community, introduce Bhutanese cuisine to mainstream diners, and create economic opportunities for community entrepreneurs.

Ethnic grocery stores operated by Bhutanese entrepreneurs have similarly become important community institutions, stocking the spices, lentils, rice, pickles, snacks, and specialty ingredients essential to Bhutanese cooking that are not available in mainstream supermarkets. These stores also function as social spaces — places where community members encounter one another, exchange news, and maintain social connections. Some have expanded beyond food to carry Nepali-language media, religious items, and traditional clothing, becoming small cultural centres in their own right.

Beyond the dal-bhat staples, the broader Bhutanese culinary tradition is also represented in the diaspora through dishes such as ema datshi (chillies cooked with cheese) and its variations — kewa datshi with potatoes and shamu datshi with mushrooms. In resettlement, where Bhutanese yak or local cheeses are unavailable, families improvise with American cheese, feta, or other widely available varieties. These adaptations are sometimes viewed with ambivalence by older community members but are embraced by younger Bhutanese Americans as a natural expression of bicultural identity. Bhutanese food trucks and pop-up kitchens in cities such as Columbus and Pittsburgh have introduced these dishes to wider audiences, and the New York Times has profiled Bhutanese refugee chefs and home cooks in its dining coverage.^[5]

Food as Cultural Anchor

The persistence of traditional food practices in the Bhutanese diaspora illustrates the unique role that food plays in cultural maintenance among displaced communities. While other dimensions of cultural practice — language, religious observance, dress, social customs — may shift significantly across generations, food traditions often prove remarkably durable. Children raised in resettlement countries who may speak English as their primary language and adopt Western dress and social norms frequently retain strong preferences for the foods of their heritage, providing a visceral connection to their cultural identity even when other markers of that identity have attenuated.

Food also serves as a medium of cultural exchange and cross-cultural relationship building. The sharing of traditional Bhutanese foods with neighbours, coworkers, and classmates in resettlement countries has been one of the most common and effective ways that Bhutanese community members have introduced others to their culture. Momo in particular have become a widely appreciated food beyond the Bhutanese community, and the inclusion of Bhutanese food stalls at local food festivals and farmers' markets has raised the culinary profile of the community in many resettlement cities.

The evolving cultural preservation efforts of the diaspora increasingly recognise food as a strategic priority, with community organisations incorporating cooking classes, recipe documentation projects, and intergenerational cooking events into their cultural programming. These efforts aim to ensure that the knowledge and skills required to prepare traditional foods are transmitted to younger generations who might otherwise rely on simplified or commercially available versions of their heritage cuisine.

References

1. Magar, Sudesh. "Food, Identity, and Belonging in the Bhutanese Refugee Diaspora." Food, Culture & Society, vol. 22, no. 4, 2019.
2. Hartman, Todd. "Community Gardens as Spaces of Integration for Bhutanese Refugees." Journal of Refugee Studies, vol. 31, no. 4, 2018.
3. Cultural Orientation Resource Center. "Bhutanese Refugees: Cultural Backgrounder." https://coresourceexchange.org/
4. Bose, Pablo S. "Refugees in Vermont: Mobility and Acculturation in a New Immigrant Destination." Journal of Transport Geography, vol. 36, 2014, pp. 151-159.
5. "Bhutanese Food and Refugees." The New York Times, 2022.