From Apong To Snail Soup: ‘The Family Man’ Puts Spotlight On Dishes And Flavours From Northeast

For a show that rarely slows down, The Family Man Season 3 sneaks in something unexpected: food. And not the generic “chai–samosa in an interrogation room” food, but flavours from the Northeast that don’t usually make it onto mainstream Indian screens. They appear quietly, almost like cultural Easter eggs: a drink offered with a ritual, a bowl mentioned in passing or a fruit that flashes by but says plenty if you know the region. Let’s go through the three items the season genuinely puts on the map, keeping the drama, the geography, and the craft in the same frame.

3 Northeastern Heroes Of The Family Man

1. Apong

The scene is brief, but it is significant. Rukma (Jaideep Ahlawat) pours Apong, a rice beer traditionally made by the Mishing tribe in Assam and the Adi/Tani groups in Arunachal Pradesh. Before taking a sip, he sprinkles a few drops on the ground, a gesture meant for ancestors and spirits. It’s not played up or explained; the show trusts viewers to notice.

What’s fascinating is the drink itself. It isn’t industrial alcohol, it’s a carefully fermented homemade brew. The process starts with a starter cake called apop pitha, made from rice flour and anything between 16 and 39 local herbs and leaves. Each family has its own secret mix. After that, the brewing splits into two personalities:

• Nogin Apong: This version is spicier, darker and fermented in an earthen pot for about 4-5 days.
• Poro Apong: This one is lighter, made with glutinous rice and ash and then left to sit for nearly 20 days before being filtered through bamboo lined with banana leaves.
  

Both have one thing in common: they’re saved for moments that matter, like weddings, harvests, funerals and community gatherings. So when Rukma offers it, it’s more than hospitality. It’s intimate and almost like a coded message.

Also Read: India Gets A Taste Of The Caribbean With Carib Beer, Crisp, Golden, And Bursting With Island Energy

2. Snail Soup

Media round-ups of the season kept bringing up one curious phrase: “snail soup.” It’s not shown as a cooking sequence, and the show doesn’t explain it, but the mention aligns with the kind of hyper-local, foraged food traditions common across tribal parts of the Northeast.

Snails, especially freshwater ones, appear in various rural kitchens throughout the region, simmered with herbs, bamboo shoots, or homegrown spices. The Family Man doesn’t pretend to document the dish; it simply acknowledges that these are everyday flavours in the places the story is set in. The reference feels almost like a wink: “This world is bigger than the main plot, and this is what the locals eat.”

Also Read: 12 Hearty Soups From Around The World To Welcome The Winter Season

3. Sweet Pineapples

You wouldn’t expect pineapples to go viral after a spy show, but that’s exactly what happened. Season 3’s fleeting shots of Northeast sweet pineapples were enough to spark chatter online, partly because they’re genuinely famous in the region for their fragrance and low acidity.

They aren’t a “dish,” but they do carry cultural weight. Pineapple cultivation is foundational in parts of Tripura, Nagaland, Manipur, and Meghalaya. It’s everyday produce and not a tourist delicacy. By including them, even casually, the show grounds the landscape in reality instead of leaning on clichés of misty hills and insurgent camps.

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What these three items do more than add flavour to the scene is add texture. Apong tells you there’s a belief system beneath the plot. Snail soup hints at a daily life the show doesn’t have time to unpack. A basket of pineapples quietly says: people here farm, trade, eat and share. The Family Man never announces any of this. It just leaves the clues on the table, trusting you’ll notice.

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