Nepal, Sept. 19 -- Every year, as the month of November-December arrives, the sweet fragrance of steamed rice flour and warm chaku or khuwa fill drifts through the narrow lanes of Bhaktapur, Kathmandu and Lalitpur.

Newa families come together to form small fish-shaped dumplings, known as Yomari, from freshly harvested rice, filled with sesame seeds, coconuts, chaku or khuwa, prepared in a ritual that dates back centuries.

The festival for this food, called Yomari Punhi, is not just a cultural celebration; it is the embodiment of an agricultural knowledge system, linking a particular community, a particular crop, and a particular season.

However, if any foreign food company started producing Yomari today and began labeling it in a super...