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Hungry tide
In the 15th century Goan cuisine fell victim to a hijacking by
Portuguese pirates. Fortunately, it tastes superb. But what remains of
the good ship Gomantak? asks Rita D'Souza.
When Portuguese explorers arrived in Goa in the sixteenth century they
weren't out to broaden their horizons – they had come on a mission to
wrest control of the near-priceless spice trade from the Arabs and win
souls for Christendom. But with them they also brought a cornucopia of
culinary treasures harvested from previous adventures: chillies,
tomatoes, potatoes, pumpkins, guavas, pineapples, chikoos and cashews;
not to mention Iberian garlic sausages, or chouriço, and garrafãos of
vinegar, wines and olive oil from . You need only look at your local
vegetable market or bakery to see the impact these imports had on
Indian food, but the effect of the Portuguese arrival on Goan cuisine
was dramatic.
As Portuguese influence took hold, so did their diet, edging out the
region's traditional Saraswat dishes from the Konkan region. What we
now call "Goan food" is a mix of influences that would be nearly
unrecognisable to a fifteenth century Goan. The ubiquitous vindaloo is
a corruption of "vinho d'alho", a garlicky Portuguese wine-vinegar
marinade. Chouriço, those chubby links of lethally spiced pork, are a
Goan version of the Iberian sausage. Sorpatel is from in "sarabulho",
a Portuguese stew of pork and organ meat.
But the Portuguese also introduced influences gathered from their
journeys to South East Asia, Africa and South America: prawn balchão
from and galinha (chicken) cafreal from . Saraswat touches added to
the mix as a new cuisine evolved – haldi (tumeric), jeera (cumin),
cinnamon and cloves found their way into meat assados (roasts),
coconut and semolina showed up in bolos (cakes), and the taste for
strong spices led to increased quantities of vinegar and chillis that
would have been intolerable to the colonisers' palates.
Most Goan restaurant menus may lead you to believe otherwise, but
Saraswat cuisine did survive as "Gomantak" cooking (after the ancient
name for Goa ). Goa's hidden cuisine generally consists of
thick-grained, nutty, reddish parboiled rice eaten with fish or
shellfish that has been curried or fried. It's accompanied by mildly
spiced seasonal vegetables, all flavoured with dark palm jaggery and
tamarind, with lashings of coconut in every form thrown in for good
measure. Mud vessels and wood fires gave the food its characteristic
rustic, smoky aroma, which is best captured in a steaming bowl of
canjee (rice gruel) with a wicked piece of mango pickle.
Gomantak delicacies are still there to be found: try sol kadi, mutton
shagoti, fried bombil, ambot tik and teesrya sukhem. Try khatkhatem, a
mélange of vegetables, roots and tubers in a subtly spiced coconut
gravy similar to the South Indian avial; or sansav, an unusual
preparation of the pulp of sucking mangoes tempered with green chilli
and mustard seed and blended with coconut and jaggery. Then there's
uddadmethi, an intense curry made of a coarsely-ground blend of
roasted uddad dal, methi (fenugreek) seeds, rice grains, coconut and
spices; or ambotik, the hot and sour fish curry that tastes best with
baby shark. Some things are harder to find, though. You're unlikely to
get the chance to try a kalputi – a fish head curry – outside a Goan
home.
Nowadays, though, it feels like a "second wave" of culinary colonisers
is beginning to shunt even Portuguese Goan dishes aside in favour of
Chinese, pizzas and tandoori dishes. Just witness the fate of that
erstwhile queen of Goan savouries, the apa de camarão – a rice flour
and coconut cake filled with spicy prawns – now condemned to a life
sentence as a recipe in a chapter on classic Goan cookery of the past.
Gomantak restaurants:
Viva Paschim City Mansion , First Floor, above Cafe City , Worli Naka
(2498-3636 / 2493-7059).
Highway Gomantak 44/2179 Gandhi Nagar, behind Apna Bazaar, highway
facing Bandra (E) (2640-9692).
Saayba Shop No 1 & 2, Zarina Co-op Society,
SV Road
, opposite Masjid, Bandra (W) (2643-6620/5628-0764).
Sushegad Gomantak Shop No A11, Shiv Sagar Society,
LJ Road
, opposite Paradise Theatre, Mahim (2444-5555).
Saibini Gomantak Katrada Mansion ,
Gokhale Road
, near Shiv Sena Bhavan, Dadar (W) (2432-8065/2438-5429).
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