GOAN FOOD By Valmiki Faleiro I know little about food. Other than eating, I mean, and being pretty opinionated about it. Two recent encounters reminded me of this title. Teresa Rebelo da Costa, a school teacher from Maina-Curtorim, became a kitchen-centric housewife after she married in Aquem-Margao some 40 years ago. Edridge Vaz from Chorao, a young professional Chef, is at one of Goa’s best known 5-star hotels. The food they churn would delight any thoroughbred gastronomic Goan – Hindu, Catholic or Muslim. Funny that Goan cuisine must be categorized by creeds – why, even by sub-castes! Only those who know our chequered history enough will understand how and why Goan Hindus prefer tamarind or lemon juice to palm toddy vinegar, why Goan Catholics add salt to rice when being cooked and not when eating, and how Goan Muslims won’t eat flesh except that slaughtered by one of their own. While the distinct Saraswat cuisine is as delectable as that of Goan Mahars, each in its own way, ubiquitous fish, to Catholics, is either ‘masoli’ or ‘nustem,’ depending on caste groupings, and culinary dissimilarities between original Goan and migrant Muslims hopefully won’t get further compounded between Sunni and Tabliqui variants! The ‘bon vivant’ Goan, though, would be as much at home with the world’s best spirits as he would with his fiery feni. Or with caviar, ‘pate de foie gras’ and chicken ‘a la Kiev’ as he is, with the same palate, with his native fish, veggies and meat. Goans are food connoisseurs. Not for nothing did the world notice them as great “cooks and butlers.” Permit me today to share some humble thoughts on the subject. But, may I please prefix a disclaimer: this is a banana court of personal opinion! If Lord Parashuram, an avatar of Lord Vishnu, created the seven Konkanas, slicing the sea with his axes (some say arrows), the women of his ‘most beautiful’ coastal creation make the best meals in the world. With kitchen knives. And simple ingredients, cooked in earthen pots, over smoky wood fires. From the south of Mumbai, down the marvellous sliver of geography, upto the coast of Malabar. To me, authentic food from anywhere in the Konkan coast, is the tastiest in the world. I do savour specialities of Kashmiri, Tamil-Andhra Chettinad, Hyderabadi, Mughlai, etc. There’s world cuisine … Arab, Burmese, Chinese, Continental, English, French, Italian, Japanese, Lebanese, Mexican, Thai … why, perhaps Zulu. (Lest I be misread, all food is precious. Parts of the world still starve. But for now, let’s think of food, not famine.) Nothing is as flavourful as Goa’s own and from across the Konkan seaboard – Malvani curries to Mangalorean sukkas, down to fiery preparations eaten from rice-appams on the Malabar Coast. There’s nothing quite like Konkan food anywhere else in the world. Give me my daily rice and curry – with some pickled meat, fish, fruits or veggies (balchao, molho, para, pickle, kismur, or the delicious papad handmade by any lady of true Goan upbringing). Give me the fiery ‘xacuti’ of the Chapora boat-builders in these sweltering summers (better than any MD-prescribed inoculation against monsoon colds!) Give me ‘tonnaks’ (gravy accompaniments) or the ‘sukkems’ (dry ones.) And who could forget dried fish on those rainy days? Or the world’s best natural digestive: ‘Sol kadi’ (from dried kokum rind)? Ironic we must both thank and curse the Portuguese for many things. Regards food, one can only thank them. They brought lot many ingredients to the kitchens of Goa, Konkan and the rest of India (and most of our tropical fruits.) Garcia de Horta was the man who launched a virtual botanical gene bank ‘Exchange’ for the world, in the “Praças de Norte” near Mumbai. In his gardens, he planted varieties fetched from Indo-China, the Far East, Africa and South America. He propagated them in Goa, the Konkan (then largely under Portuguese control) and the rest of India. He propagated Indian species, like the mango, to the rest of the world. Horta’s book of Asian plant life was the western world’s standard even before Botany shaped into a formal discipline. Thanks in part to Horta, the world became better, plant-wise. Goan / Konkan food assimilated, adapted and attained a rare global sheen, next best only to paradise. People like Teresa da Costa and Edridge Vaz make things even tastier, like friends Bonny and Pobres Pereira of Betalbatim’s famed “Martins Corner,” from their mother‘s gifted hands with pots, pans, perhaps even axes! (To conclude.) (ENDS) The Valmiki Faleiro weekly column at: http://www.goanet.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=330 ============================================================================== The above article appeared in the April 27, 2008 edition of the Herald, Goa
