08 Mar 2020 | 04:37am IST
Raia, colva, panjim-home is where the food is
This is a tale which winds itself from the
fields of Tilamol, Quepem, to the seas of the Bay of Bengal and Indian ocean,
to Manila,
winding itself back to Goa
and to the village of Colva. It is a story of tragedy, sadness and triumph. And
at the end of the day it is again a story of a Goan family, which shapes its
passion and future around food, good goan food.
Benindo, like many boys from South Goa,
started sailing, a life at sea which beckons generations of sea farers. After a
steady job and a career he got married to Sandra. With Ben at sea and with food
running in the veins of the family, like many, the couple decided to start a
restaurant, not at their backyard of Tilamol but in Colva. While Benindo would
be sailing, ´Ben & Sand’ would be Sandra’s baby.
But all dreams do not go according to script.
The year was 1999, ‘Ben and Sand’ did open to the joy of the couple and shortly
after, Ben had to go back to sea. According to his nephew Amancio, tragedy
struck shortly. With his ship near Manila in the Philippines, Ben was struck
with yellow fever, a disease from which he could not recover.
A grief stricken Sandra, did not allow Ben’s
passing to let their joint dream collapse. With the help of Amancio, who
studied Commerce in the Rosary College, Margao, Sandra started life again. “Ben
and Sand” carried on, in the memory of Benindo and with the fighting spirit of
Sandra, ably assisted by Amancio. Over time Amancio has become the pillar and
the face of Ben and Sand, in a little lane off the Margao-Colva road not far
from the Colva police station road. It’s a garden restaurant with a feel of
being outdoors. And while home-made Goan masalas started this journey off, Ben
and Sand has expanded its repertoire to give us flavours of the North. Last week,
a friend and mentor Cristo Prazeres de Costa , the illustrious son of one of
Herald’s foremost editors Amadeus Prazeres de Costa, and yours truly, spent an
evening at Ben and Sand. The conversations, as they always do with Cristo, in
different geographical spots, centered around Goa and its issues, the deep
linkages between Goa and Portugal, of historians, writers and artistes, and of
the need to speak to and document stories and information of those who are
ageing , about aspects of Portuguese India and other stories from the Lusophone
world.
The
masala squid and the spicy chicken curry gave us company. A more elaborate
evening would have included tandoori mackeral or prawns.
Goa is dotted with stories of such places,
where a family extends its kitchen and showcases its skill of making delightful
home-made food, that the world comes to eat. It’s a model which is so unique to
Goa. And even as a bit of newsprint is used to stress this, it is really worth
it.
Across Colva,
on the other side of goa, right in the heart of Fontainhas in Panjim,
literally on the doorstep of yours truly, one of the most Nostalgic
enterprises, on the same model has arrived. Next to St Sebastian Chapel, in a
quaint home, which had earlier housed an oriental restaurant café, Margarida
Tavora e Costa of Chef Fernando’s Nostalgia Raia, responded to the call of her family in Fontainhas and
agreed to use the same space as the earlier restaurant to weave some of her
culinary magic.
While the menu is not as elaborate as the
mother restaurant, the spirit is a little more eclectic. For the hordes of
tourists who walk the labyrinth of by-lanes, a little spot for a bite of
pasties
de nata (Portuguese custard tarts) a lingering taste of Lisboa, the melt in
your mouth mutton samosas, the
prawn balchao, the bacalao fritters
(bolinho de bacalao, salted cod shipped from Lisbon and stocked at Nostalgia
Raia) the salted tongue and the sausage
and tongue pois and paos, is what a Goa vacation is all about. Get a seat by the window, watch the sunlight
stream in through shards of light, see the charm and magnificence of the homes
just outside, hear myriad tongues and greetings,
Bem Vindo, Bomdia, Ciao,
Buonasera as Italians, French and yes the local Portuguese speaking folks
in Fontainhas, where this is literally the first language, mingle and gather.
Nikhil Tavora, Margarida’s nephew runs the
place with elan and gusto making this a comfort zone where you amble in almost
by habit. And yes the coffee is lovely because of the good selections of coffee
pods, though in a spirit of absolute honesty, Carlos Noronha’s freshly roasted
coffee beans of Café Caravela in the Latin Quarter, have the robustness, that
pods cannot quite match. However, a cuppa coffee at Café Nostalgia with a
pasties da Nata (though this is handmade and supplied by Marlene next door
of a quality as close to those in Lisboa) is as good a way to start a quiet
morning.
Even as restaurants by big daddies from Delhi and
elsewhere open up with PR campaigns and fanfare, “influenced” by social media
influencers, the simple family run places in Goa remain under the radar and continue to bring
Goa and its homeliness to so many of us. They need all our prayers and wishes.
And yes, the real food awards should go to
those who put home into their food.
