07 Jul 2020  |   03:27am IST

Humble ross omelette’s egg on Goa’s culinary entrepreneurship

The plight of ross omelette makers during the COVID lockdown was highlighted by distributing 1000 omelette paos in North Goa. If international flights were landing, a team from the Guinness book of world records were expected to come to Goa to watch the production of the world’s biggest ross omelette
Humble ross omelette’s egg on Goa’s culinary entrepreneurship

Team Café

Freshly made omelette’s dunked in xacuti or other gravies is a quintessential Goa high. But most highs are at an all-time low now.  Hence the community of ross omelette makers, used to serving these delights daily to Goans, especially after office hours, went out of work.

Nor in order to kickstart their businesses and to highlight their problems, some enterprising people in Mapusa decided to make the world’s biggest Ross omelette and make it to the Guinness Book of World records. But naturally, with COVID related restrictions, that didn’t quite happen. But the folks were “egged” on with their never die spirit and look what they did.

Mapusa-based aspiring actress Poonam Karekar Govekar and her team distributed one thousand ros omelette pao's

 in Mapusa and other parts of Goa on Sunday, June 5. The Ros Omelettes were prepared by Prajot Khedekar distributed by Pralhad Govekar, who are residents of Mapusa.

According to Poonam Karekar Govekar, hundreds of families who sustain themselves on making and selling the traditional Ros Omelette in Goa are out of work due to the COVID 19-induced stop in tourism activities. The ros omelette was and is the staple snack for thousands of tourism-related workers in Goa, akin to what the Vada Pav is in Maharashtra. “Hundreds of families in Goa are without income because all they did was make ros omelettes at the gaddas. We want to highlight their plight and the fact that they have lost their livelihood”, she explained.

Govekar said “Our initiative evoked a very good response. We distributed ros omelettesi in Siolim, Guirim and Mapusa. The people were very happy and it also gave me a very clear idea as to what the situation on the ground was.  When we were distributing the ross omelette the look on the people’s faces was priceless. They did not expect it. It was very emotional for me”.

She has now decided to make double the effort and distribute 2000 ros omelettes on Tuesday. It will be distributed at the Mapusa bus stand, the market and other places. She intends to serve it to the small businessmen who sit on the road and sell daily necessities. She said it would be distributed for free but they would be paying all those who would be helping her in this initiative. She said “We shall pay them the cost of making the ros omelette. We will be funding it ourselves, this is social service”.   

Flynn Remedios who was also involved in this exercise said due to the non-resumption of international flights the Guinness World Record adjudicators could not travel to Goa. This will mean the world's biggest ros omelette attempt will be held in August, after international flights resume. He said “ We are lobbying for a GI or geographical indicator for the ros omelette 

as it is unique to Goa along with the Xacuti gravy, is sometimes spiked with chicken pieces”

 

Till the guys from the Guinness book of world records come, let us thank the kind souls of Mapusa for infusing culinary oxygen into many Goans. Our ross omelette is indeed  nothing short of fresh air . 

IDhar UDHAR

Idhar Udhar