WEDNESDAY, MAY 08, 2024
In Goa good morning starts with the honk of the ‘Poder’ on his rubber ball shaped air horn on a bicycle, the hard working labourer hastily munches on his brown wheat bread known as ‘Poie or Bakri’ soaked in black tea, some old timers prefer to eat a hard crusted bread shaped like ring called the ‘Kankon’ which translates to a bangle. The white collared office goer will enjoy his leisurely breakfast accompanied by his white hot ‘pão’. The ‘pao’ as it is now called {anglicised pronunciation without its usual tilde (~)} , is emblematic of the Goan ‘soussegado’ culture. Bread making was brought to Goa by the Portuguese, Goans that migrated to Bombay, at present Mumbai and other parts of India, carried this trade with them and were called “paowallas”. The Carvalho family put up the first mechanized bakery in Byculla Bombay called ‘American Express Bakery House’ it had a very catch phase on the advertising board ‘We Knead your Needs’ heralding the importance of bread. No gastronomical tour of Goa would be complete without the spicy ‘Chouriço Pao’. In Maharashtra ‘Vadda Pao’ has become its symbolic food, side lining even the ‘baji Puri’.
Bread has a great biblical and religious significance to Christians, breaking bread and sharing shows, community spirit of the Christians. At mass communion (bread) is served in memory of the sacrifices of Jesus Christ on the cross. After fasting for forty days in the desert the devil comes to tempt Jesus to eat bread to satisfy his pangs of hunger and the famous saying that follows: ‘man does not live on bread alone.’
Historical research points out that bread was first made thousands of years (14,600 to 11,600 B.C) near Jordan, bread making later spread to Egypt. With the conquest of Egypt by the Romans bread making spread to the Roman empire and became a very profitable business, Marcus Virgilio Eurisace a Roman slave became so rich and prosperous that he built an extravagant monument for himself and his wife Atistia in the center of Rome (at Porta Maggiore behind the old Aurelian Wall), depicting the process of bread making. The importance of bread (pão) is underestimated, it can make or break governments, during the French revolution there was shortage of food and the peasants came to beg for bread, the queen Marie Antoinette overheard and in her simplicity replied, if there is no bread let them eat cake, this infuriated the crowd, King Louis XVI was dethroned, both Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette lost their heads (executed) in a guillotine.
Winding back the clock of Goan history, a conspiracy was hatched by the clergy and some close aides, which was known as the Pinto conspiracy, the plot was to supply poisoned bread to the Portuguese garrison however the baker who was supposed to deliver the bread got jittery and gave away the plot. Portuguese authorities arrested and punished 47 persons, fifteen conspirators were executed at a public square near the present Panjim post office. Some of the conspirators fled in disguise to British territory. The famous Abbe Faria (hypnotism) and his father fled to France.
Bread is a very important item in the poor man’s diet.
Here are some logical solutions, why can’t the bread prices be allowed to float with increases of raw materials and labour, petrol prices have increased tremendously, transport is an important component of the bread price.
Taxi operators are allowed to increase tariffs frequently, even arbitrarily and given free meters, why can’t the bakers be given subsidy to buy firewood. Forests are being cut indiscriminately example: Mopa, three linear projects, road widening etc, these can be given free to bakers; grown from the soil back to the sons of the soil.
Switching to electric oven does not seem a good option, with constant power failures in the middle of baking, bread may not rise to the occasion. With gas prices rising, it will only burn holes in the pockets.
In olden times the baker (Poder) used to move in the village from house to house on foot wearing a long gown called the ‘Kabaya’, with a basket of bread on his head and a fat bamboo stick, strung with one paisa copper ring coins, the bakers used to walk with a heavy awkward gate banging the stick heavily on the ground causing a loud jingle to draw the attention of the village buyers. Bread at that time used to come in all shapes and sizes, oval, oblong, square (forma pão), four cornered (cartre pão),doughnut shaped ring bread called (Cancon), a rustic sweet bread called ‘Podera Bol’ and crunchy biscuits called ‘Bolach’ were made using coconut jaggery and coconut toddy as ferment all healthy and wholesome foods, the traditional flat bread called (Poe or Bakri) is made of wheat ,dusted with wheat husk, it is considered as the bread of the working class and the poor man’s bread, with diabetes on the rise, it is the become the preferred food of the diabetic patients, because of its low glycemic sugar content; however, because wheat flour is more expensive than white flour (maida), bakers coming from neighbouring states, make it from white flour and add a tinge of dark colour to camouflage it as wheat bread in total disregard to the health of the diabetics, unscrupulous profit being the only motive. Every country has its traditional bread France-baguette, Germany-Pretzel, Poland-Bagel, Italy-Pizza, etc.
The Goan pão has to be made in its old traditional methods, baked in clay firewood oven (Forno) to maintain its authenticity and taste. When we get a Unesco heritage tag, to the humble Goan pão and poder, I can raise the toast ‘Viva’(long live )‘the Goan pão and the poder). ‘Viva re Viva’.
(The author is a Lawyer and Social Activist)
