Know Suey,
Indo-Cornish Pasties, Shepherd’s Pie, Tuna Pasta, Cheese Souffle, Boeuf
Bourguignon and Blanquette De Veau, these are not just dishes from different
cuisines of the world. They are also featured in the second memoir by Tanya
Mendonsa, a noted author, poet and painter, who once called Moira her home. ‘A
Bite in Time’, published by Design Foundry and printed by Pragati, this book is
hard to put down. Right from beautifully describing her childhood and her life
under the guidance of her parents until moving to Paris on her own at the age
of 21 and the artistic journey from there on, Tanya puts the readers right in
her shoes. And not forgetting the recipes, which have the minutest details and
also variations.
“They
are all my mother’s Goan and Portuguese recipes, and my friends’ family
recipes. I never touched a saucepan until; I came back to India and got what I’d
come back for, Joshua, my black and white cocker spaniel. For him, I started
baking, and discovered I had a gift. The challenges were in fine tuning the
recipes, I don’t know how my ma did it, but I’ll never print another recipe in
a book again. The precision drove me mad – it took me 18 months to get the
flapjack recipe right. When Mukund (one of the duo, Anita and Mukund, who are
my publishers) said he wanted to come home and take photos and films of me
actually cooking the dishes in the book, I got hysterical. Thankfully, Covid
continued, so I never had to do that! The recipes were, of course, tested
professionally by them,” says Tanya, whose first memoir was ‘The book of Joshua
– the true story of a dog who loved the world’.
Now settled in the
Nilgiris, Tanya traces her roots from her father’s family in Assonora and her
mother’s family came from Saligao and Divar. However, living in different
places, the food enthusiast in Tanya has been spoilt for choice and it shows in
her writing. “Going to Paris at the age of 21 changed my life and my
expectations of life. One also makes one’s strongest friends from the ages of
20 to 40, and those years I spent in Paris and travelling around. I was lucky
enough to have three surrogate families in France- the Moreaus, who invited me
to come live with them in Paris, my French cousins, the de Heredias and my best
friend Lavinia Stefani’s Italian family. I have kept all these people and many
more in my heart and in my life, and we communicate all the time, and they visit
me in India, when I came back 20 years later.”
Speaking about the research for the book, Tanya explains, “My
publishers brought up the idea of the book more than four years ago, and I
started writing it straight away. However, Covid struck in 2020 and by 2021,
the book was finished. It just needed the illustrations. I’d already sent all
my old family photographs and my old postcards from Europe to my publisher’s
paper project. But, because of constant closures of their office and shortages
of staff, final collation and printing had to be held off until this year.”
She
wrote to her mother every week on a Friday from Paris. “She kept all my
letters, as I kept hers. My friends loved reading her letters, it was like
sharing her life. I kept all the very, very simple recipes she gave me. My
mother, for good or ill, accepted anything and everything I did. Obviously,
this makes for a painfree relationship. I don’t think she ever forbad me to do
anything,” says Tanya about her mother, an integral part of her memoir.
Tanya
returned to Goa in 2001 with artist, Antonio E Costa and that is another
chapter of her life as she found her career in her new home in Moira. She says,
“Goa gave me my career. I wrote my first collection of poetry, ‘The Dreaming
House’ in my beloved house in the village of Moira as well as my career in
painting, which I re-started in Goa, with Antonio’s enthusiastic help.
Antonio’s role in the book was primordial. I met him in Bangalore in 1996, and
it was only when we moved to Goa in 2001 that, inspired by the green and the
beauty, I started painting. From the day I entered that blessed 100 year old
house in Moira, I started writing poetry and I never stopped. I had found my
vocation and Antonio was the root of both.”
Tanya’s this trip to Goa will involve meeting her two brothers
and a few friends and of course, launching her book, ‘A Bit In Time’ at
Literati Bookshop and Café, Calangute on November 18 from 5 pm onwards. “My
target readers are anyone who enjoys good writing and good food, with a bit of
poetry thrown in for good measure. The book will always be available at
Literati in Calangute and will be available online at Amazon from November 20
onwards,” informs Tanya, who will then head to Bangalore and Chennai for the
book launches.
Tanya is next working on ‘The Land Of Lost Content’ about
people, animals and places that she has loved in her life. “It will have the
painting I did from an old black and white photo of my mother and myself on the
cover,” concludes Tanya.
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