Fernando Monte da
Silva
There are many ways in which one can truly savour the true
Goan experience. And oddly enough, you don’t have to be a tourist to do so.
Being local is just fine. Odder still, you don’t need to be by the seaside to
do so either. If you’re a tourist and reading this, take a moment to collect
yourself and stop reeling before we proceed.
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Now here are a few things to do along the food trail that
don’t include shacks (gasp) or bars (shudder) and still have a great meal, and
more importantly, a supremely good experience:
There will be many a person that says if in-land, one should
go to Mum’s Kitchen. These people are wrong. No doubt they probably serve up
some decent fare, but there is no way you’re getting a proper local experience
in a clinically altered ambience. In fact, skip proper restaurants altogether.
Which begs the question, where does one go?
To answer that, let us venture further East – that place
with no coastline that yet has beauty, something most people think has to be
mutually exclusive. The township of Ponda and its surroundings boast of a
little cluster of spice plantations. Here one can go on a detailed, guided
tour, which is followed by the best part: lunch. Not only do you get fresh
produce on your plate, but you also get to learn where it came from. The three
main players in the spice plantation game are: the Tropical Spice Plantation, the Savoi
Plantation and the Sahakari Spice
Farm. Over time, the Savoi Plantation,
which is incidentally the oldest, has become immensely popular. This is because
of their need to highlight Goan Saraswat
cuisine, as well as its tour that includes a trip down to the in-house cashew
processing factory and feni distillation unit.
Since it’s a long standing joke amongst visitors to the
state as well as fellow countrymen that Goan people love to loaf, let me point
out that we do. We have a rich heritage when it comes to baking, and we are
proud of it. We produce bread that includes the like of the undo (which is small, crisp and shaped
like someone’s backside), poie (made
with the husk and completely healthy),
khatre (which I have seen nowhere but Goa and has two sets of horns on
either side of the loaf and would make cult worshippers proud), bhakri (much like a poie but even more multigrain in nature), kankna (a popular tea-time dipper for those with an airtight dental
policy, translating literally into bangles), bol (which translates from the Portuguese bolo, meaning cake though this is more of a sweetened bread) and of
course the legendary pao (soft buns
that go with anything, including another bun).
Dine off of some heritage. There are many homes that open
their doors to the public. Here, just like the spice farms, you can get your
fix of the freshest ingredients cooked by a loving homely hand. Many families
have little pop-up kitchens and here you will find that they have an ‘inside
man’ who gets them the freshest meat or seafood (and if you’re really lucky,
game which doesn’t find its way to most restaurant tables). These are best
found in the quiet little villages, and stay well kept secrets that even
hardened and ‘wisened’ guides like the Lonely Planet and Conde Nast Traveller
(with all due respect and thankfully) find hard to map.
So if you want a true gastronomic experience, leave the
coast alone, do something new, tread a path you haven’t walked, and stop beaching
about uninspiring food.
