Monsoon Preparations: Goan families once relied on drying, pickling, and storing seasonal foods like salted pork, fish, mushrooms, and bamboo shoots to survive the monsoon months.
Vanishing Traditions: With year-round access to fresh food, many age-old preservation practices and recipes are gradually disappearing.
Call to Document Heritage: Elders urge collecting and recording traditional recipes and techniques before they are lost forever.
May was once much more than a month for summer vacations and picnics in Goa. Traditionally, it was the time when families stocked up on essential provisions to sustain them through the monsoon season, when most village markets would shut down. Across the state, certain church feasts, known as Purumentachim Festã or festas de provisões (“festivals of provisions”), were famous for stalls selling everything needed to prepare for the rains.
These preparations weren’t just about practicality but about preserving flavors, customs, and community spirit. Antionio Miranda of Margão recalls how, in the 1970s, he would rush to ponds and lakes in May to buy fish in bulk. “Some fish was eaten fresh, some turned into molho, while live ones were kept in large copper pots of water for later,” he said. He also remembered buying bullfrogs in sacks from young men who hunted them at night, and collecting kongé (field snails) as soon as the rains began. Excess snails were stored in copper pots or bamboo baskets.
Many Catholic families would ritually slaughter a pig in May, preserving the meat by salting it in terracotta basins called kodem or by preparing smoked sausages. Dishes like parro and balchão, dried and pickled seafood delicacies, were staples of monsoon cuisine. Palm vinegar, essential for pickling, was mainly used by Catholics, while Hindu households preferred to stock dried fish bought from Mapuçá market, shared Madhusudan Mahale of Panjim.
Monsoon also brought foraging adventures. Boys carrying kerosene lamps or torches would venture into fields and riverbanks to catch fish, crabs, and frogs using dhipkavnni, a technique that exploits animals’ attraction to light. Loretta Aguiar of Colva fondly recalled her grandmother’s instructions to gather wild mushrooms under the jamun tree—but never all of them, to allow regrowth the following year. These mushrooms were considered best cooked without pork or beef to avoid food poisoning.
Among the Hindu community, seasonal preparations included sabudana sange—sun-dried, crunchy wafers fried during monsoon—and pineapple halwa, papads, and pickles. “Frozen food was unheard of, so everything was preserved the traditional way,” Mahale said, lamenting how these customs are fading as fresh produce and fish are available year-round.
Seasonal vegetables like allum and téro (colocasia leaves) once grew in abundance during the rains but are rarely seen now. Ajay Gãonkar of Ponda shared memories of trekking into the forests with friends to collect kanaki killachi bhaji (bamboo shoots), crepe ginger, and wild greens. The group would clear overgrown paths and bundle the shoots in leaf cones tied with wild creepers, bringing back provisions to last a week.
Other delicacies prepared ahead of the rains included mangada (mango jam) and kuvallea vaddi (ash gourd fritters).
Food historians like Antoneta Vaz of Margão stress the importance of preserving these traditions. “Gather recipes from elders, document preservation techniques like drying and pickling, and understand the stories behind every dish,” she advised. “This is how we keep Goa’s culinary heritage alive—not only for ourselves but for visitors seeking authentic tastes of this beautiful coastal region.”