The pao and the glory ... vignettes from contemporary Goa Vivek Menezes vmin...@gmail.com
Turning off 18th June Road, the main commercial strip of Panjim, the streets leading to the enclave of Boca da Vaca are urban and undistinguished, hemmed in with apartment buildings and shops. But in front of the perennial spring which gives the area its name, a narrow road materializes to one side which serves as a portal to another dimension. Take a few steps along, and the city begins to vanish, like a conjurer's trick. Turn the corner altogether, and you're in a timeless village setting, standing in front of palm trees and a visibly ancient house that's surrounded by immense piles of firewood. Now you're hungry, and it takes a second to register that it's because the air is rich with the delicious scent of freshly baking bread. We're outside Padaria Boca da Vaca, a traditional Goan bakery that has occupied this hidden corner for at least 100 years, manned by a family that has been in the trade for centuries beyond. "Bread is not just a way to make money," says Sebastiao Frias, current standard-bearer of his family tradition, "for my family it has been a way of life for at least 300 years." We're sitting in his tiny balcao, late on an overcast monsoon night. He reminds me that poders, the bakers of colonial Goa, contributed an outsized portion of the taxes in the old Estado da India, and that countless Goan families have become gentrified due to the bakery tradition. Frias himself owns a small hotel in Majorda, but still finds the call of his ovens impossible to resist. "I was born in this," he says, "I feel the gap in my life when I am away from the bakery." "Te poder gele anim te unde gele" is a nostalgic Konkani aphorism. Those bakers are gone, and the bread they made too. But decolonization did not mean the end of the bakery tradition of Goa, where every house in every village is still reached twice a day by a network of salesmen on bicycles, who alert their customers by honking pleasantly on bulb horns that have become an iconic sound of the Goan countryside. Even now most bakeries will turn out three or four different varieties like the famous 'unde', toothy egg-shaped loaves, and 'poi', made with whole wheat flour, as well standard 'pao', the golden-crusted little loaves that are undoubtedly Portugal's most successful culinary export in history. In fact, the word has become ubiquitous. The Portuguese word for bread, 'pao' has crossed over to an astonishing array of Asian languages, from Japanese to Marathi, even as those little loaves became subsumed into other food cultures. In Goa, after the colonial take-over in 1510, "it was the Jesuits who fostered the baking tradition," says Fatima Gracias, a Panjim-based historian with a particular interest in food. She recounts how new converts from the Chardo (Kshatriya) caste in the Jesuit stronghold of Salcete (in today's South Goa) were taught the trade, and that many of the best known bakers across Goa still originate from a handful of Salcete villages. Gracias says "the first established bakers functioned as village magnates, as community financiers." Even outside their homeland, the path to Goan gentrification was lined with biscuit tins. Right until the 20th century (when Parsis and others entered the fray) the profession remained a Goan monopoly across British India, and bread was a primary means by which Goan families entered the middle class. In Bombay, the historian Teresa Albuquerque tells us that Vitorino Mudot, "the Father of Goan Bakers" made the transition to honoured city elder soon after 1819, when he set up the first private baker's oven. As described by Albuquerque, he "lived like a fidalgo or gentleman -- he wore knicker-bockers and a long black coat reaching down to his knees, and he went out only when carried in a stately palanquin!" Mudot was a canny supporter of his people, and an entire generation of Goan migrants found board and lodging in his establishment. Many trained in the bakery before heading out to make independent careers in front of the ovens. Inevitably, some of these professionals moved back to Goa. No longer satisfied with being poders, they became confectioners. This is how the delightful Panjim landmark, the Confeitaria 31 de Janeiro, was founded by Andre Mascarenhas after his return from Africa in the early 1940's. The pocket-sized bakery occupies a picturesque nook of the Latin Quarter of Panjim, and draws a steady stream of loyal customers. From behind the counter, the friendly and welcoming Gletta Mascarenhas says "I am grateful for these traditions because they have made this family what it is. We are definitely going to keep them up, just as they were passed on to us." By contrast, another landmark Panjim bakery, the storied Café Central has prospered via innovation. Among the most widely popular businesses in Goa, it flourishes because of original inventions like toasted onion biscuits, and mushroom samosas. It features at least six kinds of fresh-baked bread daily including milk, brown and multi-grain. Founded in 1932 by A. S. Gaitonde, the café once drew crowds for its bhaji-puri. But when the original building was sold in 1970, the business was converted into a bakery, and soon became one of the most beloved institutions in the state, packed with gesticulating crowds every minute of its operating hours. Far away down a winding road in the South Goa village of Ambora, an atmosphere of calm Zen exactitude pervades the workspaces of Jila Bakery, also the joint family residence of the baking Antao brothers. A truly remarkable operation at the very pinnacle of the baking profession in Goa, Jila is a miraculously intact time capsule of exquisitely refined traditional patisserie technique. Antonio, Reginald and Joao Brito Antao do not use mixers. They have no modern equipment of any kind. They don't fool around with new recipes. Instead, the Antaos stick to what they know is unbeatable -- the recipes invented by their disciplinarian, obsessive father, Jose Antao, who returned to his ancestral village after decades working in Bombay and absorbing ideas from European and Indian baking traditions alike. Take a bite of Jila's apple strudel fresh from the oven, and it is like a shaft of pure light from heaven has penetrated the frontal lobes of your brain. The indescribably light, crispy and layered pastry is like nothing you've ever encountered before. The Antaos say that their father adapted this recipe from Muslim master chefs who were visiting Bombay from Moradabad. But every item at Jila is a revelation -- melt-in-the mouth meringues, incredible handmade chocolate éclairs, and the customer favourite, fan biscuits dusted with hand-ground sugar. "I do this in the name of my father," Reginald Antao tells me with a small hint of emotion in his voice. He doesn't seem to need to pay attention to the huge coils of dough being wound mesmerisingly liquid by his hands, splaying out across the table and then rolling back in like high tide. "This is my tradition, right alongside Our Lady and my family. Baking is my way of life." * * * Padaria Boca da Vaca Boca da Vaca, Panjim. (no phone) Bread available before 9am daily. Confeitaria 31 De Janeiro Corte de Oiteiro, Panjim (0832-222-5791, Mon-Sat 8.30am-8.30pm, Sun 9am-1.30pm) Café Central Dr. Pissurlekar Road, Panjim (0832-242-6451, Open Mon-Sat 9.30am-12.30pm, 3-8pm) Jila Bakery Ambora, Loutolim (0832-277-7224, Mon-Sat 7am-7.30pm, Sun 7-11am) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Now available in Toronto, a few copies of *Into The Diaspora Wilderness* by Selma Carvalho. Contact Bosco D'Mello bo...@goanet.org (416) 803-7264 http://selmacarvalho.squarespace.com/