https://www.gqindia.com/live-well/content/meet-chef-anumitra-ghosh-dastidar-and-shalini-krishan-the-duo-behind-goas-edible-archives
As far back as anyone can remember, the narrow road from Mapusa – the market town of North Goa – dropped down towards the Arabian Sea at Anjuna by skirting dense woods where it wasn’t easy to detect any life. There was always a village there, and thus the Konkani reassurance *assa gao*. Fast-forward to the 21st century and no doubts linger because this entire area bubbles with countercultural energy. Crowds of people from around the world have made it the hub of their New Age lives. For the millennial generation, Assagao is their own private Shangri La. An unusually surreal texture characterises this rapid transition. Runaway real estate development is punctuated by permaculture. Several of India’s best restaurants nestle inside century-old Goan houses. Tattoos and dreadlocks and high-tech digital nomadism coexist casually, often in the same person. Seamlessly simultaneous, the timeless rhythms of traditional village life in the Konkan. The irony of these juxtapositions struck me hard at the end of this monsoon, when I drove out from my home in Panjim, the pocket-sized riverside capital of Goa, to interview Shalini Krishan and Chef Anumitra Ghosh Dastidar at Edible Archives, their hit new restaurant on the Assagao-Anjuna border. Just before its driveway, I found what looked like a neighbourhood* kirana*, but turned out to be a tiny restaurant festooned with a profusion of buzzwords: “heirloom superfoods”, “primitive”, “unmodified”, “open-pollinated”. The day’s special was “hemp & red rice dosa”. That kind of jargon defines the jumbled-up cultural and culinary landscape that Dastidar and Krishan entered with sensational effect with their star turn at the 2018-2019 Kochi-Muziris Biennale. Edible Archives stands out for deep research and commitment to heritage ingredients, as well as its refreshing cuisine-agnostic approach. A single meal at their hands – even just one plate of food – could feature tastes and techniques from diverse sources: Chef Dastidar’s native Bengal, Kerala, Goa, the North-East, the tribal heartland of Odisha, Thailand, Japan (her first formal kitchen training was in Japanese food) and Italy (she was in the core team powering Ritu Dalmia’s Diva restaurant empire). I had been instantly intrigued when one of the artists in the Kochi-Muziris Biennale told me about a project that explored the interstices between food, art and activism, and focused on rare rice varieties from around the country. Then came floods of rave reviews, as friends who visited the Biennale told me these delicious bowls of food were their highlight. Some became hooked, visiting every day during their stay. Vegetarians, carnivores, pescatarians, irredeemable gluttons and the usually abstemious: the unanimity of approval was disconcerting. It confused me. A lifetime of adventurous eating had taught me that eclectic fusion inevitably flops. What was making it work in Kochi? “Our kind of food can’t be explained by just recipes,” says Chef Dastidar. “It is based on in-depth knowledge of the grammar of different culinary traditions. It takes lots of time to study all the nuances and try things out in the kitchen. It’s only when you have a really strong grasp of the universalities that you can make things work in combination. We do a lot to figure out the contrasts, and also the visuality of the elements, so that everything plays out the way we want it to on your plate and also your palate.” Diminutive, bespectacled and solemn, Dastidar gives off distinctly grad student vibes, which makes sense because she has a PhD in cognitive linguistics from Delhi University (part of her research was at MIT in the US). She grew up studiously *bhadralok* on Kolkata’s Ripon Street, and started her academic career with a BA in Bengali Literature from Jadavpur University. While brilliant Bengali food was always part of her life – she learned quite early how to expertly bone a hilsa – the idea of making it her career loomed “like a sin.” Then a bad break-up triggered an epiphany. Dastidar found herself heartbroken and lonely in Delhi, irresistibly drawn to the old-school Japanese food landmark Tamura Restaurant in Green Park, where she always ordered the same thing: ramen for one (if she felt slightly flush, some tempura went along with it). She told me, “I was really depressed, and this bowl of noodles talked to me. It was the only thing that made me happy, and feel less alone. The idea came to me that if only I could learn to make this food, then I will be cured, and the sadness will go away.” Tamura is the unique, unlikely creation of a Japanese chef trying his luck in India after a long stint in Nepal, who has nonetheless failed to learn much English or Hindi. One might surmise he’s lonely too, because Dastidar says he used to sit wordlessly all day in the dining room, leafing quietly through back copies of Japanese newspapers. Even then, when the young graduate student timidly approached him to enquire about the possibility of apprenticing in his kitchen, Tamura-san was unmoved. “He told me there were no women on his staff. And no toilets suitable for me to use,” recalls Dastidar. “Basically, fuck off.” Luckily, the story does not end there. The ardent apprentice-in-the-making kept returning to pester Tamura-san, and finally, this reluctant sensei acquiesced to allow her in the kitchen (with the concession she could use the customers’ ladies room). But Dastidar wasn’t permitted near the food. Instead, explaining that the Japanese system emphasised “you start from the bottom”, the boss made her his dishwasher. This seemed fine, “a therapist had told me the only way to get over what I was going through was to use my body, and I was happy cleaning plates and glasses. It was enjoyable.” Step by step, over the course of an entire year, Dastidar made her way up Tamura Restaurant’s ladder of responsibilities – chopping vegetables, cleaning fish, making rice, then finally cooking everything – while also putting her academic life back together. “I became everyone’s* chhotu*,” she tells me, “these boys were very different from me, but I used my anthropology and sociology training to fit in, and make things work. In my linguistics background, register shifting is really important. I used it consciously, and that’s how I became accepted by the team and also by Tamura-san.” This pattern of full-bodied participation and belonging in the kitchen twinned alongside breathtakingly wide-ranging academic interests, research and theory remains Chef Dastidar’s trademark. Alongside each step of her academic career, she kept developing her skills by working in restaurants, notably in Japan (funded by a UNESCO fellowship) where she spent her evenings apprenticing in a family-run tempura and udon specialist establishment. The jigsaw of her personal food philosophy started to fall in place. When she returned to Delhi, the scientist-turned-chef initiated a pop-up food delivery service for Durga Puja called Bento Bong, and then opened her first restaurant, with the geeky-ironic name of Big Bongg Theory. Bon vivante publisher Chiki Sarkar was an early customer. She recalls, “Anumitra was still honing her craft, finding her language, but from the first time I ate her food I found her deeply promising and terribly exciting. She was serious, inventive and passionate. I remember a wonderful Bengali sushi, and a night centred on sorshe ilish, when Anumitra had gone to lengths to get a good hilsa [rare now even in Kolkata] and spoke vividly about it, and the different kinds of rice we tried.” It was Sarkar who invited another of her favourite chefs, Ritu Dalmia, to try Dastidar’s food. Dalmia told me, “I remember that meal very well, I had gone with Chiki, and another friend. We were the only guests, and Anumitra was this little, short, nerdy-looking girl, who really did not care how many people were dining at her restaurant, this little hole in the wall. The food was outstanding, and she even made me my favourite aloo posto. What impressed me more than the food was her incredible knowledge of every damn ingredient. It was like talking to a walking, breathing encyclopedia.” That meeting changed Dastidar’s life. She joined the Diva team, in its period of most explosive growth. Via email from Italy, where she now lives, Dalmia told me, “Anumitra was not very much exposed to European and Italian cooking, but she was a fast learner, and her curiosity ensured that she got a handle on it quickly. She got many opportunities to travel in Italy, and to work with Michelin and Asian chefs, and took maximum benefit, which many others did not. As a colleague, she has always been very gentle and easy-going, very quiet; I always had a soft spot for her, so she never got the brunt of my famous temper.” The restaurant business is notoriously all-consuming. Dastidar tells me, “All I did was work. There was lots of travel, and so much to learn, and huge responsibilities. There was no possibility of even thinking about doing anything else.” But in 2015, her father died, and the young restaurateur started to gauge her own life, looking for something more. Her sister – who works in the glamour industry for the cosmetic company Lakmé – decided drastic measures were needed. She created a Tinder account, and Dastidar connected with someone almost immediately. Shalini Krishan entered her life. An experienced, unusually thoughtful publishing professional, Krishan brings formidable skills to her professional and personal partnership with Dastidar. She has been an effective Delhi activist in the community-based Survivors Against TB movement, a founding member of Qashti (a resource centre and space “for and by LGBTQ people”) and is on the core working group in the Delhi Queer Pride Committee. Krishan told me, “Initially, my involvement was purely theoretical – we conceptualised the idea of Edible Archives together, with its focus on the linkages to biodiversity, furthering indigenous knowledge systems, and sustainable agriculture, all of which I had been thinking about through various lenses. As an editor who always worked with independent publishing houses, I was clear about the importance of diversity in publishing [bibliodiversity], the dangers of churning out formulaic books chasing the latest trends, and the crucial importance of translation from regional languages to English to allow for a plurality of voices – so from there the parallels were clear.” Once the idea gained steam, and Dastidar quit her job with Dalmia to prepare for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale project, Krishan realised, “I found myself increasingly involved in the practical aspects of how to translate what we’d been working on into a restaurant format, with its underlying consumerist foundation. I think none of us really realised how much I was involved in the day-to-day running of the project, until I found myself completely exhausted.” For her part, Dastidar says, “At Kochi I realised that for the first time, I didn’t have to manage every aspect of it all alone. Shalini was also there to think about conservation, advocacy, activism around indigenous food knowledge, just as much as me. I was making the food with the consciousness of all these ideas, but they needed to be spelled out, which I would do via the medium of the food itself. But food doesn’t always talk to everyone – it holds a space in long-term memory, but doesn’t always speak legibly. Shalini’s process of articulation allows the words to create their own life, and create a new vision, which in turn can influence my ideas of the food. It became a conversation.” There were several close collaborators on the Edible Archives project in Kochi. One of them, Priya Bala, told me, “A couple of years ago, I interviewed Claus Meyer, one of the architects of the Nordic food movement. As I listened to him and heard how he and a dedicated team had lifted the Nordic region out of its culinary darkness, I could not help but think that Chef Anumitra has what it takes to do that in India, to break free of the mostly mindless approach many restaurants have been taking till now and to tread a new path.” Bala says, “Chef Anumitra’s food is in a class of its own: she will not take shortcuts, she respects ingredients and she is an expert in the art, science and techniques that make up cooking. She’s a traveller, a dreamer, a thinker. She has roamed through tribal belts discovering edible roots and mushrooms, she knows virtually every chilli and fermented dish in the North-East. No other chef I know has quite the same wide canvas of experiences and, consequently, perspective as she does. To dine at Edible Archives is not just to enjoy a great meal, it is to be part of a fascinating story – about the ingredients, the growers, the farmers, the fishermen.” In some key ways, Edible Archives is riding the waves of global food trends that have been building for decades. Back in 2006, in his contemporary classic *The Omnivore’s Dilemma*, the great Michael Pollan laid out what could be termed as the woke food manifesto: “Imagine if we had a food system that actually produced wholesome food. Imagine if it produced that food in a way that restored the land. Imagine if we could eat every meal knowing these few simple things: What it is we’re eating; where it came from; how it found its way to our table. And what it really cost. If that was the reality, then every meal would have the potential to be a perfect meal…We can change the way we make and get our food so that it becomes food again – something that feeds our bodies and our souls. Imagine it: Every meal would connect us to the joy of living and the wonder of nature. Every meal would be like saying grace.” That message has become even more crucial in our collective pandemic predicament, with global supply lines extinguished and the burning need to live sustainably wherever we find ourselves. This makes what Krishan and Dastidar are doing of paramount importance, and their rigorous approach shows in every aspect of their labours. Where else would you find ten different rices from around the country showcased from one kitchen, and presented with detailed notes about starch content, chalkiness, grain size and degree of scentedness? What other restaurant could have its own booth at the Goa Open Arts Festival, inviting visitors to map their emotional responses to various bite-sized tidbits? As the brilliant Vikram Doctor – in my view, the best Indian writer on food, who recently moved very close to Assagao – told me, “They are showing how practical activism works in the way they are combining their kitchen with their garden, and building networks of traditional food producers, like rice growers and small fishermen in Goa. It is a model for how a restaurant can also be a catalyst for awareness on environmental issues, sustainability and preservation of local food traditions.” Doctor added, “The dishes I have really loved have been those that aren’t exactly off the menu, but are things that Chef Anu is always ready to make on-demand, or concocts based on what she has sourced that very day from her network of fishing contacts, or from what is growing in the kitchen garden – which is totally worth seeing in itself, if you are at the restaurant at lunchtime.” He said, “Perhaps the best meal I’ve had was at one lunchtime in summer when it was really hot and she asked if I wanted to eat *panta bhaat*, the fermented rice dish made in Bengal and Odisha (similar fermented dishes are made in other rice-eating regions). She had simply left cooked rice to ferment overnight so it became slightly sour and tangy. This was served cold along with side dishes of cooked pumpkin slices, potato mashed with fiery mustard oil and a chutney made of pumpkin flower leaves. Along with it, for texture and contrast were hot and crisp pumpkin flower fritters (from their vegetable garden) and a kismur of small dried shrimp. The dish had multiple textures and flavours, but was also healthy and cooling in the heat. It was simply wonderful.” When I asked Krishan what she would like new guests to keep in mind, she told me, “One should approach a meal at Edible Archives with a sense of openness and curiosity, because things are unlikely to follow a familiar pattern, and delving under the surface will reveal a great deal of thought. We are always aware of exactly what goes into making the food, and are keen to share with people who are interested – and that often includes not just the source and grower/catcher of each ingredient, but also a fully rounded picture of the nutrition that the dish brings with it. Since we don’t believe in using the kind of shorthand that says ‘rice = carbs = bad for diabetes’ or ‘olive oil is best’, or identifying various exotic ‘superfoods’, we’re more likely to explain why a particular variety of oil or rice, or chilli, when used in conjunction with other elements in the meal, or the season, is the best option for now. When people are interested, this leads to fascinating conversations and exchanges.” This is precisely what happened when the great writer Amitav Ghosh, who has a home in another village in North Goa and is also one of the most sophisticated culinary connoisseurs I know, visited Assagao to try out this new restaurant. He told me, “Anumitra is incredibly erudite and with an array of skills. Edible Archives is outstanding, even in Goa’s crowded restaurant landscape. Not only is the food extraordinary, going to the restaurant is also an educational experience in the sense that it introduces you to many kinds of cuisines and techniques.” There’s much more to come, because Krishan and Chef Dastidar are in perpetual motion. Every few days, even in the throes of quarantine, their social media broadcasts something seriously enticing: butter flavoured with teflam (Goa’s indigenous version of sichuan pepper), miso-marinated brinjal, sun-dried breadfruit. This is the image of self-sufficiency, the epitome of sustainable cooking, and seriously yummy to boot. The arc of moral deliciousness is long, but it leans towards Edible Archives.