The Essential Goa Cookbook By Maria Teresa Menezes

Maria Teresa Menezes ì 2 Read & download

The spicy, succulent seafood of Goa is as famous as the golden beaches and lush landscape of this premier tourist destination of India. Traditionally, the Goan staple was fish curry and rice, but under Portuguese influence there developed a distinctive cuisine that combined the flavours of Indian and European cooking with local ingredients being used to approximate the authentic Portuguese taste. So fish and meat pies were baked with slit green chillies, assado or roast was cooked with cinnamon and peppercorns, pao or bread was fermented with toddy, and the famous baked bol was made with coconut and semolina. This innovated, largely non-vegetarian cuisine, was offset by the traditional and no less sumptuous vegetarian creations from the Konkan coastland, rich with coconut and spice. This cookbook showcases an entire range of Goan food, with special attention to fish, prawn, pork and chicken. The Essential Goa Cookbook

This year, I'm making it a goal to learn more about my family's culinary history. My siblings and I have been collecting my dad's and grandma's recipes, and in doing so, we've come to realize that there is very little formal literature on the history of Mangalorean Catholic food, its Portuguese influences, and its representation of seasonal crops in the area.

Indian food is incredibly varied and diverse - lumping it into one big category of Indian food does not do it justice. North Indian food is vastly different from Sikh food, Punjabi food, West Indian food, etc. The cuisine in Goa and Mangalore, particularly the Catholic food in this area, is unique in and of itself. Although Menezes writes about Goa, they are close neighbors and the cuisine is almost identical - it was fascinating to read through her recipes and note the similarities between some of the Portuguese-named dishes and ones that my dad makes that we simply call green curry or something more descriptive. Menezes's introduction is beautifully written and makes you fall in love with Goa from afar, describing the lazy days filled with salty, sweet, delicious seasonal foods at every hour. She also includes the history of Goa, from its varying rules by Indian kings to the long period of Portuguese colonization and forced conversion to Catholicism.

Menezes's cookbook was written in 2000 and reflects many of the cooking methods used in India. The biggest factor that I would change here is updating the techniques and equipment for a modern kitchen, like using a blender to grind masalas rather than a mortar and pestle. It's not as authentic, but it works for the modern home, and many recipes could benefit from an update as well as an offering of alternative ingredients - like substitutes for the fish that you can only find in Goa. Overall, a wonderful collection of essential Goan recipes. The Essential Goa Cookbook Goa is not so commonly known as a gastronomically-rich region in India compared to places such as Kerala, despite it being a popular tourist destination. Yet those who have enjoyed traditional Goan fish curry and rice and its Portuguese-Indian fusion fare will find that these dishes are often ignored in typical mainstream Indian cookery books, or at the very best they are downplayed.

So this little squat paperback book can be a bit of a saviour, letting you make your own Goan dishes and try something new at the same time. Goan dishes tend to feature local ingredients to present an approximate authentic Portuguese taste. The reader is first treated to a very lengthy, interesting personal portrait of Goan life and culture along with the author's own reminisces before detailed information about Goan food and cuisine is presented.

Then without much further ado it is straight to the kitchen and the chance to make Goan food. The book is split into distinct chapters according to food type - appetisers, soups, fish, chicken, mutton and beef, pork, vegetables, rice, breads, desserts, sweets, relishes, chutneys and pickles and beverages. Each recipe is relatively well-presented and easy-to-follow.

Concessions are made to the predominately western audience for this book with translations and explanations being offered as relevant. However, this book is not written for a specific national market so there are no direct recommendations for a substitute product if something is difficult to obtain locally. But once you gain more confidence with your cooking you can always do a bit of trial and error and adjust things according to taste.

Over 200 recipes are crammed into this tome but the inexperienced eater of Goan cuisine may find this wide range of choice a little unsettling as there are no colour photographs of each dish. A bit of judicious Internet searching might be required to resolve any uncertainties. The end of the book features a full glossary, converting the names of ingredients between English, Portuguese, Konkani and Hindi, as well as a fairly-comprehensive index.

Overall this is a great little book. Packed full of recipes and inspiration and at a very reasonable price. The lack of photographs can be off-putting but it might not be worth making the book even bigger and significantly increasing its price in the process. If you put the time in to read it carefully you will reap the rewards of some great new dishes, exposure to a possibly unknown cuisine style and some inspiration for future culinary experiments.


// This review appeared in YUM.fi and is reproduced here in full with permission of YUM.fi. YUM.fi celebrates the worldwide diversity of food and drink, as presented through the humble book. Whether you call it a cookery book, cook book, recipe book or something else (in the language of your choice) YUM will provide you with news and reviews of the latest books on the marketplace. // The Essential Goa Cookbook