On a recent Sunday, I visited the Museum of Goa, a private museum founded by the Goan artist Subodh Kerkar. The event I was there for focused on ‘Wilderness Within’, the second chapter of the book Fish, Curry and Rice (edited by environmentalist Claude Alvares), a beautiful non-fiction source on Goa’s local ecology and lifestyle.Fish, Curry and Rice, edited by environmentalist Claude Alvares
Past the 30-foot-tall statue of demon king Narkasur and through the excellent in-house cafe, Alvares was addressing the guests, reminding everyone that all of Goa is a wildlife sanctuary — not only the tigers and elephants, but also the plant life, birds, insects, micro-organisms, wetlands, estuaries, lateritic plateaus, marine ecosystems, and agro-ecosystems.The State’s extraordinary biodiversity is reflected even in our backyards. Like the mango and kokum that overfed me during the summer, or how my garden becomes a constant supplier of herbs, greens and roots during the rains. My garden in Goa is an experiment of sorts: everything is grown from cuttings I picked up on walks or from my friends’ gardens. It was a dusty brown patch when I moved in a year ago, but a couple of swales (a channel for water) and lots of mulch and homemade compost mean that I now regularly eat from it.I don’t grow any vegetables, only plants that grow wild in the region, and yet there is always something there for the kitchen: pandan for rice, borage (ajwain) for tea, colocassia (arbi) leaves for steaming, ginger flowers for cocktails, turmeric leaves for fish… and I keep discovering new plants to use. Plants I’m not sure I planted!Stir-fried ferns, anyone?I was at MOG that sunny, humid afternoon for the tasting table that came after Alvares’ talk. Chef Sai Sabnis, founder of Posa, a food lab that supplies ‘supersalads’ via a subscription model, had created tapas from wild and organic Goan foods, reimagined in a modern way. Whatever hadn’t come from her backyard or Edricia, an organic farm in Siolim, was bought at Mapusa market — that holy grail of Goan markets.
