I recently had the opportunity to visit Lisbon, and one of my reasons for the visit was the connection Portugal and specifically Lisbon shares with the state of Goa - a place that is at the center of many a fond memories.
The connection of Portugal with India is complex, from exploration, to colonization to being an enclave, and then in the past half a century a visible integration of culture, cuisine & people. There are many well-researched books that have a much deeper study & analysis that I could ever aspire too - a good selection can be found here. What I wanted to share was my personal passion for a city & snack that I can wax eloquent about.
Bom Bahia comes from the Portuguese for the good bay, and long time residents of Mumbai probably started out as residents of Bombay. If you have had the opportunity to walk the streets of mumbai you probably have been raptured by the wafting fragrance of Vada Pav - a snack so delicious, so accessible, & just right in so many ways that it has the ability to evoke an emotional response in me. The fritter is 80% a single ingredient - the potato - or as they would call it both in Lisbon & Mumbai - the batata.
The potato is now an integral part of the diet for me (And many many millions worldwide) & its origins from the mountains in Americas to it's appearance in the diets of India & more importantly - the vadapav is a fascinating story. The other component of the vada pav - that takes the humble potato & vaults it to the top of the street snack pyramid are spices such as turmeric - an almost central theme in the explorations of india in the last millenia. So essentially every bite of vadapav I take, I am eating into this complex history juxtaposed with an explosion of flavors - something that I think of more & more everyday & more so during any travels.
There is always an element of romanticizing in hindsight when it comes to explorers, & travelers. Often it is hard (& I would argue an impossible separation) between going to some place first, and responsibility for what happens next. This becomes even more difficult as time passes (If we have poor records etc.) & Vasco da Gama is an individual is one of the central characters to me in this fascination.
Vasco Da Gama 's final resting place is now the halls of the cavernous church which sits beside the Jerónimos Monastery on the banks of the Tagus river. A few hundred meters down the street is the Belém Tower, which overlooked the passage of the ships with Vasco Da Gama at its helm as they sailed into the Atlantic looking for a sea passage to the shores of India - with the intention of partaking in its abundances of spices. (I think the power of hindsight is that it frames context better than predictions - so really everything that followed in the second half of the second millennium, was kind of punctuated by the Boat that left that harbor).
As I sat at a Goan Restaurant in Lisbon, biting into a Bebinca with a side of croquette both of which were more familiar than not - I couldn’t stop myself from feeling like being in a Gabriel García Márquez novel in which magical realism blurry the fantasy reality lines.
Life is beautiful!
Comments