Goan Fish-Curry-Rice

June 29, 2012

What Goans live for.

Goa‘s poet laureate, the late Bakibab Borkar said it best1:

Please Sir, God of Death
Don’t make it my turn today,
not today
There’s fish curry for dinner.

([1] Great Goans by Mario Cabral e Sa and Lourdes Bravo Da Costa, N.N.A.P. Publications, 1991.)

The Goan term for fish curry is hooman. Subtle differences in this coconut-based preparation obtain as one traverses the state. The central plot remains the same, it is the retelling of the story that offers opportunity for creative spin. In addition to variety over regions, differences in expression prevail across lines of caste and religion. (Note that the same is true of language.) The Goan Catholics have their own method as do the Hindus, and even within these groups, the individual castes put their own individual stamp.

The items featured here are served at a small family-owned eatery named Sharda in Bambolim. The food is cooked at home by the lady of the house, Chandravati Gauns, in the style characteristic to her community, the Gaude/Gavde (among Goa‘s earliest settlers), using vegetables and herbs farmed locally.