by Loretta Andrade
xitkodi@yahoo.com
My roots lie embedded deep in the fragrant soil of Goa. Though I was born and brought up in Mumbai, I spent most of my summer holidays in the old mansions of my ancestors and relatives in the remote villages of Goa.
As a child I often watched my grandma, and later my mother, cradling a bowl of hot soup or kanji. This meant that someone - a relative, a friend or a neighbour - was under the weather. It didn’t matter whether it was a fever or old age. As soon as the cock crowed, grandma tied on an old apron and soon you could hear the clanging of the soup pots and the moddki. For nearly half a century, she was known as the ‘food carrier’ for family, friends and those in mourning. Sitting in the kitchen, I saw her coax the fire to cook the toughest beans and tubers into soul-stirring infusions. I sat at the kitchen table as she ladled her elixirs. My mother Catherine, in her turn, became the ‘food carrier’. She dispatched thick chicken soup to the old and sick. During festivals, she cooked a number of Goan dishes and sweets for family and friends.
In grandma’s kitchen, I saw how a cake could be baked on hot ashes and embers, with a tin sheet of live coals for a cover. Grandma would fan the tin in the midst of her other chores. I watched her make frilly paper handles for crumb chops, which came to the table as frilly oars in a boat of creamed mashed potatoes. She called it her ‘deckrishin’. She would decorate her puddings and jellies equally well. Cashew nuts and cherries topped her caramel custards and went around it like a moat. Her castle pudding was tall and spiked with almonds and raisins.
And I grow nostalgic as my mother did, as she talked of the old cook whom she had watched as a child and imitated. For the ambulatory, our own kitchen was like a spice-scented confessional. My mother would cook and folks would talk, as they sipped warm pez or coffee. Extras of whatever we were having - fish curry, sorpatel or meat balls - were sealed in aluminum cans and delivered to the old and infirm at their houses. It was when my aunt delivered a baby boy that I donned the apron my mother wore. I prepared a soji porridge that mother used to send to new mothers, loaded with nutrition. My aunt who was famished and weak, devoured it and complimented me for my kind thought. Since mother was keeping her company in the hospital, it was my very own thought and preparation. It was then that I knew that I had it in me. In hindsight, I should have seen this coming. Even as a child I found myself carrying food parcels and food products from our home to relatives and friends in need. In Goa I tried to keep up the good work that I had learnt from my grandma and ma by their example rather than from any preaching.
Now I realize that this is missionary work. The impulse springs
from a hungry heart and is quite selfish in its own way. I just like to have
people around and to serve the old, the infirm and those flayed by the brutalities
of their jobs. A fair meal and good food can make you really happy. It makes
you want to talk and be with people. And so I still continue to deliver food
to the sick and the needy.
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Born and educated in Mumbai, Loretta Andrade spent most of her childhood holidays in Anjuna, Goa. She was a Professor of English and Psychology at Damodar D.Ed. College, Margao. She has written several short stories, essays and articles, which deal with themes drawn from everyday life. Not only does she write, but she is also a poet at heart and has six books to her credit.