For Good Health, Look No Further Than The Goan Garden
Text by Joanna Lobo
The leaves and stems of the silver cockscomb — locally known as kuddu — have traditionally been a part of monsoon meals in Goa. Photograph by Conrad Braganza
Goa’s Socorro Plateau is swathed in splashes of purple.
It abounds in silver cockscomb (Celosia argentea), a plumed herb with an erect stem and flowers that have reddish, or silvery white and purple hues. This plant lends a contrast to the many shades of green that spring up in the monsoon. Both its leaves and stalk are edible before it flowers, and it is nutritious — considered good for the eyes and in controlling diabetes.
It’s not just another pretty plant.
There is a bounty of nutritious, seasonal flora available in Goa’s gardens, fields, forests, plateaus and hillsides. They grow wild, often requiring no tending or attention. These plants were once a common part of the Goan diet in the monsoon, at a time when fishing was restricted, and the advent of the auspicious Hindu month of Shravan and Ganesh Chaturthi meant the focus shifted to vegetarian food. Goans foraged for greens around their homes, believing them to be nourishing, medicinal, and necessary to maintaining good health.
Kuddukechi bhaji or a dish made of kuddu leaves and stems. Photo courtesy: Delicious Memories with Alves
The monsoon platter in Goa is rich, and includes wild vegetables and plants, those that grow in the forest (locally known as ‘rann bhaji’), weeds and edible flowers. These include taikilo (or sickle pod), dhovi bhaji (green amaranthus), the broad green leaves of aalu/ tero (colocasia or elephant ear plant), mhaskachi bhaji/kisra (drumstick leaves and stems), keel (or bamboo shoot), the round and prickly faagla (spiny gourd), the grass-like phodshi (Chlorophytum borivilianum or white musli), milky and tender pipri (small cucumbers), ambade (hog plum) and more.
“Our cuisine has always been about eating seasonal, much before it became a trend. We ate food that aligned with our needs,” says Neelam Dutta, Goan food blogger at Ranchikood – Goan Kitchen. “Our elders knew how to respect nature, the impact of our foraging on the food system, what to eat, how to cook it and the nutritional benefits.”
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Goa’s monsoon bounty can broadly be categorised into vegetables, wild plants and weeds.
“The edible weeds are little known, even though they grow in our gardens and paddy fields. You will find them by the roadside too, where there is water available; and you can grow these at home too,” says Akshatra Pracy Fernandes, a botanist pursuing her PhD at Goa University. These weeds include Goenchi bhaji (common purslane) whose tender leaves and stem are consumed; the succulent brahmi (water hyssop) or merevoili bhaji (thus named as they grow on ‘mers’ or bunds), and aamte bhaji (or alligator weed) with short stalks and whitish flowers.
Aakur, which means sprout in Konkani, is usually cooked with lentils or prawns for flavour. Photograph by Conrad Braganza
By and large, people consume the tender shoots or buds. “Only part of the plant [usually buds] is removed and cooked, thus ensuring the flowers and rest of the plant remain standing and continue to thrive,” says Miguel Braganza, an agriculture officer and independent horticulture consultant. A good example is aakur, which means sprout or shoot in Konkani, because the tender buds are eaten. At the end of the summer, just after the first rains, the marshy edges of fields start sprouting buds of this large fern with big fronds. Sold in bundles, it is typically cooked with other ingredients like lentils or prawns for flavour, adding a nice bite to the dishes.
“When plants flower, the leaf becomes fibrous and cannot be digested easily,” explains Fernandes. The plants consumed before they flower include the serrated leaves of the shrub bharangi (Clerodendrum serratum or bleeding heart); the shoots of ghothishero (Smilax zeylanica); shoots of bonkulo or crepe ginger (Cheilocostus speciosus); and the tender flowering stalks and flowers of shevala or dragon foot yam (Amorphophallus commutatus).
Aakur in its cooked form. Photo courtesy: Delicious Memories with Alves
It’s not just about identifying the plants. One needs to have intimate knowledge about the flora: where to find them, how to harvest them, and most importantly, how to treat (and cook) them.
Teryacho gantiyo. Photo courtesy: Delicious Memories with Alves
Wild plants like tero and aalu, which have broad leaves and thin stems (aalu has dark stalks and large leaves, while tero has smaller, light green leaves), and loothechi bhaji (related to the yam family), which has a green stem with dark green or black patches, can cause itching and irritation. People usually oil their hands when harvesting them, and cook them with a souring agent like kokum, tamarind or hog plum. Tero and aalu is cooked into a tondak (a light coconut curry made with cowpeas), or a faintly tangy bhaji called ale gaathi or gaant (which mean knot), in which the leaves are tied into knots and cooked with ginger and some chillies.
The young fruits of Romodachi folam or cluster fig (Ficus racemosa) are soaked in salt water to remove any wasps or parasites. Young bamboo shoot or keel is soaked in water overnight to remove water-soluble toxins, and cooked into a xacuti with dried or fresh clams or prawns, spices and coconut or a simple stir fry with peas and coconut. Some varieties of karane or air potato (thus called because it grows in the air) are toxic. Hence, they need to be plucked carefully. These are boiled and then consumed. The tender leaves of the top branches of taikilo are picked and cooked, often with jackfruit seeds. The seeds, which are dried and stored in summer, are also paired with newly-sprouted drumstick shoots, adding a nutty, crunchy texture to the dish. “Cooking with jackfruit seeds helps reduce their grassy flavour. The use of coconut is to provide good fat and help with nutrient absorption. Green chillies are preferred over red chilli powder, and the addition of garlic helps control the gas and flatulence,” says Ayurvedic practitioner Maryanne Lobo, who conducts foraging walks in Goa.
Some varieties of wild plants like karane or air potato (above) can be toxic. Hence, they need to be carefully chosen. Photograph by Joanna Lobo
Lobo’s walks introduce participants to plants like aakur, taikilo, kuddu, aalu, taro and the lesser known bharangi, tender pumpkin leaves, alsande (kidney bean) leaves, and suran (or elephant foot yam) stem. She shares information about the plants, how to cook with them and their health benefits.
“These plants are good for the gut; they have high fibre which helps alleviate constipation and digestive issues; and they offer the nutrients the body requires to stay healthy in the season,” she says. Her advice is to eat them once a week or 15 days, and consume them in small quantities.
Plants like taikilo were once consumed as a natural means to keep blood sugar in check. Photograph by Joanna Lobo
“Taikilo and kuddu were [once] a must in almost every house,” says Braganza. “These are plants that helped produce insulin. Jackfruit seeds, stored for the monsoon, also had low glycaemic index. Together, they helped keep sugar in check.”
According to Lobo, this tradition of foraging for seasonal greens has its roots in age-old wisdom. “What is lacking in the body in a particular season, nature provides for you,” she says. For instance, a beloved monsoon plant preferred for its healing properties is turmeric, whose leaves appear after the first showers. They are added to many sweets prepared at this time, especially patoli — a paste made of Goan red rice stuffed with a mixture of coconut and madachem godd (or black Goan jaggery) and steamed in the fragrant leaves. Patoli is common to both Goan Hindus and Catholics, who make it for Nag Panchami and the Feast of the Assumption, respectively.
“Traditionally, we didn’t grow turmeric for the spice but for the leaves,” says Braganza. “Turmeric roots stay and sprout every year. Using the leaves meant you had curcumin coming into the body helping you deal with fungal problems related to the monsoons, so turmeric leaves got added to dishes.”
The health benefits of these plants are why Dutta’s grandmother had the saying, ‘Pratyek varsa ekda tari khaupak zai’ [it is best to eat them at least once every year]. This is also why they form an important part of Chaturthi celebrations, right from the décor to the offerings.
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Local fruits, vegetables, herbs and leaves decorate the matoli or canopy that covers the idol of Ganesha during Chaturthi celebrations in Goa. Photograph by Joanna Lobo
In Goa, nature is celebrated in its truest form during Ganesh Chaturthi. These local vegetables and fruits are offered to the food-loving Lord Ganesha, to please him with an array of items.
Local greens formed a significant part of Shravan, which is a month of festivals. Being a holy month, many people fast and favour vegetarian cuisine, thereby dipping into the full bounty of seasonal produce. “Shravan usually heralded a change in season. People’s digestive power wasn’t too good so they would eat steamed food, sweets made with rice, jaggery and coconut, and these greens became a part of meals,” says Dutta.
The meals prepared as offerings during Shravan were traditionally created from produce that was readily available. “Every Sunday, an aitar puja is performed by married women using leaves, flowers and plants collected and offered as naivedya to the sun god. Sweets prepared for these pujas include rice, jaggery and turmeric leaves, and rann bhaji is cooked for meals,” says conservationist and educator Pournima Kerkar. “In those days, people didn’t have much money. You had to harvest things from your surroundings to offer to god.”
Then there is the tradition of patri pujan, which is also observed during Chaturthi. Patri is a bouquet of medicinal leaves and flowers (usually of 21 kinds), including leaves of bel, mango, cedar, dhobi tree (Mussaenda frondose), tulsi and brahmi. This patri is worshipped as Gauri or Parvati (Ganesha’s mother), or offered to Ganesha. On the last day of the festival, the patri is immersed along with the idol.
“These 21 herbs/plants were thought to have digestive and skin-related medicinal benefits and immersing them in a local water source helped transfer some of the medicinal benefits. Handling these plants also helped build immunity to [rainy] seasonal ailments,” says Dutta.
The produce to decorate the matoli being sold at a local market. Photograph by Joanna Lobo
Another tradition used as a means to educate the masses about the medicinal benefits of these plants is the matoli, or what scientist Nandkumar Kamat calls “a cultural fossil of [the] food gathering stage of prehistoric human cultural evolution on the west coast” or a “living indigenous herbarium”.
The matoli is a wooden awning that covers the idol of Ganesha. This canopy is typically decorated with seasonal biodiversity like wildflowers, tubers, rhizomes, leaves, medicinal herbs, fruit and vegetables. Every matoli is typically divided into three parts: medicinal, edible and poisonous. “The matoli was, and is, used to educate people on the greens you needed to have, the medicinal herbs, the wild berries you could eat, and they used to educate on what not to have [by pointing out the poisonous ones],” says Dutta.
The matoli usually includes pendhare (an astringent green fruit), matti (crocodile bark tree, which is one of the state trees), carambola/star fruit, areca nut, tavshe (or cucumber), bhende (ladyfingers), dudhi (pumpkin), turmeric leaves, raw bananas, bharangi, betel leaves, ghosali (ridge gourd) and more. At the end of the festival, the remaining produce on the matoli is cooked, or shared as an offering with relatives and friends.
The festive meals on Chaturthi days also explore this seasonal bounty. For Gauri puja, Kerkar’s family offers five types of vegetables (including aalu and taikilo) with bhakri (an unleavened bread made from nachni or finger millet), simply prepared with a little coconut and no oil. The greens get cooked into a tondak, a simple bhaji or added to khatkhatem. Khatkhatem is unique in that it is a true celebration of local vegetables, cooked with tefla or tippal (a berry related to Sichuan pepper), jaggery, and coconut.
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It’s a sad reality that many of these seasonal plants are diminishing in number, owing to lack of interest and awareness, rampant destruction of habitats, and the homogenisation of produce. “One of the reasons is the industrial estates and constructions that have come up on plateaus,” says Braganza. “These plateaus are where most of these plants grow in the wild. And with the widening of roads, there is a decreasing amount of unpaved space in the cities.”
There are still some untouched pockets of green in the remaining plateaus. In fact, a detailed look at the vegetation on the side of the roads, the edges of paddy fields, and even growing wild in gardens and forests in Goa, reveals many hidden gems. For those in the know, plucking them directly is an option. Others rely on weekly markets especially during Chaturthi season, like the popular one in Banastarim in north Goa, to pick up seasonal fare.
Wild, foraged plants like crepe ginger, which is consumed before it flowers, are diminishing because of the destruction of habitats and construction activity. Photograph by Joanna Lobo
My visit to the Socorro Plateau in early September didn’t just reveal the surprise appearance of Pacific golden-plover, a migratory avian visitor. There were also swathes of kuddu flowers, the defined leaves of the already-flowered suran (or yam), bharangi in full blue bloom, the flowers of bonkulo, and the young leaves of taikilo hidden in plain sight amidst the lush foliage.
My acquaintance with seasonal flora is relatively recent, but it goes beyond just writing about them. After the monsoon began, I learned about aakur, which started showing up by the sides of paddy fields. I had my first tasting of tero this Chaturthi, in the form of a tangy tondak redolent with kokum. I started looking out for tero and aalu by the roadsides, and observing their stalks to distinguish between them. During Chaturthi visits, my eyes often wander to the matoli in an attempt to recognise the vegetables and fruits hanging there. And I am paying closer attention to the garden at my ancestral home, which is lush with air potatoes, crepe ginger, aalu and turmeric leaves. There is so much to learn.
Goa’s monsoon bounty is rich, varied and delicious. Besides being an absolute joy to behold, like a carpet of purple interwoven with green.
