DISCOVER `BUNS’ IN GOAN EATERIES…a speciality banana bread traditionally eaten in Karnataka eateries, economical and more agreeable than bread slices for many Goans. Also called Mangalore bun! Best eaten hot and soft with a pleasant crunch. Check them out at popular eateries Café Real, Café Bhonsale, Café Tato, even Café Ashwini, Kamat Hotel, even Navtara down town Panaji.
By Tara Narayan
CALL them just “buns” or “Managlore bun” – I prefer them to sliced white bread anything and to think I’ve just fallen in love with them. Buns! They’re a Kannadiga item number but even the Goan eateries from Café Real to Café Bhonsle to Café Tato to Café Ashwini to an old favourite of them – Navatara – do them in capital city Panaji. Walk in and someone or another will be ordering for “buns.”
At first I used to wonder what this buns was and soon realized it’s just about the only non-native Goan speciality served in Goan eateries, one of the most economical and now selling for about Rs15-20 per “buns” (price has doubled in recent times). What do you eat buns with? Just eat them neat fluffily hot and some places they will give you the house coconut chutney with it or sachets of tomato ketch-up. You may say it is the working class people’s favourite economical food: “buns” and tea and may be the Goan mirsang bhoje (fritter). It’s buns in lieu of the Goan breads of pau or undo or poi or hot deep fried puri…you will find buns in Udipi eateries like Kamat Hotel and the Sheetal chain of eateries and a few more places.
Buns, come single or two pieces as ordered and with or without chutney. Soft, large, golden, slightly crusty puri with a scattering of cumin seeds in it and you wonder about the softness about them until someone tells you it’s the banana mashed into the batter which makes them this soft – giving an incredible desirable flavour. Although the batter is of refined white flour or maida! These days I’m thinking about what seniors like and I know one senior who dotes on buns and has re-discovered them, I will go all the way to Café Real to get a pair of hot buns for him at tea time…they’re soft enough for his dentures to chew away by way of food for life!
Buns are bests enjoyed hot but even when cool they’re tasty and can be warmed up over a covered steaming vessel. You may combo it with ketch-up but I usually prefer and may ask for a dulcet coconut chutney to dip the pieces. Buns is really a Karnataka special and since they’re so many Kannadiggas settled in Goa I guess that’s how buns have crept into the menu of Goan eateries – there’s a demand for buns!
Even Goans love them now although the aristocratic types will order ghastly regular puri of refined flour mostly; alas, buns are also maida but they have a sort of nutritional virtue about them being an old traditional snack food. I can buy buns and serve it with a bit of grated cheddar or feta atop it! They are wonderful, these buns, and I’m quite in love with them. Superior to toast-butter if one is talking not so healthy food, but still buns is fresh food and not industrial food with a lot of chemical gook in it!
Go for buns, my dears and ask for a chutney to go with it if they don’t provide it. Like aforesaid they may come with tomato ketch-up sachets but I prefer fresh chutney. Hey, of course you may serve buns with a sumptuous salad but first you may learn how to make them, they’re easily made. Google for the recipe and see if they may be made of one of the millets flours like jowari flour.
Anyway, this is to say if you haven’t discovered buns in Goa, discover it in the Goan eateries of Panaji. My favourite buns are to be found at Café Real and Café Bhonsale…yes, some places they make these buns so grossly thick, dumpy and greasy that they’re a disgrace! None of the charms of banana or jeera lurking in these buns, avoid or chuck. Always look for traditionally made Kannadigga buns golden in hue and lightly flaky, enjoy. Thank the good lord for Mangalore buns in Goa! Hosannas for buns!
FOUND A CACHE OF CLOVES
OKAY, no more. Suddenly tucked away in my kitchen cupboard, long-forgotten, I tumbled upon a cache of cloves. Lavang, the the flowers or rather buds of the clove plant or some say tree. I took a deep breath and re-discover what a dark, mysterious aroma cloves have. Cloves are valuable spice of course and along with black pepper one may consider them as “spice gold.” Cloves have a host of uses in herbal medicine as also culinary purposes.
Even after such a long time when I forgot about them and found them anew my cache of cloves is still good. No wonder in the old days grandmothers used to tuck their valuable trove of cloves into clothes cupboard and clothes acquired a fain agreeable scent about them.
I have started dropping a few cloves into my morning tea and what a wonderful flavour. So many things you should know about cloves and I’m summing it up here…cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae. They are Syzgium aromaticum and their native home is the Maluka islands or Moluccas in Indonesia, also Madagascar. They do a lot of clove oil for world markets.
Cloves are judiciously and stingily used to flavour a host of delights in the kitchen, you may find them in “sheera” and “halva” and stuffed in a savoury “leelva kachori” (green peas or green tuver potli/dumpling) in Surat…apart from culinary uses you must remember oil of cloves or clove oil is a favourite home remedy for a toothache.
But cloves have many other uses apart from dropping a few in cooking rice or turmeric milk or in a buttermilk curry or in many a phodni or seasoning. Clvoes are seen as a mouth and stomach refresher of the very best kind. Herbal medical practitioner say cloves multiple compounds are anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-ulcer…cloves have eugenol which is a pro-digestive asset.
Instead of keeping a hard sweet cough drop in your mouth and sucking the life out of it, try keeping a clove in your mouth. It’s a mouth refresher like no other. Cloves are said to be liver friendly…boil a clove or two in hot water and sip. Right, cloves are a good antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-diabetic, anti-ulcer…they make short work of bad bacteria in your gut where health is born and re-born anew with every health issue.
Oh, there are many reasons to include a few cloves in your life! Go read up on cloves. Nowadays they feature in health teas like “chai latte” or green tea and at many places where it has become fashionable to offer “golden turmeric tea” as a nightcap. Can make it at home! It’s said clove oil (eugenol) helps clear respiratory passages and act as expectorant for managing upper respiratory disease like bronchitis, cough, cold, asthma and sinus conditions.
So cloves are potent healthy stuff, you cannot do better than discover or re-discover them like I am doing these days, I’ve taken to tucking one or two in my hankie in the bag just to inhale them, say it’s a new accentricity. A warning! No more than three to seven cloves a day, too much and you may bleed somewhere, especially if you’re taking blood thinners like Warfarin. So be warned. Otherwise, a clove at night may relieve stomach problems like constipation, diarrhoea, acidity; improve digestion. A type of salicylate reportedly prevents acne. Try eating two cloves in warm water before sleeping to boost immunity but don’t overdo it please, take it slow and cautiously. Never drink clove oil for goodness sake
Are cloves good for the thyroid? Reportedly, blueberries, olive oil, nuts, green tea, cloves and apples are good for thyroid health and a host of essential vitamin factors like vitamin E, vitamin c, vitamin A, vitamin D, folate, riboflavin, thiamine…etcetera. Hey, you may burn camphor and cloves at night in a burner to make breathing and sleeping a pleasure in your garden of paradise. The scent of cloves is calming for mind and body, heart and soul. Do read up some more about it, it’s a well-researched spice, a gorgeous looking spice and even more so if you see it growing in a herbal garden. Tropical gardens are spice gardens naturally, so grow your own clove tree if you have a mind to.