At Serendipity Food Lab…adventures in forest foods or “Mock Wild Eating!” It means eating red ants relish amongst other things, some of it quite scrumptious; the lovely curators of this session were Tanisha Vohra and Sai Nair.

By Tara Narayan

FUNNY or not funny. This week belongs to Serendipity in town to refine and re-refine and define our understanding of the sensorial world of art, theatre, music, literature, cuisines of Goa, India, the world and much else. Since it’s such a smorgasbord of plenty one may try to very selective and even sometimes miss out on the really exciting food for the mind and body, heart and soul!
I’ve always enjoyed the foodie adventures so evening time on Day 2 (from Nov15 to 22) I found myself at the Food Lab Courtyard talking to these lovely twosome of Tansha Vohra and Sai Motupali Nair about forest food – the importance on restoring forest food for every community even in urban spaces, or something like that. On their table was laid out these tantalizing array of samples of presumably wild food like like Goa’s “air potatoes” to dark palm jaggery triangles to green pepper to yellow yam as in “suran”…a tray of mini ragi crackers with caju butter on them, tempeh, jackfruit jam, a most tantalizing lemon relish, granular mixed black pepper and salt, duck jerky or something like that…and…er…red ants relish. Taste, taste, they said…red ants? Yes. I put half-a-teaspoon in my mouth and it was a wow moment for the first time in my life. Red ants relish or dry chutney taste start and quite nice, what’s the sours in it? Nothing, red ants taste sour all on their own, “It’s protein and folate…” replied the lovely statuesque Tansha. They eat red ants in Madhya Pradesh and in the north-eastern states, don’t they?
What else, there were the mix yourself welcome mocktails … featuring cashew feni, some sweet leaves (of the insulin plant), etc. It was an amazing palate opening session with a variety of tuber chips tossed in some divine spice mix (so much more wholesome on the palate) and we finally wound up with a dessert glass esoterically christened “Waste-Based Alt.Cake”…a concoction of “Fortified-Yogurt, Matcha-Protein, Coconut Cheesecake with Green Papaya Chili Jam and Spent Grains Biscuit.”
Hey, this was all about things much heard about, or heard about in half or quarter measures and …er…I got it a bit wrong, this session was titled “Mock Wild: Goa” and “Mock Wild Picnic.” Say, a pretty wild session. But for me it brought home the important message of bringing back forests of life-giving food into our mindless, jaded, urban lives…if we want to be sensitized enough to live sensitively! As soon as possible, before Mother Earth dries up and turns into a barren desert like Mars in the wondrous universe where humans may roam around in superior spaceships seeking another planet to call home…earth may be all water in time to come and what if the sun dries up, gloomy darkness will descend with only the stars twinkling in the night sky. Just imagine, what a far cry from the bosom and womb of the Mother Earth we take so much for granted nowadays with our hedonistic killer civilization….

ELSEWHERE there was the Pao Cai table offering insight into the fermenting pickles with Hari Shankar from Ernakulam here saying “make and take home your own pickle mix!” Water pickles featuring cauliflower florets, onion babies, fresh turmeric, ginger, white radish — slivers, cubes, gratings, bars – dry red chillies, garlic, lettuce, etc. Many pickles water pickles or spiced up pickles with or without oil are pre and probiotics which make for happy bugs in the human digestive system.
Which reminds me how much I love wintertime’s Delhi acidulated water pickles of “gobi-gajar-shalgam” (cauliflower florets-carrots-turnips) and the wintry months also see black or terribly red watery carrots turning into “kanji” spiced up enough and fermented enough to turn into a beverage to live for. My friend the pickle woman Priyanka was offering it at the FIERCE kitchen stall along with kokum and amla drinks. Goan Saraswat cuisine’s expert Anjali Walavalkar was there with Christmas time plum cake, stollen and other European bakery produce (all from the FIERCE kitchen chefs at Verna)…and designer samosa and hey, steamed “modak” (Rs120 per two fat gleaming white modak), also “purapoli, sabudana vada, besan ladu, special oosali for the day with pao, special tonak masala bhat…” to be washed down with kokum soda (Rs60).

Now if only the lovely old iron-wrought GMC benches lying around here in the courtyard had been refurbished and made good for sitting purposes – the food courtyard would have cheered up many seeking something to eat and drink after the exhaustive walking around from one Serendipity offering to another to hopefully return hope with a heady cocktail swirling in the brainy areas of body beautiful. There was just too much to catch up with and at some point of time one’s cup of life overflows with glimpses of multi-dimensioned life — as seen through the eyes of artists, artistes, actors, dancers, cooks, chefs, men, women, students, volunteers…all engaged in a myriad creative ways to make life an affair of rainbows or something like that.