In a nutshell:

A memorable storytelling session followed by step by step Goan bread baking experience at a traditional Goan Bakery, organised by Soul travelling, tour led by Zena Koutinho

Address & other details:

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Description

We were planning a trip to Goa & started looking out for day experiences on google. That’s when we came across this company Soul Travelling.

They have several very interesting, unusual tours (walking & also by car). We decided to call to get suggestions on which tour to choose over the other & ended up talking to a lady.

She helped us choose the two trips we finally did – life of pao & on another day ‘village walk’ (details coming up in next post).

We pre paid the entire amount through UPI. On the agreed date & time we reached a restaurant that we were asked to meet at.

Zena gave us a really good background of the history of Goa in general & also the history of Majorda. Great story telling skills that constantly kept us hooked. Sharing some insights at the end of this post.

Life of pao was about the history of Bread in Goa & also about a hands on experience of baking traditional Goan bread. For this session we went to Godinho bakery.

The bakery is run by Mr. Godinho with the help of only one staff. They bake about 350-400 breads every day, sell them immediately & go back. The bakery was started by Mr. Godinho’s father who was a hands on person. The bakery remained shut for 12 years since Mr. Godinho took up a job. He decided to reopen & restart the ancestral business of baking bread in a traditional Goan oven.

Must say that the entire event was memorable due to Mr. Godinho’s warm hospitality, his stories, his description of nuances of bead baking & finally the way he instructed us to make the bread.

The Goans were a rice eating people like most other people who lived on the peninsular India The Portuguese introduced bread in Majorda, Goa. Those days coconut Toddy was used to make bread. Reason for choosing Majorda was that those days it produced the best quality of toddy.

Mr. Godinho prepares the dough in the morning & they bake in late afternoon so that customers can come at 4 pm. The dough is manually rolled & shaped according to tradition – poi is almost circular, cutlet bread is elongated. The process looks somewhat like making a North Indian parantha.

The traditional Goan bread baking Oven had a laterite stone foundation, walls & dome. Laterite is a Soft stone that can break easily. They were bound with traditional mixers like Jaggery, lime, mud etc (there were no cement those days).

Inside the enclosed oven area, glass, stone & sand is filled up from the ground to about 3 feet. Salt is used to layer up. On top of this,

Terracotta tiles are laid to form the oven base (where the bread dough is placed to bake the bread).

Hard wood is used as Firewood for the oven as it burns long.

The oven is always heated by putting burning charcoal but while baking No live fire is used!!!! We were shocked to hear this.

The structure is built in such a way that the heat is retained in a small enclosed space & that is good enough to bake.

We loved eating the hot freshly baked breads & were also given the breads that we baked!!!

The poi that we had at this bakery was the best we had in the trip, by a large margin. A crisp outer layer & a mild fermented smell (due to use of toddy) made this bread stand out.

We also got to know of a ring kind of bread called kankone (resembling a bracelet). It’s hard & crisp like a baguette.

As a part of the event we again went back to the Italian pizzeria & made some stuffed breads that were baked in a modern Italian machine.

A glimpse of the stories we heard. Rest you should hear from them when you visit. This is just a trailer. Picture पूरी बाक़ी हैं:

1. Goa has many South Indian influences because Goa was part of the empire of Kadambas who had initially come from Karnataka. Their capital city was Chandrapur (later Chandor).

2. Adil shah’s rule was disliked by many citizens due to high taxation. So 2 people from this region went & actually invited the Portuguese, not knowing that they would end up ruling Goa for 450 years!!!

3. The Portuguese tactfully & forcefully converted many Hindus to Christianity. That explains the high % of Christian population in Goa & also the density of Churches.

4. Varna & jati system was carried on into Christianity for centuries by many people. (Like we saw Varna system among Muslims in Kashmir – separate areas in the graveyard for Kshatriyas, Vaishyas & shudras)!!!