Foods that Mark the Mangalore-Catholic Circle of Life

In the Mangalore-Catholic community, every major life milestone is celebrated with specific dishes. Ruth D’Souza Prabhu maps this culinary landscape.

A few years ago, in 2018, I was at the Tasting India Symposium in New Delhi. This symposium, aimed at promoting conversations around Indian food, was held at the India International Centre. One of the panels I was most keen on, was the Indian Food History and Culture Symposium, chaired by Colleen Taylor Sen, Food Historian & Author, and co-chaired by Kaveri Ponappa, the country’s most distinguished authority on Kodava food and culture. It was a pleasure to listen to prominent names in the food industry speak on various aspects of our culinary history. At the end of these sessions, in a surprise request, a few attendees were invited to speak about our native cuisines — to share insights that the audiences might not have access to.

I wondered what would intrigue people about Mangalore-Catholic cuisine. It was a cuisine I had grown up with, and didn’t think too deeply about. But something, perhaps that had always been at the back of my mind, struck me. We have a very clear association of specific foods to our circle of life. Mangalore-Catholics know exactly what we are going to eat at every major milestone in life! And that is what I spoke about that afternoon.

Celebrating New Life with Food

Starting with the birth of a child. Jalebis (interestingly, not considered a traditional Mangalorean sweetmeat) are distributed among family and friends on the birth of a girl, and mithai laddoos (also known as boondi laddoos) if it is a boy. How and when this tradition began, nobody really knows for certain, and I dug deep to find an answer. However, this is a common practice across several communities in India, the laddoo sometimes being replaced with peda. I had a very upset mother when she couldn’t source enough jalebis from her regular sweetshop, on the birth of her granddaughter.

My Big Fat Wedding Feast

The next major milestone for us is the wedding. Food is an integral part of the rituals and festivities that surround a marriage. The pre-wedding ceremony is called the roce, which translates to juice, in Konkani. Here, the reference of juice is to freshly extracted coconut milk. This is a ceremony that takes place for the bride and bridegroom in their respective homes, a day or two before the wedding. This ceremony is a ritualistic form of purification with coconut milk, followed by a bath, considered the last one as a single man or woman. The ceremony begins with the bride or groom being anointed with freshly pressed coconut oil and then with dabs of coconut milk on the face, hands, arms and legs. Good-natured ribbing sees younger members of the family upturn entire bowls of coconut milk on the hapless bride and groom.

Soft, fluffy sannas to soak up the gravies

As a run-up to the ceremony, up to a few generations ago, family members (usually uncles, aunts, the best man, bridesmaids and other close relatives) would carry the vojem. These are gifts that will help a family conduct the roce ceremony, but translates literally from Konkani to mean burden — a sharing of the burden, if you will. The vojem has vegetables like kuvalo (ash pumpkin), boble (bottle gourd), mogem (field marrow), and a moora of rice (usually around 42 kilos) that is bound into a tight, large mound that can be rolled or carried. There would also be gifts of livestock — poultry and a pig that is tied upside down to a pole, and carried. All these were brought to the wedding home as offerings, and to then be used to cook the feast. Today, the vojem procession is carried out symbolically and caterers have replaced the cooking in homes for the roce ceremony.

The menu for the roce has remained the same through the years. It will have a bokrya masache polov (mutton curry with ash pumpkin in a masala of fried coconut and spices) served with warm buns; kele sukke (raw banana sukka), soney sukke (black chana sukka), and this is followed by vorn (a moong dal payasam with jaggery).

The star of the meal remains the bokrya masachi polov and it is perhaps the only reason I would attend roce ceremonies as a youngster. It was, for me, one of the few combinations of meat and vegetable that I thoroughly enjoyed.

In its original avatar, the polov was vegetarian, made only with kuvalo. But my mum, Jane Dsouza, the author of Jane’s Cookbook, tells me that families who could afford it began to add in galmbi (dried shrimp) into the polov with ash pumpkin. Some families would add in sungta (prawns) and for those who could afford to take it a step further, the bokrya maas (mutton) was added to the polov and that has now become standard fare.

The flavours of the bokryamasache polov comes from korpo — which is freshly grated coconut, sliced onions and garlic, that are sun-dried for a day or two, then roasted with a little bit of coconut oil and ground into a masala. This was routinely done at celebratory feasts, most of which were held at home and where the cooking was done by family and neighbours, as a community affair.

The wedding feast pulls out all the stops. There are an array of meats — dukra masache bafat (pork bafat) is always paired with fluffy sannas (steamed rice cakes) and kombi sukka (chicken sukka) with copious amounts of freshly grated coconut is a given. There is usually a kombyache roceachi kodi (chicken curry with coconut milk) with sheeth (boiled rice) or these days, jeera rice or neer dosas and buns. There is also god pulao (sweet pulao) that is studded with cashews and aromatic spices that is served with a raisin chutney. The piece de resistance is laithaon (whole roasted suckling pig). This is carved up as the guests line up to be served from buffet tables. Serving the laithaon was a sign of prosperity, and is still considered a status symbol when served at weddings. Vorn, often the preference of the older generation, or ice cream the choice of youngsters, rounds off the feast.

The wedding buffet at a Mangalore-Catholic wedding today has grown to include global fare, live counters, mixologists and much more, though the staples of a Bafat, Roceachi kodi, God Pulao ani chutney and Vorn dare not be left out, or the wedding would be the talk of the town for all the wrong reasons.

Marking Pregnancy with Culinary Rituals

From a wedding to the arrival of a child. When a Mangalore-Catholic home welcomes a new baby into the family, the expectant mother is sent to her mother’s home for delivery, but not before the Gurwari Jhevaan — translating to celebratory meal for the expectant mother. This is usually held in the 7th or the 9th month, and takes place at the husband’s home, with parents and relatives coming to join in the feast. The ceremony is quite similar to the 7th month ceremony of the Hindu communities of Mangalore. The Bunts call the ceremony Bayake in Tulu, and the GSBs call it Seemantham.

Pez, rice gruel or congee, with galmbi chutney

The mother-to-be is dressed in a beautiful saree gifted by her mother-in-law. She is adorned with flowers and bangles, and blessings are invoked. Cecilia Pinto, a Kuwait-based blogger at CookLikeCecilia documents this ceremony based on conversations she has had with elders from the community. “The mother-to-be is presented with fruits and sweets that she takes to her mother’s home. There are a variety of fruits she is given, and interestingly there must be fried sweets like jalebis, malpuris, and balushahis. An odd number is chosen for good luck; both the number of platters and the fruits and sweets they contain have to be in odd numbers,” explains Cecilia.

All the mother-to-be’s favourite dishes are cooked for her, and the meal is rounded off with vorn. The husband and wife are invited to dine first, and are served by the mother-in-law. The meal usually includes typical celebratory fare – Pork bafat, Bokrya Maasache Kodi, Kombi Sukke, Pulao, Sannas, Salad and Vorn.

A Grand Send-Off

Throughout life, we have a lot of milestones in terms of birthdays, anniversaries, educational and professional milestones, and for each one of them, the celebration through food continues.

Coming full circle, Mangalore-Catholic funerals have a traditional meal that is called the Mornache Jhevaan or the funeral meal. In the old days, it was galmbi chutney ani pez (congee/rice gruel) was served to all those who attended the church service. However today, the meals have become indulgent, including several dishes that the deceased loved, and alcohol too. But tradition, which is still followed by many, dictates that it be a spartan meal.

Mangalore-Catholics love their food (as much as they love their tipple). Culinary expectations for every major life event is set strong. While new always finds a spot at the table, it has never been at the cost of the traditional.

Jane D’Souza’s Recipe for Galmbi Chutney, or Dried Shrimp Chutney

Ingredients
250 g dried shrimp
10 dried red byadgi chillies
½ tsp turmeric powder
½ tsp cumin seeds
A marble-sized ball of tamarind
½ coconut grated
2 tbsps of cooking oil
1 medium sized onion sliced finely
Salt to taste

Method
Dry roast the shrimp on a tava for a few minutes.
Grind the dry chillies, turmeric powder, cumin seeds, tamarind and salt with a little water to make a fine paste.
Add in the dry shrimp and give it a quick whizz for a few seconds to incorporate into the paste.
Add in the grated coconut and give it another whizz till the coconut mixes in well. The mix should be a coarse one.
Remove the mixture to a bowl.
Heat oil, add the onions and fry till brown. Pour this over the chutney and mix well.
It is now ready to serve.

Ruth Dsouza Prabhu is an independent features journalist based in Bengaluru, India. She has been writing on food for over a decade. Her work has appeared in Al Jazeera, Reader’s Digest, and Condenast Traveller, among others.

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