Hold the Gobi, Pass the Pork

 Published by My Kolkata on 07 February 2024.  Read the published article here.  Or read the original below:

[A Kolkata Goan, camping in Goa after 18 years, takes an irreligious look at vegetarianism and food through the eyes and taste buds of an almost-omnivore!]

Let me just get over the shock and then we can discuss the main topic, though it’s intricately related to the shock!  In between Om Sai Vegetarian Restaurant and Shree Sagar Eating House (Pure Veg) we found Calangute Beach and our delightful homestay at Goa. On the way there from North Goa airport, Mopa, at 9:30 p.m. my daughter and I were most amused to see the number of Lunch Homes and Eating Houses marked Pure Vegetarian, not to forget the occasional Udipi Hotel. Goa has changed. Where did the Martin, D’Souza, Fernandes clans go?  Your guess is as good as mine.  After discovering the beach -- hidden between garish LED lighting, loud Punjabi bhangra music and multitudes of dudes selling hats, sunglasses (at night) and Laser Torches, apparently it allows kids to disturb others -- we tramped the sand and ended up at Souza Lobo. The feeling of deja vu was soon dissipated as we realised good old Souza and Lobo weren't running the show - what show?  Show end at 10 pm on Friday nights! The last order is 11:15 and you’re out of there by midnight. Things have changed. But the beef xacuti, calamaris in beer batter and pork choris fry more than make up for the rest.

At a wedding buffet recently, back in my own Kolkata, the little old lady, a long time friend, leaned over and politely suggested, “Excuse me dear, the non-veg section is that side!” Sure enough, there was an exclusive, segregated table marked “Non Veg”.  Are we not expected to eat vegetables? This got me thinking about the very term Non-Veg in all its connotations.

Jokes of many colours

In our school days the term “non veg jokes” were those funny stories that hovered around anatomy and things associated with it.  Why?  Don’t vegetarians have fun? Those were jokes you didn’t dream of taking home, regardless of your culinary preferences - mothers have been known to go red with embarrassment and fathers green with envy. A reminder of the coding on menu cards in most restaurants.  But in Goa, the colours (Red for meat, Green for veggies) have a third shade - White for Seafood, or is it grey for the grey area?  I’m told that prawns in Bengal are called chingri poka which loosely translates to insects.  I am not going there, but insectivores wouldn’t find a table at a wedding reception, so they classify as Non Veg.

There is a common belief that non-vegetarians do not eat greens and vegetarians do not eat any kind of meat. In fact, the term non-vegetarian is a misnomer.  Look at any buffet table … of the 17 courses spread out, diminutive by comparison, the fish, mutton or chicken lies separately, a victim of vegetarian apartheid.  But the NVs can happily gorge on greens, pinks and oranges before getting their teeth into the meat - or meat into their teeth depending on your dentist.  In increasing order of meat eating we can classify ourselves as carnivores, omnivores, cannibals.   No, let's just stop at omnivores - the everything eaters.

Classic myth has it that the Chinese and those nations will eat anything that crawls, walks, hops or flies - even flies. I’m not convinced but the pandemic had a lot of these theories floating around. So, they would be the true omnivores. For the rest of us, there are sub classifications that are as amusing as confusing.

A chicken and egg situation 

When asked the Part  Time Vegetarian (PTV) will admit that he or she fits other subcategories of NV.  The OOH chicken types only eat chicken when it’s Out Of Home - because “we don’t cook non-veg at home”. There are mothers-in-law to watch out for. There are others who make no bones about eating boneless chicken, or sheekh kebabs, or chicken bharta. especially if there is half an egg on top. I know one PTV who says she is a “chicken-butter-masala-atarian” -- you couldn’t get more precise than that.

The Egg-atarians are a class apart. Some will not eat the yolks, some will not eat omlettes or omlets in the US, and no one eats the shells. Some PTVs will eat eggs when cooked into cakes, brushed onto savouries or if they are certified as “ vegetarian eggs”.

A peculiar offshoot of these PTVs are the Edge-atarians. Always on the edge of non-vegetarianism, they will pour the gravy of the mutton rogan josh over their rice, but will not touch the meat!  They are also known to modify their eating behaviour based on the tastiness of the food on offer. Once in a brief way they will eat beef rolls from Bihar-UP, the restaurants at the back of the New Market. One assumes that if the restaurant names are two near veg States, it purifies the beef.  They might even venture into eating khidi rolls, but that’s an udder story. Like Paneer Biryani. 

The Underground

There is an underground resistance that won’t eat anything that grows there, underground. So, potatoes, carrots, and other roots are off the menu, as are garlic and onions. This group revels in seeking out meat look-alikes like koftas, vegan burgers, paneer shashlik kebabs, and even vegan steaks. If it looks like meat, that’s enough to get the juices flowing.

My favourite food community, in tune with my fellow Goans, are the Parsis.  My friend Yezdi claims that “It’s against our religion to eat vegetables”.  A trifle far fetched I thought, till I received an invitation to a Parsi wedding which had the menu on the back. The main menu had everything in meat, fish, and other seafood.  The last line was the most hilarious.  It read, “Vegetarians, this is a good time to make a change”.  I kid you not.