Whose Pão Is it: Into The World Of Goa’s Famed Bread

Sweat beads gathered across his brow. It was going to be a busy day as always. He was working all by himself today, an increasingly common occurrence of late. The worker who promised to join today was yet to turn up. A quick glance at his wristwatch made him hasten his pace. After all, time is the most important ingredient in the baking business. The flour needs to be measured and kneaded into dough—nowadays with a small kneading machine, thank heavens no longer with hands. As the dough fermented for a few hours, he had time to catch up with errands. Then it was back at the bakery to give the different kinds of bread their shape with the help of family members. Then followed the actual baking in the wood fired oven and the selling of bread at the doorstep. All of this in a room with closed windows to keep the breeze out, as variations in temperature could affect the consistency of the bread. His eyes had started troubling him of late—all the years of standing in front of the fire had taken a toll.

I watched my film Bread & Belonging at a public screening after a two-year hiatus, courtesy of Covid-19 restrictions. Post-production had just got completed when the world went into a pandemic-induced lockdown. Now, as I sat with the audience in a dark room, I was transported to the bakeries where we filmed. After the credits rolled, the discussion veered towards how food and migration intersect. As India’s smallest state experiences a large-scale demographic tilt, there is much talk of who is an ‘insider’ and who, an ‘outsider’. I was born and raised in one of Goa’s most popular coastal villages that continues to see this shift. Making the film through the lens of Goa’s bread was my way of engaging in this conversation.

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When the Portuguese conquerors established trading routes nearly half a millennium ago and made Goa the headquarters of their eastern empire, they brought along their pão, or bread. Pão weaved its way into the heart of Goa’s cuisine. In fact, it made yet another journey soon. For Goans reeling under economic hardships during Portuguese rule, Mumbai, then Bombay, was the land of opportunity. Goan bakers carried their baking skills to this global metropolis of the British Empire. Mumbai then made pão its very own. Bread, an outsider, had come to stay. As did many other foods, from chilli to cashew, which the Portuguese brought with them from far-away Brazil—another outpost in their global empire. Bread took various shapes and forms in its new home—the standard regulation pão, easily recognised beyond Goan borders. There’s poee, made with wheat bran and less sugar, traditionally popular with the elderly and diabetic. Its pita-style has given it a new lease of life in recent years. There’s the crusty undo, probably the only Goan bread that bears a similarity to what is now available in Portugal, and the toasty kankon, a favourite among children for its bangle shape, and equally popular among the elderly as an accompaniment to a piping hot cup of black tea.

While Goa claims bread as its very own, there is a steady decline of Goans engaged in making bread. This phenomenon can be traced to the 1980s when factory-made sliced bread was introduced to Goa in a big way. It was a convenient option to the traditional wood fired oven bread. Coconut toddy, the vital fermenting agent, became hard to source as toddy tappers left the trade. This forced bakers to switch to commercial yeast. Employment route to the Persian Gulf opened and weaned Goans from traditional occupations, including baking. A better life beckoned, away from the thankless long hours, heat and grind of the bakery.

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However, the foodie culture of the last decade has witnessed a growing nostalgia about bread. Food bloggers, culinary experts, filmmakers—this writer included—have attempted to dissect this distinct Goan identity marker. As we went about making the film, I saw first-hand how fundamental the migrant baker had become to providing Goa its daily bread. A few examples stand out. Many Goan bakers across generations have given up the trade and leased out their bakeries to job seekers from across the border. It’s a typical migration story—when a void is created, the void is filled. Most bakers in Goa hail from villages and towns just across the state borders. During Ganesh Chaturthi, one of the biggest festivals celebrated in Goa and its neighbouring areas, many migrant bakers return home to spend time with their families. Bakeries in Goa shut down for days, even weeks, leading to a shortage of bread.

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A feature under Portuguese rule was that a bakery could not be operated by the same person for more than four months, for health and safety reasons. Family members, in other words, the inheritors, took turns to run the business. Each of them had their dedicated labour, so during the four-month hiatus, owner and worker engaged in other occupations such as agriculture. This practice continues till date. However, retaining workers in this scenario becomes a nightmare. Working at a bakery is not high on the list of preferred jobs in Goa. Turning on a fan to beat the heat inside the bakery is a strict no-no. The job also involves the unglamourous task of cycling around the village to deliver bread. The migrant baker, who has taken an annual lease on a bakery, has no compulsion of letting go of his workers every four months. However, he too struggles to retain workers, who prefer jobs in the tourism sector.

And so it goes. Goa’s desire to hold on to adlear tempar or ‘the way things were’ is in constant conflict with a migrant-workforce-driven state economy and a booming real estate market fuelled by investments in second homes. While this has benefitted many, the constant tussle between land, identity and its people often leads to pointing fingers at those who have little to defend themselves with. This was palpable on the last day of the film shoot, when a migrant baker said to me, ‘please don’t make it negative’. He was all too familiar with the ire of locals directed at his ilk for the ills of Goan society.

(This appeared in the print edition as "The World of Pão")

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Sonia Filinto is a filmmaker/writer who divides her time between Mumbai and Goa