Goa Khabar:<\/strong> Goa\u2019s culinary heritage is thinning out under the pressure of tourism and shifting urban tastes, according to experts. And while the erosion is slow, the fading footprint is extremely evident, with salt pans drying up, everyday aromas fading from neighbourhoods and old food knowledge slipping into the cracks of modern, modular kitchens.<\/p>\n At this year\u2019s Serendipity Arts Festival, four culinary curators, Thomas Zacharias, Prahlad Sukhtankar, Odette Mascarenhas and the duo behind Edible Issues, Anushka Murthy and Elizabeth Yorke, attempt to hold the line by turning the festival into a living archive of what Goa still remembers and more importantly, what it risks forgetting.<\/p>\n Chef Prahlad Sukhtankar\u2019s project, ‘Salt’, confronts one of the state\u2019s most visible disappearances. Once more than 75 salt pans dotted the state. Today, he says, \u201cWe barely have five main areas of salt production.\u201d Generational loss and land-use changes are steadily erasing a craft that shaped Goa\u2019s khazan landscapes for centuries. His exhibition also widens the lens: India once had around 130 indigenous salts; \u201conly about 30 or\u00a035\u00a0are available now,\u201d he notes. His team could source just 18 for the exhibition. Goa\u2019s own marine salts stand apart for their \u201cbrininess\u201d and the way \u201cyou smell the ocean in the salt,\u201d a sensory signature that inland salts cannot replicate, Sukhtankar said.<\/p>\n If salt marks what is disappearing from the ground, Anushka Murthy and Elizabeth Yorke\u2019s ‘Smell Rooms’ track what is vanishing from the air. They attempt what may be Goa\u2019s first olfactory food-heritage archive, mapping the state through scents that once defined neighbourhood life. \u201cWe asked people what changed in\u00a0ten\u00a0years,\u201d Yorke says. \u201cA common thing was how we used to fry fish and you\u2019d know which neighbour is cooking what. That smell has faded.\u201d In a Goa increasingly moving towards air-conditioning, sanitised kitchens and rapid construction, smell becomes memory, one that also needs to be captured before it too disappears.<\/p>\n For chef Thomas Zacharias and The Locavore, the question is poignant: What does loss taste like? His installation imagines an India in 2100, where ingredients, traditions and food diversity have thinned to the point of absence. \u201cEither food traditions are dying or there\u2019s loss at the farm level,\u201d he says. The project is in collaboration with Immerse and Quasar Thakore Padmasee.<\/p>\n The culinary curator, Odette Mascarenhas, turns the gaze back to Goa\u2019s kitchens, excavating pre-chilli culinary histories across five communities \u2014 Hindu artisans, Gaud Saraswat Brahmins, Muslim families, Christian kitchens and Indo-Russo homes. Her challenge was simple: cook Goan food without chillies. \u201cIt shows what the cuisine looked like before the Portuguese,\u201d she says. But her findings extend beyond\u00a0spice. Everyday dishes once cooked at home are fading from public spaces, she says, pointing out how tourism and urban tastes have nudged authentic Goan cooking to the margins.<\/p>\n Together, the four curators turn Serendipity\u2019s culinary section into something more than a showcase. It becomes a ledger of what Goa stands to lose \u2014 and what might still be reclaimed if the state listens closely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ~ Goa’s salt pans have dwindled over a period of time from 75 to just five in number, according to Chef Prahlad Sukhtankar. Goa Khabar: Goa\u2019s culinary heritage is thinning out under the pressure of tourism and shifting urban tastes, according to experts. And while the erosion is slow, the fading footprint is extremely evident, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25169,"featured_media":108486,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[155,6],"tags":[3794],"class_list":["post-108484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-155","category-6","tag-featured"],"read":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/25169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=108484"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108488,"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108484\/revisions\/108488"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/108486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=108484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=108484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=108484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/goakhabar-com.preview.jikut.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/19.12.2025-OK-1-220x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/goakhabar-com.preview.jikut.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Elizabeth-Yorke-Anusha-Murthy-1-300x200.jpg\")
<\/p>\n