Taste of identity: From Goan amaranth to Malabar spinach, 6 vegetables that became cultural symbols
Red amaranth seems an unlikely political symbol. It is more purple than revolutionary red. Its tiny edible seeds are consumed during religious fasts, but it is mainly grown for its leaves which are cooked like spinach.
As tambdi bhaji, it is a favourite in Goa, a delicious and nutritious addition to our plates. But recently tambdi bhaji was used for a protest against produce from Karnataka.
A very large part of Goa’s vegetables comes from Karnataka, but Manohar Ajgaonkar, an ex-MLA and deputy chief minister, decided to take a stand on tambdi bhaji.
It was, he declared, undercutting leaves grown in Goa, and he decreed a ban on its sale in the Madgaon wholesale market.
Cynics might suggest it has more to do with Ajgaonkar’s hopes to contest from Madgaon, after his defection to the BJP wasn’t rewarded by renomination from his old Pernem seat.
But it was interesting how in reports, Goans readily took totambdi bhaji as a local symbol.
They lauded the special taste of leaves grown in Goa and how it was grown without pesticides, presumably unlike the suspect product from Karnataka. It helps that its colour makes it so identifiable in fields, where its long purplered rows are often intercropped with other plants. It was also a reminder how certain leaves can become emblematic of a community and its cuisine.
One example is mulukhiyah, the leaves of a plant used to make jute fibre. It is cooked in Bengal, but really obsessed about in Egypt, where soup thickened by mucilage from the leaves is a national dish. Claudia Roden, the great expert on Middle Eastern food, grew up in Egypt and writes on the nostalgia felt for mulukhiyah by Egyptian exiles.
