What Goa can do to promote its cuisine beyond beach shacks
fish thalis is the salad. Alongside fried fish, fish curry, sukhem (a drier fish or shellfish dish), bhaji, solkadi (coconut milk with sour kokum), pickle, a sweet dish and rice, there is also a mound of chopped cabbage, usually mixed with coriander leaves and maybe carrots. Most people just ignore it. Some say it’s a health risk because bowls of raw salad in restaurant kitchens attract bacteria. But others start with it, perhaps remembering admonishments to eat it because it’s healthy. I try avoiding it but invariably eat it in the end, mixing it with leftover rice and solkadi.
No one ever claims to want the salad, yet it’s inescapable. A friend who surveys thalis across Goa even says that customers will always note, unfavourably, a lack of salad.
The second big mystery about Goan fish thalis is why the state government feels they are at risk. What else can explain the recent directive that all beach shacks must offer it, at least in its basic fish-curry-rice form?
Fish thalis are available across the state, from cities to villages, in versions ranging from basic to the monumental Bhatkar, or landlord’s thali, served at the restaurant of the Government Rest House in Madgaon, which offers more than 25 items, including chicken and multiple types of fish and shellfish.
Beach shacks are actually the one place thalis are scarce and with good reason. A thali is so filling that after eating one, you just want to go home or to your hotel room for a long nap.
On the beach, people want snacks to go with drinks or lighter meals,
