Captured by : BAY 15 CHIEF-SAGUN_2
The Goan: What do you have in store for the dinner?
Andre: We are trying to bring traditional Portuguese flavours to India. Managed to have food that has no connection to Indo-Portuguese gastronomy, roots Portuguese food that we first like to eat and second what my grandmother used to cook, so it’s traditional Portuguese food…
Bernardo: Sausages, Portuguese charcuterie, bacalhau, and then Portuguese desserts, Pastel de nata, which is popular here.
Andre: It’s a homecooking vibe, really traditional. It’s all about simple, tasty food to make people happy and put a smile on their faces.
The Goan: So, that’s a lot of ingredients that you had to bring over from Portugal..
Andre: Yeah, we carried a few bags!
The Goan: So what is so special about traditional food, according to you?
Bernardo: Because it has to do with the flavours you had during your childhood.
Andre: It’s an emotional connection. When you go to a fine dining restaurant, you evaluate the work that is there, when you eat at home, you have an emotional connection of the years and years of going to your grandmother’s house.
Bernardo: And we have been educated through that. The curry of my mother is better than the curry of your mother. This is always the question.
The Goan: Talking about the evolution of food per se. Many people do not consider molecular gastronomy as food, because it doesn’t look like food. What is your take on that?
Bernardo: To start that conversation, we need to discuss something. There are only two types of food, good food and bad food. Food is made to create interactivity with you, not just to feed yourself. People that have money and have taste, they have the pleasure to eat.
Andre: They want different experiences and go beyond what they’ve had before. Molecular gastronomy is basically going towards the needs of those people.
Bernardo: The first contact that you receive is visual. When you talk about food, all your senses are receiving feedback from the plate. Your sight, your smell, your hearing if you eat crunchy food, your hands when you eat with them, and taste too. Theatre and drama, they involve your sight and hearing. In a gallery, it’s your eyes. But food involves all your senses. Why shouldn’t we not explore that?
The Goan: So, it’s an ultimate form of art?
Bernardo: I don’t consider chef artists, but artisans, because we use our hands. Of course we have our knowledge. But going back to fusion food and evolving styles, I find India very conservative when it comes to food because people got stock with what their grandmother used to cook and now they are eating the exact same thing what they are eating before. Things need to change, and change is good.
