Before the idea of starting Edible Archives knocked on Anumitra Ghosh Dastidar’s (Delhi home) door, the passion for indigenous ingredients had long since been residing inside. The space was filled with fridges stocked with different kinds of dry fish and jars upon jars containing numerous varieties of indigenous rice sourced from across India, right from the Sundarbans up to Tamil Nadu’s Thanjavur, to Northeast India.
Within the 2BHK space, Anumitra (44) says, her bed was probably the only decor asset; the rest was a living archive of culinary memorabilia.
“At any given time, I’d have around 10 varieties of dried fish, six to seven varieties of murmura(puffed rice), two to three types of ghee, and seven to eight types of oil. I believed diverse food was important. These days, most people end up consuming just 10-12 ingredients in a whole week,” she reasons.
Today, that craze for ingredients has manifested itself into Edible Archives, a restaurant cocooned by Goa’s slow pace of life. Anumitra and Shalini Krishan (the other half of the duo behind Edible Archives) see the initiative as one that’s assuring heritage ingredients their long-overdue redemption.
Chef Anumitra (L) and five varieties of indigenous rice (R) Photograph: (Edible Archives)
Recalling how the seeds of the idea were sown in 2017 at a party, Anumitra shares, “I was talking about my obsession of working with indigenous rice, and Anita Dube, the curator of Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2018, overheard me. She wanted to know more. With help from Shalini and a few other friends, we wrote a proposal titled ‘Edible Archives’ and sent it in.”
L Nasrin’s chicken, a dish from the Assamese muslim community (L) and representative dishes from the Edible Archives menu including handpulled noodles and peanut prawns (R) Photograph: (Rushika Tyabji)
The project was selected to showcase at the upcoming Biennale. And that’s the story of how Edible Archives was born, an initiative that’s thrilling Goa with its whimsical culinary creations.
A sensory catalogue of food
Everything on the menu at Edible Archives — the restaurant is housed within a century-old home in Assagao; its rust-tiled roof perfectly complements its teal and white body — has a descriptive richness to it, one that’s woven into the dish right from the sourcing of the ingredients to the prep to the final touches added by Anumitra. Finally, when the dish is set in front of you, you’re called to feast your eyes on it before you let your palate run riot.
It’s equal parts gastronomy and design.
This dual philosophy was dear to Anumitra.
“I did not think of Edible Archives as a food project; it was somewhere between food and art. I loved that I did not have to restrict myself; once the idea started, it could go anywhere from there,” she says.
Crispy rice salad (L) and madi cutlets (R) Photograph: (Rushika Tyabji)
Rooted in a grassroots approach, Edible Archives spotlights a wide variety of traditional ingredients across cultures, sourcing them directly from farmers and local vendors.
“We use only fresh, seasonal produce, seafood, meat, and grains, grow many of our ingredients ourselves, and limit waste as much as possible,” Shalini emphasises.
She’d spent over a decade in the editing and publishing space before turning her energies to building Edible Archives, and sees the project as a beautiful blank canvas that permitted experimentation.
Various indigenous rice from a workshop titled ‘Every Grain A Story: Rice Appreciation’ Photograph: (Serendipity Arts Festival)
“It allowed both of us, Anumitra and me, to approach the idea of ingredients, to channel the wisdom around indigenous ingredients in a restaurant setup. It let us get creative and see what happened when we did,” Shalini shares.
She clarifies, “What interests me is the cultures around food, how the ingredient is part of a larger ecosystem, the stories of how it’s moved from one place to another, the stories that get woven into myths.” Once the ingredient reaches the kitchen, it’s Anumitra’s domain, she laughs.
The grammar of ingredients
You can count on the menu at Edible Archives for announcing the arrival of the seasons; some of the most popular dishes include pork solantulem with rice (featuring kokum, Byadgi chillies, Aldona chillies, and seeraga samba rice), Goanuddamethi curry with beans toran over Rajamudi rice (an heirloom medium-bodied variety from Mysuru, where it was originally only grown for the royal family, Shaanxi-style brinjal and long beans (the duo calls this “a souvenir from China”, a bestselling dish that has been a mainstay of their menu). It features striped long brinjal, and the local yard-long beans.
Choriz (L) and patra made with colocasia leaves (R) Photograph: (Edible Archives)
Give chef Anumitra an ingredient and trust her to coax the most flavour out of it. A researcher, before switching to culinary pursuits, it’s clear that her professional knack now spills into the kitchen.
“While working with rice, I would get into the details of the size of the grain, and how that corresponded to the amount of water needed, the scent of the rice, the colour, the pressure point at which it had been husked,” she shares.
All of those learnings have culminated in the menu at Edible Archives, which, she describes as: “a treasure hunt: you’ll come across something you’ve never tasted before, or never seen before, or something that you’ve tasted but never imagined it tasting a certain way.”
Asian tomato salad (L) and fish cutlets (R) Photograph: (Rushika Tyabji)
The way the duo sees it, the restaurant hinges on the centrality of food in preserving culture. And, the seasons find their way into the feast.
Shalini explains, “All of our menus are seasonal, which also changes how people approach different foods. Eating a particular fish at the peak of its season, cooked in a particular way, is very different from eating it when it isn’t in season. This applies throughout the year.”
Take, for instance, their monsoon menu that features dry fish. “People have a lot of preconceived ideas about dry fish and its smell, but when they tasted our fish pickle, they came up to us and said they’d never imagined it tasting this way. That’s how approaching the seasonality of food helps,” she adds.
Sundried fish (L) and wild greens wontons (R) Photograph: ((L): Edible Archives, (R): Rushika Tyabji)
But beyond a focus on ingredients, Anumitra says her work gives her a chance to work closely with local communities.
“Since Edible Archives is seasonal (while bookings are open year-round, October to March is a particularly busy time), it gives me a chance to work with communities across the Western Ghats. It gives me time to understand the ingredient before I decide how I want to use it.”
An Edible Archives bowl (L) and mackerel with kodumpulli (R) Photograph: ((L): Edible Archives, (R): Manoj Parameswaran)
The duo takes their time researching and exploring.
One of their favourite places to head to is the purumentachem (provision markets) across South Goa. These happen just before the onset of the monsoon, and people from all over head to them to buy and sell preserved foods.
An innate familiarity with the ingredient goes a long way in ensuring you know the right way to use it in a dish, explains Anumitra. For instance, take taro. “There are various varieties of colocasia leaves; some are edible in some seasons, and others aren’t. You need to know the difference. Even if you pluck the edible ones, but do it in the wrong season, they can’t be eaten. Another thing to know about some varieties of the leaves is that, if you boil them and don’t throw the water, it might itch your throat. Likewise, if you are cutting them and don’t put some sort of acid, like lemon or mustard oil, on your hands. Every stage is about balance,” Shalini shares.
This is where fleshing out the tiny details matters.
And here, Anumitra circles back to one of her core beliefs: innovation instead of fusion. She says, “I believe in knowing the context in which an ingredient existed or exists and understanding its grammar from the community that eats the ingredient. I want to understand how they eat it; maybe I will not do it the same way, but I like being loyal to the taste of things.”
