Remembering Lucy Aunty

By Dilip -

NB: Once in a while, very rarely, something appears in the media that reminds me of Goa, where my mother was born, in village Saligaon, in 1924. And which reminds me of my Goan heritage. My thanks to the author for a sprinkle of sossegado in this troubled world! Dilip   

Lucy Aunty, as Lucy Fernandes was known and will be known forever, fed thousands of students at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. I was one of them. Besides students, her food was popular among the Goan community in that city. Why wouldn’t it be, given that she cooked the best Goan food? From rice curry to fish fry, doce de grão to perard – there wasn’t a single Goan delicacy she did not serve to the denizens of Baroda. Christmas perhaps was the busiest time for her, with several Goan families depending on her culinary skills to keep traditions alive. Her food united a community and gave the community an identity.

I do not doubt that Lucy Aunty was synonymous with the Goan community. She was one of the prominent members of the community, and perhaps it would not be wrong to consider her the most popular Goan in Baroda. Until, that is, her sad and untimely demise due to a heart attack on April 22. She was 84...

https://scroll.in/article/993967/remembering-lucy-aunt-whose-fried-fish-and-cutlets-helped-barodas-goans-retain-a-sense-of-identity

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