11/09/2020
Eastindian Sarpatel
One of the most relished Eastindian delicacies is Eastindian Pork Sarpatel. An Eastindian Wedding is incomplete without Sarpatel. Though it is made for all major Eastindian festivals & feasts alike making this dish at a EI wedding house is a ritual superintended by the senior most matriarch at the wedding house . It is for her to see the right measurements & to protect the traditional recipe from being tampered by the novices. The pork liver & lungs ( date) along with meat & thick skin( Tushin) is kept aside for Sarpatel. The meat is lightly fried in its own fat and cut into tiny pieces. Sarpatel is one of the most popular dishes that cannot be made without the Eastindian Bottle Masala. Being a vinegar based dish it needs at least a day of maturation to enhance the taste . Hence along with Indyal, Sarpatel is preapared two days ahead of Wedding day ( preferably on the Friday before the wedding Sunday)
Like the Indyal ( Vindaloo) Sarpatel found its way into Eastindian Gastronomy through the Portuguese . Surprisingly SARAPATEL ( it’s original name) it seems was made in Brazil by the African slave community and it’s still a northern Brazilian delicacy. Interestingly SARPATEL comes from Minho in Northern Portugal. It is called “Pappas de Sarrabulho”. And Its essentially pork based preparation with pork blood & spices. Further diving into history reveals its Middle Ages origin in Portugal post Black Death ( Plague). When food was so scarce that poorest people unable to afford meat itself used animal blood mixed with bread to get much needed energy.
The traditional Eastindian version does require pork blood. But many would now find it disgusting to add blood to Sarpatel. Hence the contemporary Sarpatel recipe now is purely without animal blood. As a matter of fact for non pork eaters it’s also made with chicken or mutton meat & liver & lungs of the animal. There is a documented recipe for preparing Dry Blood Cubes for Sarpatel.
From being food for the poorest in the Middle Ages To one of the MOST important wedding dish in the Eastindian Community , cooking Sarpatel promotes brotherhood because it is indeed a laborious exercise requiring helping hands abundantly.
And for those Anglicised & Accentised Eastindians IT IS NOT sorpotel.
IT IS EASTINDIAN SARPATEL
The Goan community has its own version of SORPOTEL & The Mangalorean community has its version as KALEEZ ANKITI.
@ FIGITERR
Mogan Rodrigues
9892080863.
