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Gautham Rao's avatar

Belated thanks for this beautiful piece!

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Richa's avatar

This was such an insightful, interesting read. Brilliant!

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Jakernory's avatar

This was fascinating.

1) A question - is/was leavened bread in and of itself polluting to high caste Hindus in the area, or was it that leavened bread was only cooked by so called "polluted/ing" people?

2) I was struck reading this about the linguistic similarities between Pao, Bao and Pav.

This thread cleared it up a little - https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/d5am14/any_relation_between_pav_and_bao/f0kwb71/

But I hadn't realised that "Pav" comes directly from "Pao." Apparently, Bao is totally unrelated.

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The Goan Voice's avatar

there's a theory that the 'soor' - aka coconut toddy - that was used to leaven the bread in the absence of yeast was also considered unclean by orthodox "caste Hindus."

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Haddon Davies aka magicsnaps's avatar

Such evocative writing - conjuring up such a big, wonderful world to experience and so little time.

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