Though it’s a coastal town in Karnat­a­ka, Karwar is also a stone’s throw away from Goa. And th­is is where the 35-year-old Andheri resident Arati Naik picked up her culinary skills from her grandmother. This, she adds, was essentially an am­a­l­gamation of flav­o­urs from the two ad­jacent states. "Just like all the other Hindus in the state, my family migrated from Goa to Karwar during Portuguese occupati­on,"Naik explains. She began honing her skills in the kitchen at the age of seven when she would visit her grandparents in Karwar, and picked up techniques like scaling and preparing fish and making her own masalas in a way unique to the town.

Arati Naik