Museum of Christian Art in collaboration with The Goan Kitchen host first-of-its-kind heritage mango tasting in the heart of Old Goa, 17 May 2025
In what is believed to be the first public tasting of its kind given the varieties to taste at one sitting, the Museum of Christian Art (MoCA) and The Goan Kitchen (TGK) brought together a selection of Goa’s rarest mango varieties – most of which aren’t commercially available and remain virtually inaccessible to people in Goa.
The event, held in the historic mango orchard of the Royal Chapel of St. Anthony – situated between the Museum of Christian Art and the Augustinian Tower ruins in Old Goa – offered guests a rare encounter with varieties that include the Jesuit, Colaco, Ball and Monteiro, among others. These are not mangoes one finds at a market or a supermarket. In many cases, access requires knowing someone with a tree on private property.
Goa is home to over 105 distinct local mango varieties*. Yet most residents – let alone visitors – have tasted only a handful. The organisers noted, with some irony, that a person in Goa is statistically more likely to have eaten a Granny Smith apple that originated in Australia than a Jesuit mango with origins in Benaulim.
The venue was not incidental. The orchard sits in the heart of Old Goa – a landscape that has been alive with activity since the 16th century, when Jesuit missionaries, renowned as skilled horticulturists, are credited with grafting and developing many of the varieties that still grow across Goa today. To taste these mangoes here was to stand inside that history.
“MoCA’s mission is to preserve and celebrate Goa’s heritage which includes built, natural and cultural heritage,” said Clive Figueiredo. “This experience was part of our theme for International Museum Day celebrations ‘May for Music, Mango, Museum and Mario’. It is another way for people to connect with the museum, with the monuments on the Holy Hill and with the history of Old Goa.” Oliver Fernandes from TGK added that “Experiences like this are what TGK gets excited about – reviving interest in Goan food and how it is prepared and consumed, especially the varieties that are slipping away from common memory”.
The collaboration between MoCA and The Goan Kitchen reflects a shared commitment to cultural preservation beyond the purely artefactual, extending heritage programming into living, sensory experience. The mango orchard, often overlooked by visitors focused on the monuments around it, became the centrepiece of an afternoon that reframed what a museum encounter could be. An encounter that is rooted in the past but savoured in the present.
Organisers are exploring the possibility of future editions, with the longer-term ambition of mapping and documenting Goa’s heritage mango varieties before more trees, and the knowledge attached to them, are lost.
About the Museum of Christian Art (MoCA): MoCA is an Indian museum of Christian Art, located in the 17th century Convent of Santa Monica in Old Goa which celebrates Goa’s artistic and cultural heritage.
About The Goan Kitchen (TGK): TGK delivers Goan food as it has always been made, using traditional methods and know-how and seeks to preserve recipes for posterity via their store in Margao that serves plated meals, snacks and packaged food as well as pop-ups at various locations.
- According to a 1997 Technical Bulletin published by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)
