Lucy Fernandes is remembered for cooking up the best Goan food in Baroda. 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.