NO TIFFIN SERVICES FIT FOR SENIORS!

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Aug 01- Aug 07, 2026, Eating is Fun / Eating is Yuck! - A variety food column, Life & Living July 31, 2026 , by Tara Narayan

WITH my right leg in a cast for almost a month now after a terrible shaking up 2-wheeler accident (not my fault, two learners on a new 2-wheeler banged me up and I crushed my right ankle badly) down town Panjim near the Honda Showroom which apparently doesn’t have any traffic surveillance cameras down the main road here. Well, unable to stand much and do much cooking in the kitchen at my rental home, I’ve been hunting high and low for a decent sattvic tiffin service designed for seniors.
There are many tiffin services from the high end to those in the middle bracket of Rs150 per thali meal deal of two wheat chappaties, portion rice, a sabzi, a dal, some sliced salad (two cucumber slices, two tomato slices, two onion slices)…delivered in 4-container stainless steel tiffin by a cordial enough delivery boy. The hubby ate some rice and dal doused with curd and a few “fafda” crunchies, I tried to eat the tough leathery chapatis (frustrated, I dry roasted the second chapati into a crisp khakra), the remaining rice and dal; potato-onion sabzi of sorts was utterly spicy and I chucked it, it left my mouth burning. My instructions: Don’t order this Dona Paula based tiffin service, please.

Then I ordered a plain dal kichadi from a another place at Dona Paula – the dal kichadi is fine, comes with slices of onion/lemon pickle/two fried papad (Rs40 fried papad, extra charges): the whole of it Rs170. Funny or not funny, a tiny cockroach crawled out of the papad packet! The hubby dumps it all out. So that was that. Tell me to go a little upmarket; the ponni rice-sambar from Sweet Basil is agreeable. Please note most of the south Indian food is pretty health-conscious and sattvic by and large but in Goa those who have taken to do it think everything should be spiced up more. Real Udipi food is not spicy at all despite the occasional whole red chilli-mustard seeds tempering atop chutney…remember black pepper was the queenly spice down south India for centuries before the Portuguese colonizers brought in green and red chili peppers from the New World of America! These hot peppers replaced the blessed benign black pepper of old….and try telling Indians red chili powder is not originally Indian!
Sorry, I’m particular, I like my south Indian preparations done with black pepper, that’s all. Be it sambar or avial or anything else. Truly, I can’t find agreeable south Indian for money or for love in Goa except at Kamat Hotel down or Southern Basil and of course the ragi idli handed out miserly at the Yoo cafeteria of the GMC hospital blocks is superlatively good but for that one has to go collect it at 8.30am something, no ragi idli left after that.
HAVE some ragi malt porridge, said dear doctor, up your calcium to heal faster. These days I’m doing that or trying to do that. The virtues of ragi malt porridge are endless of course but I’m looking for the old native flatbreads of India…the millet and red rice and real corn flatbreads of country India, so superlatively good. Nourishing and included in one meal a day, body beautiful in suffering mode is utterly grateful (while refined white baked bread is constipating, our wholegrain flatbreads are not, also remember most drug-based medicines prescribed in mainstream Allopathy healthcare are further constipating)…mostly, doctors say don’t eat at all, give your stomach a holiday. Patients in full or semi-conscious coma strung up on tube feeds recover much slimer and healthier! Touch wood!
Well, forget all that. My concerns currently is how to include preventive healthcare foods and a decent tiffin service for seniors marooned at home as patients recovering from some fracture or another or something else! A few dear friends drop in occasionally with some “home-made food” but it’s not the same and one may not take it for granted. It’s a temporary stop-gap courtesy friends. One friend sent me an idli breakfast from the newly opened branch of Café Tato near the Goa Medical College & Hospital and of course she overdid it: at 9.30am came home three pocket plastic platters of idli/chutney/sambar, also veg cutlets, also alsane beans preparation Goan style, and nachne sattvo… very good, but I’m cussed. Nowadays when I’m pining for something it is only for nachne/ragi idli/chappaties and of course my favorite “ukde chaval” (both equally hard to find).

Cafe Tato Bambolim menu favourites for breakfast or brunch… It’s the plastic containers which annoy because sometimes seniors have a problem dealing with all the scotch tape, leading to spills on the table.

When you design a thali meal deal for seniors you have to remember that they are by and large patients with dentures or without dentures; they eat little; what you make for them must be soft and mildly flavorful…finely grated curd raita (probiotic in nature)! Don’t be mean, be generous with your ghee (not dalda/vanaspati) on the chappatti even if it is a wholewheat flour chapati, also put some ghee on the rice. Some good wholesome fat lubricates the system and slow down glycemic index. Do good porridges by way of savoury kichadi…don’t put huge chunks of veggies in it, no terribly fibrous French beans…cut veggies finer. If adding a green chilly or so just slice in a whole green chilly so that it may be removed easily. Remember red chilli powder may not be removed, nor too much salt, nor too much oil!
Most seniors do not like their terribly richly delicious. They like it austere, soft, liquid like, but flavorful, and above all there’s nothing like a meal adding up a worthy 1,000 to 2,000 calories of food. Seniors are mostly sedentary humans limited by their restricted movements.

Okay, no more. If you know of anybody doing tiffin food services for seniors which are wholesome and intelligently designed, let me know. I don’t want a whole lot of food, I’m looking for small portions of energy-giving foods: minestrone soup or lemon rasam; jowari roti-greens bhaji; chana chaat; sourdough bread toast topped with olive oil garlic crush…caldin-style fish curry-ukde chaval for a treat! The Shravan veg thali meals served at a few places are superlatively good. I hope by the time Shravan-ka-mahina is over I’ll be happily back on both my two feet again!