New Delhi, July 19 -- It's a gloomy monsoon morning. Rows of women are sitting outside the Panaji municipal market, selling all kinds of leafy greens. "Bai, taikilo zai ge (do you want taikilo?)," they call. Taikilo or Cassia tora is one of the leafy greens sitting alongside bundles of small cucumbers, local bitter gourd, pumpkin leaves, tendrils of valachi bhaji (long bean leaves), rolled leaves of alu and bouquets of terem (both colocasia) and thick stumps of killah (bamboo shoot). In separate baskets are bikna or jackfruit seeds. Standing on its own is aakur, thin and long with tender stalks and buds, looking like asparagus.

This is Goa's highly nutritious monsoon bounty, foraged from gardens, fields and forests.

One of the stereotyp...