Indian Pease.

Yesterday’s post led me, not surprisingly, to a consideration of that other Indian staple we in the West know as dhal (or dall or dholl or various other spellings.) What did surprise me was that when I went in search of the word itself, it appears that it refers not to the cooked dish, but to the dried pulse that is its main ingredient – especially the pigeon pea (Cajanus indicus.) At least, that is the opinion of the Oxford English Dictionary which says dhall is ‘the pulse obtained from some leguminous plants, chiefly from the Cajan, Cajanus indicus, extensively used as an article of food in the East Indies.’

The pigeon pea probably originated in Asia, and has been cultivated by humans for millennia. It is extremely versatile. It is an important and nutritious food crop – the peas being eaten fresh, dried, canned, or sprouted, or in the form of flour, and the pods and shoots are also eaten. Not to be content with being a human food, the plant is useful as forage, cover, or nitrogen-rich green ‘manure’ crop too.

Here is the Anglo-Indian version of dhal from yesterday’s source, The Khaki Kook Book: a collection of a hundred cheap and practical recipes mostly from Hindustan, by Mary Kennedy Core, published c1917.

Dhal Bhat.
Dhal Bhat is the universal breakfast dish all over India. Prepare as for split pea curry, but omit the curry powder, if desired.
Often it is prepared by frying minced meat with the onions before the peas are added.

Split Pea Curry.
Soak the peas for two or three hours. Fry in the usual way the onion and curry powder. A teaspoonful of curry powder is enough for a cupful of soaked peas. Mix the peas with the fried mixture. Add plenty of water and cook until the peas are soft enough to mash up into a pulp. Serve with rice. An acid is desired with this curry.


Quotation for the Day.

Being pretty on the inside means you don’t hit your brother and you eat all your peas – that’s what my grandma taught me.
Lord Chesterfield.

Chupatti Letters.

Some time ago I spent a week considering the various forms of griddle cakes. There was one very important type that I missed – the Indian chapatti.

There is a marvellous story about chapattis being used for seditious purposes during the Indian Rebellion (the Sepoy Mutiny) of 1857.

On March 8, a Times correspondent in Bombay, wrote:

“A strange and to some observers a very disagreeable incident has occurred in the North-west. A few days since, a chowkeydar, or village policeman, of Cawnpore ran up to another in Futtteghur and gave him two chupatties. These are indigestible little unleavened cakes, the common food of the poorer classes. He ordered him to make ten more, and give two to each of the five nearest chowkeydars with the same order. He was obeyed, and in a few hours the whole country was in commotion with chowkeydars running about with these cakes. The wave swept province after province with a speed at which official orders never fly. The magistrates were powerless, and the chupatties at this moment are flying westward. Nobody has the least idea what it all means. Some officers fancy it is a ceremony intended to avert the cholera; others hint at treason – a view encouraged by the native officials; others talk of it as a trifle – a joke. For myself, I believe it to be the act of some wealthy fool in pursuance of a vow; but its significance is this: there are some 90,000 policemen in these provinces. If they should perchance imbibe dangerous ideas, how perfect is their organisation.”

The explanation that came to be - I don’t know if it is historical fact or fascinating myth – was that the flat cakes of unleavened bread were messages of rebellion, coated in dough and baked, to be broken open and read by the recipient, who then re-coated and baked them (or made new ones) and sent them on to the next community in an ever-widening circle of sedition. I hope the story is true. Perhaps one of you with some knowledge of Indian history can enlighten us?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a chapatti as ‘a cake of unleavened bread, generally made of coarse wheaten meal, flattened with the hand, and baked on a griddle. The usual form of native bread and the staple food of Upper India.’ The OED gives the first recorded use of the word in English as occurring in 1810 in the context ‘chow-patties, or bannocks.’ This seems a late occurrence to me. I suspect that some searching would discover an earlier use of the word, considering how long the English had already had a foot on the Indian subcontinent by this date.

For the recipe for the day, I give you two versions of chupatties from The Khaki Kook Book: a collection of a hundred cheap and practical recipes mostly from Hindustan, by Mary Kennedy Core, published c1917.

Chupatties.
Take a pound of whole wheat and mix it with water until a soft dough is formed. Knead this well. Put a damp cloth over it, and let it stand an hour or so. Then knead again. Make out into balls, each ball about as big as a walnut. Then roll each ball into a flat cake about as big around as a saucer. Bake these cakes one at a time over a very thick iron griddle that has been well heated. Keep turning them over and over while they are baking. Fold them up in a napkin as they are baked and keep in a warm place. The inside pan of a double boiler is a good place for them. To be properly made these cakes should be patted into shape instead of rolled, and the Hindustani women always do it that way. These chupatties are eaten with bujeas and curries.

Chupatties (Americanized).

Make a dough from a pound of whole wheat flour, a half teaspoonful of baking powder, and a little salt. Knead well and let stand. When ready to bake them, divide into balls as big as a walnut. Roll each out, spread a little oil or crisco over it; fold up and roll again. Grease an iron griddle and bake, turning from side to side. These are not actually fried, but the crisco in them and the greased griddle prevents them from getting hard, as they are apt to do if made according to No. 68 [the previous recipe].

Quotation for the Day.

There is a communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine is drunk. And that is my answer, when people ask me: Why do you write about hunger, and not wars or love.
MFK Fisher

A Royal Breakfast in Nepal

In December 1911, King George V of England visited Nepal, and during the visit a shooting expedition was organised by the Maharajah and his three sons in their “tiger-infested jungles.” An artist was given special permission to accompany the royal party on the ten-day visit, and he sent a lengthy report on the events along with the expected drawings. The report found its way into the New York Times, and I give you some of the details.

Two “camps” were used, but these were not rough bush tent-sites with pit latrines and all of the other enticing features of the archetypal outdoor life. There were bungalows with “modern fittings” including electric lights, and there were also automobiles to supplement the elephant transport. The King himself shot “remarkably well”, rarely requiring a second barrel to complete his personal total kill of 37 tigers. A great deal of other wildlife was also consigned to trophyism, including 19 rhinos.

Our focus is of course, on the food in the story. The artist enclosed “the ordinary breakfast menu” of the camp – which I note does not include tiger or rhino meat in any form.

Porridge.

Bekti [a freshwater fish]Maitre d’Hotel.

Oeufs aux choux saucisses.

Grilles.

Curry de legumes viandes.

Froids.

Café

The Curry de Legumes Viandes is presumably meant to be Curry de Legumes et de Viandes (curry of vegetables and meat), and represents an Anglo-Indian “fusion” dish. From The Englishwoman in India, by “a lady resident”, published in 1864, I give you the following receipt for a nice pickle to accompany your curry.

Dried Mango Pickle.
Salt, brown sugar, onions, garlic, green chillies, gren ginger, raisins, and mango slices (sliced and dried in the sun), take half a pound of each; cut the ginger and onions in slices, put all the ingredients into a jar, fill with vinegar, and stand in the sun every day for a month.

Quotation for the Day.
We had kangaroo curry for breakfast next morning; and having fed our horses, and sounded to saddle, set out again in pursuit of game.
Edward Wilson Landor, The Bushman.

Liverpool Curry.

The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations (commonly known as the Crystal Palace Exhibition) in London in 1851 made the country, at least for a time, a tourist destination. The visitors seemed to come for some years afterwards, and at least one author (who is not named) felt the need (or saw the niche) for a travel book. The American stranger’s guide to London and Liverpool at Table was published in 1859, and not only advised ‘how to dine and order a dinner, and where to avoid dining’, but also gave ‘practical hints to butlers and cooks’ – and threw in some recipes from the Royal Yacht Squadron Steward’s Manual. It all sounds as if the author wasn’t really sure who his target audience was, doesn’t it?

The author was, however, aware that the shared heritage and common language between the two countries did not obviate all cultural confusion. He spent some time explaining the mysteries of “Curry” to his American readers (the English considering themselves experts on the topic of course, on account of owning India at the time). He is clear and dogmatic on the fine point that Bengal, Madras, and Bombay Curries differ in the details, and pompous and pedantic in the associated footnote.

Speaking of Curries, it is lamentable to witness this aromatic dish served in Europe as an Entrée, sometimes with scarcely any rice, and that in the same dish. The rice should he abundant and carefully boiled; handed round in a separate dish, and then the Curry. It should never appear until the second course, and is an admirable substitute for Game, when the latter is not in season, or to be had. In India this dish is indispensable both at tiffin and dinner daily. It is a hors d’oeuvre that people never tire of, when properly concocted and served à l’Oriental, being in fact the Pâté de Foies-Gras of India. When partaking of Curry, always use a Dessert spoon instead of a fork; the use of the latter betokens a “Griffin”.

There is so much worthy of comment in this short opinion piece that it is hard to know where to start. His use of a capital for ‘Curry’ in every instance; Curry as a second course dish, never, God forbid! as an Entrée; Curry as an hors d’oeuvre; Curry as the ‘Pâté de Foies-Gras of India’; the entire concept of ‘Curry’ as an ‘Indian’ dish when it is unequivocally Anglo-Indian. I am sure those of you with a heritage based in the Indian subcontinent are falling about laughing or crying right now. I would love to hear your thoughts.

The last word intrigues me. It was clearly an undesirable thing to be a griffin, or at least poor form to demonstrate griffinism. I understood a griffin to be a fabulous, imaginary beast, half eagle, half lion – so how does that fit here?

The OED gives an alternative meaning of ‘griffin’ as ‘A European newly arrived in India, and unaccustomed to Indian ways and peculiarities; a novice, new-comer, greenhorn.’ One of the supporting quotations notes ‘Young men, immediately on their arrival in India, are termed griffins, and retain this honour until they are twelve months in the country.’ So, there we have it. Or at least, we have half of it. The definition begs the question of ‘why griffin?’. Why not unicorn or centaur or phoenix or dragon? Is there an Indian dialect word that is similar in sound and meaning?

There was no agonising dilemma in chosing the recipe for the day from this book. The delightful dissonance produced by the collision of words in the name of the dish was instantly irresistible (methinks in inverse proportion to the degree of irresistibility of the dish itself.)

Liverpool Curry.

à la Parry.

Form two table spoonfuls of curry powder into paste. Cut up a rabbit or fowl into small pieces an inch long, rub them over with the paste, fry the meat with butter, and four onions sliced, to a deep brown; then add about two-thirds of a pint of good gravy, and let simmer for twenty mintues, remove all fat and skim, and put by cold; when wanted stew gently for four hours.
Mix together 2 spoonfuls of cream, 1 spoonful of Soy, a tea cupful of sour apples, or a table spoonful of craberries, 1 of flour, Dessert spoon of salt, a bit of butter, which add to the curry half an hour before it is taken from the fire.
When dished up add the juice of half a lemon. In India ham is eaten with curry and pickles, &c., to suit the taste of partakers; the remains of a duck, or of game, all come well into season, if you have them

Quotation for the Day.

Where life is colorful and varied, religion can be austere or unimportant. Where life is appallingly monotonous, religion must be emotional, dramatic and intense. Without the curry, boiled rice can be very dull.
C. Northcote Parkinson.

Tiffin in the Bay.

There was great excitement and interest in Brisbane in April 1881 when the Merkara, a British-India Company mail steamer en route from London via Batavia (Indonesia) arrived in Moreton Bay to deposit some of its passengers. A party of “between seventy and eighty ladies and gentlemen” made up of the mayor, aldermen, and “a number of our leading residents” were invited by the Captain to lunch aboard the vessel during her sojourn in the bay.


This was no mere lunch, this was apparently tiffin. Or at least it was one interpretation of the concept of tiffin. Presumably it was so named as a matter of principle - it was an “Indian” ship, it was the lunching hour, and there was ‘curry’ on the menu. It was in fact a huge meal which lasted several hours during which multiple courses of hefty British and Anglo-Indian food were washed down with copious amounts (it seems) of alcohol. Those former colonials must have been made of stern stuff.


The report of the event in the Brisbane Courier the next day is a marvellous example of nineteenth century food journalism – effusive, yes, tinted (by today’s standards) with political incorrectness, certainly, - but charming nonetheless. And as an added bonus, it reminds us of a ‘lost’ (or at least seriously underused) word.

The "luncheon" in the saloon was a banquet of the most récherché kind. On the very elegant bill of fare it was styled " Tiffin," and if any gourmet wants to kuow what tiffin is let him read the following paragraph slowly and on an empty stomach.

We are all seated. The apartment ia a charming one, taking in the whole breadth of thevessel, the sides being of birdseye maple panelling, and light gilt moulding running along the white beams. There are four tables ranged in parallel lines the whole length of the Saloon. These tables are bright with flowers and glass, and the snowy table napkins are arranged in shapes of such marvellous ingenuity that to unroll one critically is to penetrate an Asian mystery A small army of white helmeted, white robed kitmagars await a signal from some unseen chief, and then disperse noiselessly to offer each guest turtle or mulligatawny soup. This is a painful moment. The rich green fat swims alluringly in the pellucid liquid, but with a sigh you motion it away and take the other, having heard that an Indian cook scorns curry powder and makes his mullagatawney from the fresh condiments ground up on a stone. Your acuteness is richly rewarded. Given a turtle any ordinary artist can make good turtle soup, but the mullagatawney made by a Bengalee is hopelessly unatainable to the European chef.

By the time you have disposed of a salmon cutlet, you begin to realise that you are under the spell of a superior race. The kitmagar, who anticipates your every want before even your slow brain has had time to definitely formulate it, belongs to iu ancient civilisation. His ancestors were comporting themselves in the stately manner that distinguishes their descendant 3000 years ago, at which time yours were running about the woods dressed in a suit of blue paint, and had possibly not yet rubbed off their tails by assuming a sitting posture.

But let us get back from history to the entrées. Will you have “lamb chops and French beans”, “chicken cutlets and green peas,” or “fillets of duck and olives,” “stewed pigeons and mushrooms”, or “roast turkey and ham.” It is best not to have all five, because the dish of dishes has yet to come – the curry. Here is its, a plate of snowy rice – each grain of which looks as though it had been boiled in a separate saucepan – and then the choice of curried chicken, vegetables, or prawns. Of course you choose the crustaceans, and become suddenly conscious of how the most prosaic wants of our nature may by cultivation become sublimated into artistic appreciation of a truly noble art.

During the last half column remember you have been plied by assiduous attendants with champagne. In your gallant struggle with the bill of fare you have continually sought fresh vigour from your glass, and after each application a dusky hand has bid it foam again to the brim.

The sweets of many and curious sorts, the iced jellies, the almond pastry, the peach vol-au-vent, the cheese, the salad, the fruit- all these we pass with a mournful non possumus; and whilt you sip the cup of coffee which is the final note of this glorious concert, permit us to explain that this is “tiffin” – on board the Merkara.

What of the kitmagars - those silent, stately, dusky-handed attendants? The OED knows kitmagar as khidmutgar - a male servant who waits at table, the word apparently coming from Urdū.


Recipe for the Day.

I give you an interesting perspective on “curries” from The Englishwoman in India: information for ladies ..., 1864. The slightly confusing instructions as to the mixing and pounding of the ingredients are as they appear in the book.

Curries.

Every native knows how to make these: chicken and prawn are, perhaps, the favourite ones: up country the dry prawns, which are sold by the seer in the bazaar, can be made into a very good curry, if they are well washed and half boiled in .water till tender.

MADRAS CURRY PASTE.
1 lb. coriander seed (Dummiah).
¼ lb. turmeric (Huldee).
¼ lb. red chillies (Lai mirchee).
¼ lb. black pepper (Kala mirchee).
¼ lb. mustard seed (Rai).
2 ounces dry ginger (Soaut).
2 ounces garlic (Lussun).
2 ounces vendinne.
½ lb. salt (Nimmuck).
½ lb. sugar (Shuprgeo).
2 ounces cummin seed (Zeera).
½ lb. gram (Chenna).

Fry this and take off the husks, then pound it with the other ingredients and mix with

½ pint salad oil
½ pint vinegar.

Quotation for the Day.

Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what's for lunch.
Orson Welles

Chutney, Again.

Yesterday’s post got me thinking about the interpretation of Indian food by representatives of Her Majesty's Empire when they returned to Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The general consensus is that it was pretty appalling – the addition of a few spoonfuls of a single type of store-bought generic curry powder added to everything from hard-boiled eggs (mixed with apple) to soup to bananas to devilled fowl being sufficient to label it “Indian” or “Bengalee” or somesuch name.

It wasn’t all a travesty however. Without getting into the always-unwinnable debate about authenticity, I continue yesterday’s chutney theme with the following delightful-sounding recipes from a lovely book called The Englishwoman in India: information for ladies on their outfit, furniture [&c.] by a lady resident (1864).

Mint Chutnee.
½ lb. green mint leaves.
1 ounce red chillies
¼ lb. salt.
¼ lb. raisins or kismis.
2 ounces green ginger.
¼ lb. brown sugar.
1 ounce garlic or onion.
Pound with a quarter pint of vinegar, mix well and pour over the chutnee half a pint of boiling vinegar: when cold, stopper the bottles.
N.B. Country vinegar answers perfectly for most chutnees.

Sweet Chutnee.
½ lb. tamarinds.
½ lb. dates.
1 lb. green ginger.
½ lb. kismis [raisins]
½ lb. onions.
¼ lb. chillies, without seeds.
4 tablespoons brown sugar.
2 tablespoons salt.
Pound these ingredients with vinegar, and rub through a piece of net, or a coarse sieve. Bottle and cork, and it will be ready in a fortnight.

Quotation for the Day.

“A chilli,'said Rebecca, gasping,'Oh, yes!' She thought a chilli was something cool, as its name imported, and was served with some.'How fresh and green they look,'she said, and put one into her mouth. It was hotter than the curry; flesh and blood could bear it no longer. She laid down her fork.'Water, for Heaven's sake, water!'she cried.”
William Makepeace Thackeray.

“Bombay Duck”

I cannot resist this final (for the time being) and famous Misleading Food Name. Bombay Duck is not a bird but a fish.The official name of the fish is Harpadon nehereus, and in various Indian dialects is bamaloh, bumla, or bombil. It is native to the waters of the coastline of South East Asia and Western India, and forms an important article of food for the poor. It is sold fresh or salted, and it is the latter that is known in Anglo-Indian cuisine as Bombay Duck.

Bombay Duck’s great claim to notoriety is its extraordinarily pungent smell, which manages to seep out of the most airtight container, and which is nothing at all like duck. The dried salted smelly crumbly fish was held in such great affection by returning British colonials (who used it as a relish to accompany their curries) that until 1997 over 13 tonnes a year were imported into England. In the fateful year of 1997 the European Commission of the European Union banned its importation under the rule (based on a vaguely sanitary justification) that denied any Indian fish not produced in “approved” canning or freezing facilities.

The name is slightly mysterious. One theory is that it derives from the Bombay Dak (the Bombay Mail train) which carried large quantities of the fish and consequently smelled strongly of it as did everything else carried by the train. The Bangladshi version of this that Clive of India himself gave it the name because of the smell of the newspapers that came from Bombay. It may of course have its origins in an ethnic-slur in the same way as Welsh Rabbit and some of the other examples we have considered this week.

This is how to use it:

“Bombay Ducks” or “Bummaloes”
Use the prepared kind sold at the Army and Navy Stores, Westminster, to eat with curry.
Toast these dried fish as you would bread, and send them to the table hot in a warm napkin – allow one apieces for each person, to put by his plate like a bit of toast, to eat with his curry, or to crumble over, eating the whole with a spoon.
It is nicest hot, but is also eaten cold.
If bought unprepared it means that each fish must be split and soaked before toasting, to draw out the salt.
The Cookery Book of Lady Clark of Tillypronie (1909)

Quotation for the Day.

“To-day have curry and rice for my dinner, and plenty of it as C—, my messmate, has got the gripes, and cannot eat his share.”
Entry in 1781, the Hon. J. Lindsay’s Imprisonment, in Lives of Lindsays,

“Not-Apples”

I think it is a pity that we stopped calling tomatoes Love Apples.
I also think it is a pity that we stopped calling eggplants Mad Apples.
I don’t know why we stopped using these fun names.
I do know how the names came about however.

The origin of Love Apples is easy. When the tomato was first introduced to Europe from the ‘New World’ it was viewed with great suspicion, partly on principle, because it was new, and partly because it was assigned to the nightshade family of plants. The nightshade family had two strikes against it. Firstly, it contained a number of poisonous members. Secondly, it included the mandrake, a plant reputed to be aphrodisiac - which was enough to put all its relatives at risk of denunciation from the pulpit. The second reason, of course, is responsible for its name, and I presume was intended to act as a warning to anyone foolish enough to risk its effects. It was still not widely used until well into the nineteenth century, although America took to it before England. Even Mrs Beeton (1861) referred to them as Love Apples, although she did give a couple of recipes.

As for the eggplant, the name Mad-Apple comes by way of a double mistranslation. The Italian melanzana was heard as mala insana, and this was then translated to ‘mad apple’, which is a truly wonderful true explanation. The eggplant is also sometimes called Brown-Jolly in older English texts. This is a misinterpretation of brinjal, the ‘Indian’ name for Solanum melongena, vatimgana, al-badinjan, aubergine, badingan, melongena, berenjena, albergínia, Guinea squash, nasu ……….

Love apple catsup.
Cut up the tomatas or love apples, and between every layer sprinkle a layer of salt; let them stand a few hours before you boil them, which do very well; then strain them through a cullender on some horseradish, onions, or garlic, mustard seeds, beaten ginger, pepper, and mace; cover it close; let it stand a day or two; then bottle and seal it for use.

Love apple cakes for stews, &c.
Prepare the tomatas exactly in the same manner as recommended for sauce, only boil away as much of the watery particles as you conveniently can; then place the residue in a flat dish out in the sun; when it has evaporated so as to become almost a dry cake, cut it into pieces about one inch square, and preserve either in wide-mouthed bottles or canisters; when required for use one of the squares soaked in water for a few hours until dissolved with be sufficient to season a dish of cutlets or soup. This will keep a long time, in fact it is only the inspissated juice of tomatas.

Indian Domestic Economy and Receipt Book, by R. Riddell, 1860

Quotation for the Day.

A dinner divested of ceremony, is an act of perfidy.
Anon.

Cricket Dinner, Rangoon, 1825.

I have many historic menus left over, now that the manuscript is in for Menus from History. Not being a person to like waste, particularly of work, I suspect that many of them will find their way to you as the days (and years) go by.

The cricket season is upon us, so from this cricket-widow to cricket lovers and haters all, I give you the following little insight into the sheer fortitude of cricket players.

The Officers of the British Army at Rangoon in the early ninteenth century formed a cricket club, and after a “grand match” on January 18, 1825, they dined together. The bill of fare shows “that our gallant countrymen were not so near to starvation as some have represented.”


Bill of Fare for the Cricket Club Dinner
Six tureens of soup, 4 saddles of mutton, 6 legs of mutton (boiled and roasted), 6 fore quarters of mutton, 2 pieces of surloin beef roasted, 2 rounds of beef (corned), 3 Bengal humps, 4 briskets, 6 tongues, 4 geese, 4 stewed ducks, 6 roast duck, 4 ducks smothered in onions, 6 roast fowls, 6 boiled fowls, 4 country capt, 4 fowl pies, 4 gibblet pies, 2 mutton pies, 2 beef steak pies, 4 dishes of mutton chops, 3 roast pigs, 10 plates of yams, 10 plates of potatoes, 10 plates of onions, 10 plates of pumpkin, 4 dishes of prawn curry, 4 dishes of mutton curry, 6 fowl curries, 3 hams, 4 dishes of beefsteak, 2 fillets of veal (roasted), 2 knuckles of veal (boiled), 2 fore quarters of veal (roasted), 2 dishes of veal cutlets, calf’s head, 4 veal pies, 2 dishes of calf's liver and bacon, 2 bullocks hearts, 4 gooseberry tarts, 4 apple tarts, 4 currant tarts, 4 cherry tarts, 4 rice puddings, 4 plumb puddings, 4 dishes of mince pies 2 cheeses, biscuits, bread. Wine cordials and beer in abundance "

A nice little repast for the hungry players, yes? Last I heard there were only eleven men on a cricket team. Even allowing for a few spares and some officials, that sounds like an awful lot of food in the Rangoon heat. No vegetarians on that team, by the looks.

Bengal ‘Humps’ (bullock, usually) were cured like ham or ‘corned’ and spiced like beef, and according to an article published in 1807 had already “long been a favourite dish at the splendid entertainments of the great Lords .. in India” . Presumably what went down well in India was also enjoyed in Burma, as those staunch British colonials developed their own Anglo-Eastern cuisine.

The ‘Country capt.’ on the bill of fare were a favourite chicken dish, and one of my favourite sources from this time (‘A Lady’), gives us a recipe.

A Country Captain.
Cut a fowl in pieces, and shred a large onion very small, and fry it brown in butter. Sprinkle the fowl with fine salt, and dust it over with fine curry-powder, and fry it brown; put all into a stewpan, with a pint of soup, and stew it down to one half: serve it with rice.
Domestic economy, and cookery, for rich and poor, by a lady, 1827

Quotation for the Day …

It would be nice if the Food and Drug Administration stopped issuing warnings about toxic substances and just gave me the names of one or two things still safe to eat.
Robert Fuoss. Saturday Evening Post.

Kedgeree, otherwayes.

November 26 ...

Kedgeree is a peculiarly Anglo-Indian concoction. It apparently began with khitchr – a dish based on a mixture of rice and pulses from the Indian subcontinent. In the hands of returning colonials it became a capital breakfast dish of rice, eggs and leftover fish.

Here is the wonderful Eliza Acton’s take on it (1845).

Kedgeree Or Kidgeree, An Indian Breakfast Dish.
Boil four ounees of rice tender and dry as for currie, and when it has cooled down put it into a saueepan with nearly an equal quantity of cold fish taken clear of skin and bone, and divided into very small flakes or scallops. Cut up an ounce or two of fresh butter and add it, with a full seasoning of cayenne, and as mueh salt as may be required. Stir the kedgeree constantly over a clear fire until it is very hot: then mingle quickly with it two slightly beaten eggs. Do not let it boil after these are stirred in; but serve the dish when they are just set. A Mauritian chutney may be sent to table with it.
The butter may be omitted, and its place supplied by an additional egg or more.
Cold turbot, brill, salmon, soles, John Dory, and shrimps, may all be served in this form.

The following early nineteenth century version from Domestic Economy, and cookery, for rich and poor, by a lady.(1827) is closer to its roots as a pulse and rice dish.

Indian Cutcheree.
Steep a pint of split peas, and add a large tea-cupful of rice, with an onion, ginger, pepper, mace, and salt; boil till the peas and rice are swelled and tender, but not
clammy ; stir them with a fork till the water is wasted. Serve it up in a dish garnished with hard eggs and whole boiled onions. The stirring it with a fork is to prevent the grains being broken.

But from the same book is this “American” variation, with an intriguing sub-variation which takes it about as far as it is possible to go from its essentially vegetarian origins.

American Cutcheree Soup.
Prepare and pulp some of the nicest dry green peas; put them into any nice seasoned white soup with coriander mint, or any determined sweet herb; to 1 lb. of peas, add 2 ounces of rice, and finish it with egg and cream, or keep out the egg, and add curry-powder, or make it of brown soup, with fried onions, all-spice, and sage, and thicken it with blood.

Tomorrow’s Story …

More Foreign Food.

Quotation for the Day ..

Eat what is cooked; listen to what is said. Russian Proverb