Nineteenth
century Britons were fascinated by news of events taking place in the most
far-flung reaches of their Empire – and it seems that nowhere was more
fascinating than India. A correspondent to The
Times of October 4, 1867 described at great length some of the ceremonies
held in Mysore in celebration of the 74th birthday of the Rajah.
It is the only place in
India – the only place I ever heard of anywhere – in which, year after year,
free hospitality is offered to all the world. During the Mysore races, which
take place about the time of the Rajah’s birthday, and last altogether nearly a
fortnight, anyone who likes – I mean any one belonging to the class “gentlemen”
– may take up his abode at Mysore as the Rajah’s guest, may sit down every day
to three substantial meals at a sort of table d’hôte on the race course, and
may call at all hours for beer, sherry, claret, or the favourite Anglo-Indian
beverage “B. and S.” On the race days he may call for his bottle of champagne.
On three days during the races – one of the Rajah’s birthday – all guests are
invited to a grand dinner at the palace; and the birthday dinner was selected
as the most favourable opportunity for holding a Durbar, at which to announce
the decision of the British Government of the adopted son [to inherit the
title.}
Over a hundred guests,
some fifteen or twenty of them ladies, mustered at 7.30 p.m. , in carriages
provided by the Rajah, at a point not far from the palace …
The business of the day
being over, we all adjourned to the banqueting-hall, where a dinner in English
style, which no pains had been spared to make both good and plentiful, awaited
us. The Rajah’s native guests had already been entertained at a State dinner,
served up in a very different style. One of them, in an elaborate and graphic
account (which has been kindly lent to me) of the Durbar, describes this dinner
with an epicurean gusto and warmth which I fear your English readers, unless
they happen to be at once teetotalers and vegetarians, will find it hard to
sympathize:-
“A numberless
variety of romantic dainties had been spread. All sorts of nice fruits, 50
different sorts of curry stuffs and greens, very richly and palatably prepared;
about 30 or 40 sorts of confectionery of the best relish, and as many kinds of
sweet and salt puddings and cakes; upwardsof 15 sorts of fanciful rice and
syrups; sherbets prepared from all descriptions of fruits available in India.
In fact, there was nothing wanted to make the dinner most sumptuous, excellent,
and kingly.”
I wonder how many of
your aldermanic readers will endorse this concluding eulogy?
The Rajah, by a Royal
fiction, was not supposed to be present at our dinner, but he really posted
himself at the upper end of the room behind a curtain … and he evidently took
the keenest and most amused interest in all that was going on, constantly
sending complimentary presents, usually mysterious specimens of sweetmeat, or
curry, or sherbet, to any old friends or acquaintances whom he happened to
recognize among the guests.
A
number of cookery books on Indian (or more properly, Anglo-Indian) foods were
published for English audiences in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Today I have chosen as the source of the recipe for the day Indian cookery and confectionery (407
recipes) by Mrs. I.R. Dey, published in Calcutta in 1900. I give you a nice,
and I hope sufficiently fanciful rice dish.
But firstly I must give you a translation of the weight measures, as
given in the book.
MEASURE OF WEIGHT
16 Annas = 1 tola or
bhari (the weight of a rupee)
16 Annas = 6 ½ drams
(avoir.) = 175 grains.
5 Tolas = 1 chhatack =
2 oz. (avoir.)
4 Kanch-chas = 1
chhatak.
4 Chhataks = 1 powa = ½
lb. (avoir.)
4 Powas = 1 seer = 2
lbs. (avoir.)
80 Tolas – 1 seer.
40 Seers = 1 Maund.
POLAO
WITH ANARAS (Pine apple )
Required :- Meat 1
seer, rice 1 seer, pine-apple peeled, and cut into medium pieces 1 ½ seer,
lemon juice ½ powa, or more if desired, sugar ½ seer, ginger 3 tolas,
coriander-seeds 1 ½ tolas, black cumin seeds 1 tola, cloves ¼ tola, cinnamon ¼ tola,
cardamom ¼ tola, saffron ¼ tola, salt 4 tolas, ghee ½ seer, and water 4 seers.
Method:- Make a
saturated solution of the sugar and boil the pieces of pine-apple in it with
the lemon-juice after seasoning them for about an hour or more with one tola of
salt. Then boil the meat in about 4 seers of water until the latter reduces
half, to less than [sic]. Heat about ½ powa of ghee in a pan and season it by
frying ½ tola of black cumin, and then fry the boiled meat in the ghee after
separating them from the water, till they are slightly brown and do not stick
to one another, Then add the water again and allow the whole thing to boil. In
the meantime heat on another oven about ½ powa of ghee in another pan and
slightly fry the remaining ½ tola of black -cumin, cloves, cinnamons and
cardamoms, all entire, in it. A few cassia leaves may also be fried. When the
flavour of the spices fill your nose, add the rice, washed, dried and smeared with
saffron, ginger and coriander seeds, all pasted, and stir till some, of the rice
begin to burst. Then add the boiling meat with the water to the rice, add salt
and allow the whole thing to boil under cover after stirring it well. About 10
minutes before taking it down from the oven add the pieces of pine-apples with
the sugar solution. When the water dries up, pour about one powa of hot ghee
and stir to render the whole mass non-sticky. Polao is now ready for the dish.
Always be careful to add hot water if at any time during the preparation water
runs short in the pan. This preparation and also the following ones in this
chapter must be made on slow heat.
I
do love that instruction “when the flavour of the spices fill your nose.”!
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