Anglo Indian experience

As one grows older, one is prone to nostalgia. If my last column was about the cuisine of pre-partition India, a cuisine which is fast becoming moribund because the number of the people who produced it is decreasing, another cuisine facing the same problem is the Anglo-Indian cuisine.

Anglo-Indians formed a sizeable part of the population around the Partition. They were heavily concentrated around railway towns and, in metropolises like Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore and places in Jharkhand like McCluskieganj. But with massive migration, not just to the “home country” but to Australia and Canada, there are very few left. The sad fate of those left behind is beautifully captured in Aparna Sen’s iconic 36, Chowringhee Lane. Yet during the high noon of the Raj, the Anglos had a joie de vivre that marked them out. Their generosity and sense of fun led to much intermingling of Indian informality with English parties, and of course, drinks.  

I came across an interesting book by Patricia Brown, Anglo Indian Food and Cuisine (Penguin 1998), which contains delightful vignettes and recipes, including an excellent one on the Chicken Country Captain, a dry chicken dish often had with cabbage or cauliflower foogath, a stir-fried vegetable preparation cooked with garlic and ginger. But what was interesting was the possible connection between the Anglo-Indian food cooked in India and the food passed off as Indian in London’s curry houses.  

According to Brown, the Anglo-Indian curries try to hit “the happy medium and are neither too hot nor too mild”. She compares them to fricassees, rich with nutty juices of coconut or almond. Indian curry houses in London put liberal amounts of coconut cream (originally from the West Indies) to make the sauces richer, but they also contain perfectly ghastly things like Campbell’s tomato soup, a necessary ingredient in making chicken tikka masala. It must be said that tandoori chicken was unknown to Anglo-Indian cuisine, which had excellent roasts spiced with ginger, garlic and black pepper.

No, the curry house food of London mirrors Indian food post-partition with concessions to British taste for mild curries but also for carnivorous cravings such as tikkas, kebabs and tandoori items. So dishes like the delightful pepper water, a pungent soup-like sauce liberally spread on mounds of rice with a dry meat fry on the side so beloved of the Anglos, is something that will fade into history. So will the great kedgerees — that delightful concoction of smoked haddock, eggs and pilaf rice — served at breakfast at New Market in Kolkata. Best summed up in one Anglo-Indian’s aunt’s words: “As long as you eat kedgeree, you will remember who you are.  If you stop, you will forget where you came from and no one will remember you.”