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Mulligatawny and masala
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Anglo Indian kitchens have always welcomed the best from all cultures, says Bridget White, who has brought out a book on the community's cuisine
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Bridget's book has them all, from soups to Christmas specialities. — Phtoto: K. Gopinathan
THERE'S SOMETHING about mulligatawny soup. It could be the twang in the name. Disputed over by various communities about its origin, served quite like dish-water in five-star hotels, called Molagathanni and many other things in other tongues, despised as a Raj hangover... But it is the Anglo-Indians who have anglicised and adapted it the best. Dunking in meat and coconut and spicing up the pepper water some more, it is quite a part of their meal at home.
Putting together The Best of Anglo-Indian Cuisine — A Legacy is Bridget White's way of preserving the unique cuisine of this multi-racial and multi-cultural community that loves its food.
From mama
Having grown up in sprawling homes in the mining town of K.G.F., rearing turkeys in their backyard and smelling the food her mother Doris White stewed in her kitchen, Bridget took easily and lovingly to cooking.
When her daughter recently went to U.K. to study, Bridget fondly wrote down for her some traditional recipes cooked the easy way. Her daughter loved them and so did the international students studying with her. So Bridget, who had retired after working with Canara Bank for 23 years, decided to do a book of Anglo-Indian recipes. "I took recipes from my mother's tattered cook book and my own strewn papers where I had written down recipes learnt from her," she says fondly.
Many of the dishes, interestingly, have these rhyming alliterative names like dodol, kulkul, ding-ding, and the nomenclature is unique too. Curries or palyas are called foogaths and appams are called hoppers! There's also the spicy red devil chutney. Much of the food has been Indianised with the entry of convenient garam masala instead of the black pepper powder and the addition of coconut in many dishes.
"Anglo-Indian cuisine has taken the best of everything and adapted it. We are predominantly non-vegetarians and simply cannot do without meat in a day. But it's sad that many of the traditional dishes are dying out either because the younger generation is simply into fast foods or has moved abroad," Bridget explains the reason for her book.
Ding-Ding is one such dish, Bridget says, that Anglo-Indians themselves hardly make anymore. A savoury of meat crispies, it's quite a process slicing meat, soaking them in a masala and stringing them up to dry them in the sun. "On a day when there's no meat in the house, you bring out this stored meat, soak it and fry it. It makes a tasty dish," says Bridget with her eyes twinkling at the thought.
Bridget's book takes you through soups, pepper waters, meat curries, roasts fries and bakes, the few vegetarian daals, rice dishes, chutneys and pickles. A special section features sweets and savouries for Christmas, and of course, there are the wines! Breakfast ideas and egg specials also figure in the book. Yes, the all-essential traditional Christmas fruit cake and plum cake, Christmas pudding, traditional roast turkey with stuffing and the kulkuls are detailed in the book and up for grabs, even for non-Anglo Indians who love the rich food. "We must have a roast on Christmas," says Bridget but tells us how turkeys being an exorbitant Rs. 3,000 in Bangalore, many settle for chicken.
Funnily enough, alongside their exotica come recipes for upma, idlis and dosas! "Anglo-indians have been greatly influenced by the food of South India, specially Tamil Nadu. Dishes such as idlis are a speciality for us," she says, perhaps stunning many South Indians who religiously dish out piping hot breakfast of idli-chutney.
The book includes recipes of instant bole cake that can be whipped up with sooji in 15 minutes, and the characteristic mince ball curry, fish molee, brown stew, roast leg of lamb, beef steaks, masala prawns, brain pepper fry, yellow coconut rice, rose cookies, marshmallows, sooji puttu, pancakes, sausages, porridges and more.
Changing times
Bridget admits things have changed. There's no hours of stewing any more. While butter was the medium of cooking earlier, the health-conscious generation uses oil. Many have turned vegetarian. "I remember my mother's food tasting of the firewood on which she cooked. She would grind masalas on her grinding stone. I belong to that `express generation' that simply uses the mixie!" Egged on by the community to publish the book before Christmas, Bridget went all the way to the printers herself, unable to get an agreeable publisher. Bridget can be contacted on 25504137.
BHUMIKA K.
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