Love bites from Dak bungalows, trains & machans

 Nothing like reviving a lost cuisine and Anglo-Indian food is distinctly yours to relish 

The romance of food revival stories goes much beyond the good old platter. It taps the entire ambience of those bygone times when each dish had a reason behind it, an occasion to serve, a tale to tell and a purpose to follow. It also makes you regret having forgotten the taste and trends of cuisines which were so much a part of our food culture, our spirit, our eating mores and even our journey soirees.

The Anglo-Indian cuisine is one such wholesome platter lost in the folds of time, sadly. At one time, it powered an entire series of generations to form an invisible link between the rulers and the ruled. If the British colonised us for more than 200 years with their imperialistic designs, the natives hit back by changing their palate to a huge extent, making them slave to Indian aromas, variety and spice wonders.

What developed in the process was the moderately spicy, delicately balanced Anglo-Indian cuisine over railway tracks, in dak bungalows, atop machans and, finally, in memsahib kitchens all over imperial Bengal.

In a bid to revive those memories and masalas, The Trident Gurgaon has curated an Anglo-Indian Food Festival at Saffron to regale guests with eats and meats of the British Raj. In many ways, it is an eye-opener that keeps you engaged as much with the juicy chicken on your plate, as with the story behind how it journeyed from feather to feast.

The oven-cooked chicken in yogurt and spices sits pretty as the Dak Bungalow Murghi Roast as executive chef Sandeep Kalra tells you why it is the best, home-made variety of succulent chicken to start your dinner with. Apparently, it was on a quick order that these dak bungalow cooks had to cook up the dinner and this variety came to be the staple for the travelling Brits as they grew to love this dry, flavourful and quick roast with a lot of onions and spices.

But it is the story of the Nargisi Kofta that stops your fork midway. It was never a curry kofta as we all know it today, but a delightful teatime snack which resembled the flower Nargis and hence the name. Yellow in the middle, white all around and brown crusted from the meat keema encasing it, the open anda cutlet gives the Chingri Samosa (stuffed with shrimps and prawns mince) a run for its taste.

And did you know where the jhalfrezi you order in restaurants so often popped up on your plate? It’s actually a stealthy dish meant to deceive the vegetables into your system. Broken down literally, it is jhal(mirch) parhezi (not to have) or farazi (fake). Basically, lots of vegetables doused and cooked over coal with moderate spices. The onion, curry powder (a mix of spices to suit the gora palate) and green chillies make this home-style vegetable dish a flavourful twist to a gobhi or a bhindi or a bean.

If the jhalfarhazi was a local cook’s invention, the Country Captain’s Chicken Curry hatched during a ship journey. It was invented to satiate the palate of one chicken loving captain who felt the pang one night during a long overseas trip from east India to the Queen’s country. And he wanted it right away. So, the cook quickly marinated it in the Indian spices and slow-cooked it in yogurt as the tomatoes were not there to oblige.

The captain loved this so much that he patented it to his palate and no one else was ever allowed to partake of this tempting fare.

The Railway Mutton Curry had a similar journey but on land and in trains traversing for more than three-days at a stretch, with the dulcet rhythm of steam engines bellowing black smoke into the clear blue skies and the goras looking out of the window without nothing much to do other than to indulge in boredom binging.

In came the traditional lamb curry wit potatoes to soak the flavour and the curry leaves to give it an edgy aroma. The tamarind and the coconut milk was used to make it a little more sweet than a spicy Indian mouth would want it to but a British palate to love.

As the tasting continues in Saffron, more tales sometimes juicier than the dish at hand, fall out of the handis and the trays, the Pathan Chicken Pilaf being just one of them. It was those times when the Pathans were working as construction workers around what is now the NWFP in Pakistan. Many of them were brought back to Bengal for local constructions on the order of the viceroys. So, the big burly men carried their cuisine and components with them and that’s how the Pathan Chicken Pilaf got introduced to the memsahib’s kitchen, soon to become a party hotsell, thanks to its sweet flavours from the raisins and the nuts. Another matter how this rich pilaf was digested by the lesser beings, that too in the hot and humid climes of Kolkata, a far cry from the sylvan and cool mountains of the Afghan region.

These and many other such tales need an opening again. They will pepper the junk generation with the real taste of real food. About time you visited The Trident for a peep into foodinale of the British Raj — too carry some of it to your kitchen and health.

On the way back, do not forget the Bombay Pudding, a sooji halwa twister that will hark you back into a time machine of desserts. They no longer happen that way anymore, unfortunately so. 

Source: Published in Sunday Pioneer,  27 August, 2017