The dak curries day of Delhi

Editor’s note: In this excerpt from ‘From the King’s Table to Street Food’, author Pushpesh Pant introduces us to the history of Anglo Indian food in Delhi—Pork Bhuni, Banger’s Crush, Devil Pork Curry and Jhal Farezi. Each bearing testimony to the joie de vivre of the Anglo-Indians and their creativity. Excerpted with permission from Speaking Tiger Books.

Traditionally, most Anglo-Indians worked in the Railways, Post & Telegraph and Customs departments across the country. But in New Delhi, the community was also at the heart of the new capital’s Western culture scene: most pianists and crooners at the city’s clubs, restaurants and hotels were Anglo-Indians. With their impeccable English and refined social skills, they soon cornered the city’s hospitality industry. Some musically inclined youngsters played and crooned in live bands in classy hotels. They preserved their distinct identity, and though they professed the same faith, their food and lifestyle was very different from those of other Christians living in Delhi.

Sydney Rebeiro, an Anglo-Indian retired professor of Delhi University and chronicler of the community, has reminisced that his mother, Mary Issacs, headed the Mori Gate post office during the war years, which had been an all-male bastion till then. Anglo-Indian women were the first ones to go out and work in the city—mostly as secretaries, teachers, nurses, stenographers and telephone operators, both in the government and corporate sectors.

The Gidney Club in K Block of Connaught Circus was the centre of social life for the Anglo-Indians in Delhi. It was here that births and marriages were celebrated. Gala events marked Christmas and the New Year. Sometimes families travelled to railway colonies in towns nearby to share joyous festivities with kinsmen and close friends.

Breakfast was hearty—bacon, ham, sausages, eggs and buttered toast. Kedgeree was for special occasions. This anglicised khichdi was made from rice, eggs, smoked fish, and curry powder, a far cry from the desi vegetarian dish. Everyday lunch consisted of pilaff rice, ‘doll’ (dal), and mutton mince cutlets. Popular tea-time snacks were croquets, curried puffs and sandwiches. Fish sticks, ajwain-cheese straws, and sausage curry are Anglo-Indian creations. The dinner time array of dishes was no less mouth-watering—soups like pepper water (mulligatawny), minestrone, stews and pies—Shepherd’s and Yorkshire. On Sundays, kofta-inspired curried mince balls were served tongue-in-cheek as the ‘bad word’ curry (the risqué name for it being ball curry). For festive and celebratory feasts, the menu was lavish, with the inclusion of dishes that required patience and skill—roast leg of lamb, Murgi Roast and ‘Double Onions meat’, the Anglo-Indian take on do pyaza. Even the tables in modest homes were overladen with homemade jams, jellies, chutneys, assorted preserves and condiments.

Iconic dishes of the British Raj were the Railway Mutton Curry, Dak Bungalow Murgi Roast, Colonel Sandhurst’s Beef Curry, Bengal Lancer’s Shrimp Curry, Fish and Chips, Grandma’s Country Captain or Capon. What they cooked and shared may be termed as the first stage in the evolution of pan-Indian taste. Chicken, Pork Bhuni, Banger’s Crush, Devil Pork Curry and Jhal Farezi bear testimony to the joie de vivre of the Anglo-Indians and their creativity.

Brian Silas, a self-taught piano player, cajoled his keyboard to sing out enchanting Hindi film songs at Dum Pukht, the elegant ITC restaurant at the Maurya, from the 1980s onwards. So melodious was his offering that the diners often stopped in the middle of their Awadhi nawabi meal to enjoy the fare prepared by S.D. Burman, O.P. Nayyar and Salil Chaudhari. There was never a mismatch between Lucknow’s delicate food and the music that subtly accompanied it. Wasn’t it Cliff Richard, a Lucknow boy, that had put Great Britain on the international Rock-n-Roll map before the Beatles appeared on the scene?

Young Anglo-Indian writers were rising stars of the capital’s literary scene in the 1960s and 1970s. Ruskin Bond freelanced and was a regular columnist in the Hindustan Times, and R.V. Smith, an immigrant from Agra, carved a niche for himself in The Statesman as an archivist of ‘Purani Dilli’ and angrezon ki virasat. Blending legends, folklore, excerpts from memoirs and newspaper articles with his own interviews with old-timers, he recreated the ambience of a world inhabited by his kinfolk about to disappear.

By this time, the numbers of this always minuscule community in Delhi had already dwindled to a little over a couple thousand from the peak of forty thousand at the time of Independence. The older generation, if they had independent means, preferred to stay back in India rather than embark on a journey to an imagined homeland to start all over again. Those who were more adventurous, young, restless and apprehensive about the future emigrated to Canada and Australia. However, they left behind the sparkling gems from their kitchen repertoire. These have become staples in clubs, officer’s messes in the Army, dak bungalows, circuit houses, railway dining cars and canteens, and in residential public schools all over the land.

An interesting feature of some Anglo-Indian classics is that the recipes vary in different regions. Railway Mutton Curry in Chennai tastes quite different from what is served in Kolkata and Mumbai. Praveen Tripathi, a management consultant, who, owing to a childhood spent on a railway compound, has been obsessed with everything connected with Indian Railways, ordered it specially for me to sample at the Royal Yacht Club in Mumbai. The flavourful dish didn’t share anything other than the name with what I had savoured just before the devastating Covid lockdown at the Tollygunje Club in Kolkata. Decades ago, while travelling with Jiggs Kalra, the journalist and foodie, shooting the television show Zaike ka Safar, I had sampled yet another version in Bangalore and Chennai.

As the excitement of centenary celebrations commemorating New Delhi built up, popular interest in Raj-era food was rekindled. Concept restaurants were launched with menus exclusively showcasing food served in clubs, dak bungalows and on trains. Marut Sikka, who had worked with Jiggs, started the Club House, and Michael Swami launched Anglow in Khan Market. As we enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century, the Anglo-Indian culinary legacy in the capital has proved to be enduring.