Nighttime in a City, Mir Sayyid ‘Ali, Tabriz, Iran, c. 1540. Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of John Goelet. What villainy to say, “They made me eat Manas’ boots!”
The Memorial Feast for Kokotoy-Khan, A Kirgiz Epic Poem, A.T. Hatto, Oxford University press, 1977.
When I look back through a half century of letters, faxes and finally e-mails to me at home from loved ones somewhere east of Suez, there is one thing that stands out. There is more written about missing certain foods, than about missing me! Perhaps these recipes, recorded by far earlier travelers, will explain it. Notable additions come from “Hobson-Jobson” by Sir Henry Yule and A. C. Burnell, a glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, written in the late 19th century.
My spouse replies:
“I’ll tell you why I wrote to you about food. I missed your cooking! No, really! In Lahore, we always ate such horrible food when we were working in the bazaar. So one day, Umar was in a good mood, and he said, ‘I’ll take you to a special restaurant.’ We went to a place near the big mosque, and we walked in, and the specialty, the only thing they had, were goat’s feet. They were all lined up, on a big platter. I said, ‘I’m not eating any goat’s feet!’ and Umar said, ‘No, really, they’re very good!’ and I said, ‘I’m not going to eat those things.’ So we compromised, and I went next door and ordered buriyani and he got the goat’s feet and brought them in, and I didn’t watch him while he ate.”
Pilo – Rice Pilaf. Persia.
Map of the Caspian and Uzbek regions.
As Pilo is the grand Mess with the Persians, I shall tell you how they Dress it… They boil six or seven Pound of Mutton in pieces, of about a quarter of a Pound each, with a Hen or two; then they take all the Broth and Meat out of the Pot; then they take some Butter and put it at the bottom, which they fry very well; and then they put a lay of Rice, about an inch thick; they put Onions slic’d, Almonds peeled and cut in two, dry Pease fry’d in a Pan, cut likewise in two, some of the small Grapes, which they call Kikmiche [raisins, ed.], which has no stone; some whole Pepper, Cloves and Cinnamon, with some Garden-Cresses for the Seasoning; upon that they put the Meat, and then they fill up the pot with Rice, and throw in the Broth there, til it runs over: the Rice boils in a quarter of an Hour; and when it is boil’d and dry, and the Broth wasted away, they pour melted butter scalding hot upon this Rice: Then they cover the Pot close with a Cloth dipp’d in hot Water and put under the Lid of the Pot, to keep the Rice moist, and they let it soak thus; after which they Dish it up.
Sir John Chardin, Travels in Persia, 1673-1677.
Curry – India.
Constant dinners, tiffins, pale ale, and claret, the prodigious labor of cutchery, and the refreshment of brandy pawnee, which he was forced to take there, had this effect upon Waterloo Sedley. William Thackeray, Vanity Fair, 1867.
Spice seller, Udaipur, India, 24 February 2005, photo Bryan Ledgard, CCA 2.0 Generic license.
In India they give the name of Caril to certain messes made with butter, with the kernel of the coco-nut with spiceries of every kind, among the rest cardamom and ginger… with vegetables, fruits and a thousand other condiments of sorts… and the Christians, who eat everything, put in also flesh and fish of every kind, and sometimes eggs… with all which things they make a kind of broth in the fashion of our guazzetti… and this broth with all the said condiments in it they pour over a good quantity of rice boiled simply with water and salt, and the whole makes a most savoury and substantial mess.
Viaggi de Pietro Della Valle, 1614-1626, source Hobson- Jobson
Chutney or Chatna to accompany the Curry – India.
The Chatna is sometimes made with cocoa-nut, lime juice, garlic and chilies, and with the pickles is placed in deep leaves round the cover to the number of 30 or 40.
James Forbes, Oriental Memoirs, 1813, source Hobson-Jobson.
Fern – Tibet.
Tartar Tent, Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China, 1844-1846
Evariste Régis Huc, 1813-1860
We decided upon eating hares for two reasons. First, as a matter of conscience, in order to prevent the Lamas from imagining that we permitted ourselves to be influenced by the prejudices of the sectaries of Buddha; and, secondly, upon a principle of economy; for a hare cost us infinitely less than our insipid barley-meal…
Lest we should contract habits too exclusively carnivorous, we resolved to introduce the vegetable kingdom into our quotidian alimentation… if you scratch up the ground to the depth of about an inch, you will find quantities of creeping roots, long and thin like dog-grass. This root is entirely covered with little tubercles, filled with a very sweet liquid. In order to make an extremely nice dish of this vegetable, you have only to wash it carefully and then fry it in butter. Another dish, not less distinguished in our esteem than the preceding, was furnished by a plant very common in France, and the merit of which has never yet been adequately appreciated: we refer to the young stems of fern; when these are gathered quite tender, before they are covered with down, and while the first leaves are bent and rolled up in themselves, you have only to boil them in pure water to realize a dish of delicious asparagus.
[Huc and Gabet’s] Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China, 1844-1846, Vol 2, Evariste Regis Huc, Translated by W. Hazlitt, London: Office of the National Illustrated Library ,1852, 85-86.
Nagaland beer, photo Avantika, Waywardwayfarer.
Ruhi – Rice Beer – Nagaland.
Husk, boil and dry the rice, then grind to a fine powder. Mix with boiling water, and add germinated paddy, then allow to ferment. When fermentation is complete, strain through a fine-mesh cane basket and store in an earthen pot. “Without rice-beer, the life of a Naga male would be unimaginable.”
A Pilgrimage to the Nagas, Milada Ganguli, India: Oxford & IBH Publishing, 1984.
Caphe – Coffee – Turkey, Arabia, Persia.
They drink (in Persia) above all the rest, Coho or Copha: by Turk and Arab called Caphe and Cahua: a drink imitating that in the Stigian lake, black, thick and bitter: destrain’d from Bunchy, Bunnu or Bay berries; wholesome they say, if hot, for it expels melancholy.
Sir Thomas Herbert, Some Years Travels into Divers Parts of Asia and Afrique, London: Printed by R. Bip. for I. Blome and R. Bishop, 1638.
Sherbet – Persia.
Their liquor may perhaps better delight you: ’tis faire water, sugar, rose-water, and juyce of Lemons mixt, call’d Sherbets or Zerbets, wholesome and potable.
Sir Thomas Herbert, Some Years Travels into Divers Parts of Asia and Afrique, 1638.
Bukharan court official, circa 1908-1912, photo Sergei Mikhailovich Prokhudin-Gorskii, U.S. Library of Congress.
Kukhnar- Emirate of Bukhara, Central Asia.
A liquor made by soaking in water the bruised capsules of the poppy after the seeds have been taken out…
Eugene Schuyler, Turkistan, Scribner, Armstrong & Co., New York, 1877.
