Taste of existence: Poona bazaar buying journey with an Anglo-Indian twist.

KEY POINTS : 

• Lady Constance E Gordon published the first edition of her cookbook “Anglo – Indian Cuisine (Khana Kitab)” in 1904. 
•  The first edition of the cookbook highlighted “Bazaar lists” of Poona (Camp), Bombay, and Calcutta. 
• The second edition had another list added to it – that of Poona city. This was the only Anglo-Indian cookbook to have lists for both Poona Camp and the city.

Lady Constance E Gordon posted the primary version of her cookbook “Anglo – Indian Cuisine (Khana Kitab)” in 1904. It took her ten greater years to post the second version of the cookbook. The first edition of the cookbook featured “Bazaar lists” of Poona (Camp), Bombay, and Calcutta. The 2nd version had every other listing brought to it – that of Poona metropolis. This became the handiest Anglo-Indian cookbook to have lists for each Poona Camp and the city.

Most Europeans located the bazaars overcrowded due to lack of lavatories and illnesses like typhoid, cholera, and malaria. As a result, they tended to keep away from going out to shop for groceries. The bazaars had been particularly viewed as locations that could contaminate meals and water and where prostitution and venereal diseases have been rampant. This fear turned into extra than any other fear that local chefs probably contaminate the meals.

JK Stanford wrote in “Ladies within the Sun: The Memsahib’s India” that “no girl must ever demean herself to visit the bazaar and buy her food. On the contrary, she should leave that entirely to her local cook dinner, for to enter and good buy within the meat or fish stall, quite aside from the scent, is awful for status. Nor must she ever input their lower back premises, the ‘cookhouses’ wherein their viands are prepared… human beings are happy if the prepare dinner produced, unwatched, fit to be eaten meals on a tiny charcoal fireplace and with at the very least fuss.”

Gordon left out this recommendation. She and her husband could regularly journey to Khandala and Mahabaleshwar on Sundays and in summer. The travelogues were frequently droll and recorded mishaps and quirky European characters. They would seem with some regularity in “Bombay Chronicle” and “The Times of India”. They never referred to any recipes or her cookbook but did mention meat, vegetables, and culmination they might find within the bazaars of the villages, towns, and towns they visited. Gordon would regularly record the seasons wherein sure fruits had been available, their fees, and great in the write-ups. She would notice shades, textures, smells, and tastes. Her articles make one accept that she cherished touring Indian bazaars, particularly those in Poona, Mahabaleshwar, and Khandala.

Food supplies within the hills were extra difficult to source than on the plains. Gordon believed that it became possible to have plain but sufficient food at Mahabaleshwar and Khandala. These places had hillside estates to cultivate European fruits and veggies to cater to the European population.

Her articles advocate that she favoured shopping for greens from a garden two times or three times every week from the bazaar. Although the former turned into extra steeply-priced, Gordon wrote that consuming greens from the bazaar was risky if the water used to clean the greens and fruits became infected.

Gordon may have had a garden in her house in Bombay. One of her travelogues mentions how she might present parsley, potatoes, and different culmination to her pals. She became especially proud of the “knoll khol” cultivated in her lawn. She compared it with the “high-quality great from Poona”.

According to Gordon’s list, “knolkhols”, turnips, beetroots, celery, lettuces, radishes, carrots, tomatoes, onions, inexperienced peas, French beans, artichokes, parsley, brinjals, math, chawali, fenugreek, ghole, mayaloo, chandanbatwa, and kapi-chawali were provided to Bombay, from Poona, at some point of the 12 months. Watercress cultivated in Poona was furnished to Bombay between February and April. Bombay got its potatoes from Italy, Cawnpore, Karachi, Mahabaleshwar, and Talegaon, and some of it was introduced to Poona via some European shopkeepers.

Poona also sent figs, pears, chikoos, jambhool, oranges, custard apples, ramphal, guavas, and papaya to Bombay. In addition, Gordon stated that some natives in Poona had constructed farms wherein they reared rabbits, grey pigeons, partridges, wild geese, and quails. These have been then sent to the markets in Bombay.

According to Gordon, the fees in the markets of Poona had been prone to more fluctuation than the ones of Bombay because of much less regularity within the delivery. The primary articles of European intake had been commonly a little more expensive; if a quantity turned into required, it needs to be ordered an afternoon previous, she suggested.

Gordon’s bazaar list for Poona (Camp) started with Mutton. Grain-fed Mutton, 4 lb., price a rupee. So did 6 lb. Of Saddle. A lamb value Rs3 while the price of Mutton Suet become six annas. Four seers of high portions of red meat price a rupee. The “Poona Seer” changed into identical to 1 lb.

“Prime pieces” of beef fee Re 1 for 4 lb. Hump price 12 annas, while eight lb. Of Brisket cost a rupee. Soup meat and ox-tail had been one anna in step with a pound, whilst ox-tongue price four annas. Gordon also furnished charges for veal, rooster (these were to be had masses within the market and included chicken, ducks, ducks, united states fowls, pigeons, turkey-cock, and turkey-fowl), and “sports meat” like quail, partridges, teal, wild duck, and hare.

Gordon mentioned that seeing that Poona (Camp) become chiefly dependent on Bombay for its delivery of fish, every time a quantity changed into preferred, a preceding order needs to receive. Thus, oysters have been six annas consistent with dozen. Salmon fee six annas in keeping with a pound, at the same time as a turtle can be sold for a rupee. Bombay duck, pomfrets, prawns, phatte and murrrell, have also been available in Poona, “but were costlier than the markets in Bombay”.

Poona (Camp) became “nicely stocked with various varieties of vegetables”, but “few had been to be had in the year”, Gordon wrote. Many veggies had been particularly cultivated at some point of the 12 months to be provided to Bombay, and if there has been an additional call for from Bombay, some veggies would no longer be had in Poona for a few weeks. The same change into true for fruits.

Gordon’s “bazaar list” for Poona town is testimony to the reality that she no longer sees the old cities and local bazaars as areas connected with dust, disease, and prostitution. Her listing also really suggests the contrast between the bazaars of Poona Camp and the metropolis. Only bird, pork, mutton, and few varieties of fish have been to be had inside the markets of the metropolis. Fruits and vegetables cost less than the Camp markets. A rupee could purchase 13 seers of potatoes within the town, as well as the equal fee of a rupee and a pair of annas in Camp. On the other hand, tea and coffee were costlier in the city markets.

Lady Constance E Gordon’s cookbook has long been forgotten. However, the recipes and the “bazaar lists” help us reconstruct the charms of Poona. And the first-rate statement capabilities, medical flair, and penmanship of Gordon.