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THE
KHAKI KOOK BOOK
A COLLECTION OF A HUNDRED CHEAP AND
PRACTICAL RECIPES MOSTLY FROM
HINDUSTAN.
_By_
MARY KENNEDY CORE
Bareilly, India.
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR
BY
THE ABINGDON PRESS
Copyright, 1917, by
Mary Kennedy Core.
Preface.
WHY THIS LITTLE BOOK.
About ten years ago the idea of writing a little cook book had its
birth. We were in Almora that summer. Almora is a station far up in the
Himalayas, a clean little bazaar nestles at the foot of enclosing
mountains. Dotting the deodar-covered slopes of these mountains are the
picturesque bungalows of the European residents, while towering above
and over all are the glistening peaks of the eternal snows.
[Illustration]
We love to think of this particular summer, for Lilavate Singh was with
us. The thought of her always brings help and inspiration.
One day she prepared for the crowd of us a tiffin of delicious
Hindustani food. That afternoon while we were sitting under the shade
and fragrance of the deodar trees, we praised the tiffin. Before we knew
it we were planning a cook book. It was to be a joint affair of
Hindustani and English dishes, and Miss Singh was to be responsible for
the Hindustani part of it. Our enthusiasm grew. For three or four days
we talked of nothing else. We experimented, we planned; we dreamed, we
wrote. But alas! other things soon thrust themselves upon us, and our
unfinished cook book was pigeon-holed for years and years.
And it is not now what it would have been if finished then.
Many of the recipes, however, are those that Miss Singh gave us then.
Some of them she might not recognize, for they have become quite
Americanized, but they are hers nevertheless, and I hope that you will
not only try them and enjoy them, but that they will help you to solve
some of the problems of living and giving which are confronting us all
these days.
I have told this story before, but it fits in well here. A lady in India
once had an ayah, who from morning until night sang the same sad song as
she would wheel the baby in its little go-cart up and down the mandal or
driveway; as she would energetically jump it up and down; as she would
lazily pat it to sleep, always and ever she could be heard chanting
plaintively, "Ky a ke waste, Ky a ke waste, pet ke waste, pet ke waste."
The lady's curiosity was aroused. The words were simple enough, but
they had no sense: "For why? For why? For why? For stomach! For stomach!
For stomach!" wailed the ayah.
Desiring to know what was for why, and what was for stomach one day, the
lady called the ayah to her and sought the interpretation thereof.
"This is the meaning, Oh mem sahiba," said the ayah: "Why do we live?
What is the meaning of our existence? To fill our stomachs, to fill our
stomachs."
You may smile at this and feel sorry for the poor benighted Hindu, who
has such a low ideal of the meaning of life, but after all we cannot
ignore the fact that we must eat, and that much as we dislike to
acknowledge it, we are compelled to think a great deal about filling our
stomachs. This is especially true these days, when prices have soared
and soared and taken along with them, far out of the reach of many of
us, certain articles of food which we heretofore have always felt were
quite necessary to us.
The missionary on furlough is naturally regarded as a bureau of
information regarding the land where he has lived and worked. Many are
the questions asked. These questions are inclusive of life and
experience in general, but in particular they are regarding the food.
"What do you eat there? Do you get meat there? What kind of vegetables
grow there? What about the fruit of India? Why don't missionaries do
their own cooking? Do the cooks there cook well? Aren't you always glad
to get back to the food in America?" These and similar questions are
sure to be asked the missionary and others who have lived in foreign
countries.
Feeling sure that everybody wants to know these very things about India,
it might be well just here to answer some of these questions.
In regard to the meat in India: The Hindus are vegetarians, but the
Mohammedans are great meat eaters. So are the English. Meat can be had
almost every place. The kind of meat differs much in locality. Chickens
can be obtained anywhere. The Indian cock is small of head and long of
leg, shrill of voice and bold in spirit. The Indian hen is shy and wild,
but gives plenty of small, delicately-flavored eggs. On the whole, aside
from a few idiosyncrasies, the Indian fowl is very satisfactory.
In large cities like Bombay, Calcutta, Lucknow, Madras, etc., where
there is a large English population, any kind of meat may be obtained.
In other places only goat meat can be obtained. This is especially true
in many hill stations. Even in small places, if there happens to be a
large Mohammedan population, good beef and mutton can be obtained in the
cold weather, and in many larger places where there are few Mohammedans
no meat of any kind is to be found excepting chicken, and one usually
has to raise them himself.
Meat is cheap in India. Indeed, in some places beef can be bought for
two cents a pound. However, it is not so good as is the beef in America.
In the hot weather, as it has to be eaten almost as soon as it is
killed, it is tough and tasteless.
Vegetables differ, too, according to the locality. If Mrs. A, returned
missionary from India, pathetically states that year in and year out she
never gets _any_ home vegetables, and thereby causes everybody to pity
her, and if Mrs. B, returned missionary from India, boasts that she gets
plenty of home vegetables, even better than she could get in America,
and thereby causes everybody to envy her, don't think that either Mrs. A
or Mrs. B have fibbed. Mrs. B lives up north and Mrs. A lives south, and
both speak truthfully.
The same is true in regard to fruits. Certain fruits, such as the citrus
fruits, the unexcelled mango, bananas, etc., are found all over India;
but in certain sections there are not only these, but all the home
fruits. This section is to the north and northwest. Pears, apples,
peaches, plums--in fact, any fruit that can be grown any place in the
world can be grown successfully in this favored section of India.
"Why don't missionary ladies do their own cooking?"
The idea seems to be abroad that the reason that missionaries in India
do not do more manual labor is because they have a certain dignity that
they must maintain; that they would lose caste and influence should they
do menial work of any kind. This is quite a mistaken idea. One of the
things that a missionary stands for is serving, serving by hands and
feet as well as by brain and spirit. The simple reason is that
missionaries are employed by the missionary society to do other things.
It isn't a question of giving eight hours a day to mission work, but
it's a question of giving all the time.
But suppose she hadn't her hands so full of mission work, even then she
could not do her own cooking.
Perhaps she might do some of it if she had an up-to-date little kitchen,
with linoleum on the floor, if there were a sink and a gas range, and
all sorts of lovely pots and pans, but alas! in India there is not even
a kitchen. It is a cook-house, and is quite detached from the rest of
the house. If she cooked there, the missionary lady would have to keep
running back and forth in the hot sun or in the pouring rain of the
monsoon. There is no linoleum--only a damp, uneven stone floor, and
there is no sink--all the work requiring water is done on the floor by
a drain-pipe, and sometimes if the screen gets broken over the mouth of
the drain-pipe, toads come hopping in, and sometimes even cobras come
squirming through. The Indian cook-house is always dark and smoky. There
is no little gas range; just a primitive cooking place made of bricks
plastered together. This contains a number of holes in which are
inserted grates. Charcoal fires are burning in these little grates.
Charcoal has to be fanned and fanned with a black and grimy fan to get
it into the glowing stage. Of course a clean fan would do as well, but
one never sees a clean fan in an Indian cook-house.
However, do not suppose for a minute that the missionary lady has no
responsibility regarding the cooking. She has. She cooks with her nerves
and brains. She has to train up the cook in the way he should go, and
after he has gotten into the way, she has to walk along by his side, for
she must be brains for him for ever and ever. She has to see that he
walks in paths of truth and uprightness. She has to keep everything
under lock and key, and is apt to lose her keys when she is in the
biggest hurry. She is also apt to lose her temper, and feels worse over
this than she does when she loses her keys. She has to argue over
prices; to fuss over the quality of charcoal consumed. She has to keep
her poise when, after ordering something especially nice for dinner,
the cook proudly passes around something quite different and not at all
nice. She dare not even visit her own cook-house without coughing and
making a noise, for fear that she will have a case of discipline on
hands that may leave her without a cook. Verily, she is not deceived by
the fact that when she enters the cook-house the cook and half a dozen
other men who have been playing cards and smoking are respectively
standing around like little tin soldiers. She _sees_ the hooka or big
water pipe standing behind the door, and she _knows_ that the bearer has
a deck of cards up his sleeves. But even knowing this, all she can do is
to meekly transact her business with the cook and go out without saying
a word.
However, in spite of all this, the Indian cook is a great comfort. He
grows on one. It is surprising how equal he is to emergencies and what
really fine things he can make with very few conveniences and often a
very stinted allowance of material. There are very few of them who do
not take pride in their cooking, and they are never happier than when
there are guests in the home and they are having a chance to show off.
Nor are they uncleanly, as is often supposed, but they keep their
kitchen in such mild disorder that things really appear much worse than
they really are.
And now for the last question. Often and often we are asked, "Aren't
you glad to get back to the food in America?" My answer is, "Rather,"
and it is to be spoken with a rising inflection.
We love the American people, and we enjoy the American food, but we
think that when it comes to making nice tasty somethings out of almost
nothing, America is not in it at all. Nearly every nation in the world
can do better.
I hope these recipes will help.
Contents.
Page
CHAPTER I. CURRY 15
1. Curry Powder. 2. Beef Curry. 3. Chicken Curry. 4. Curry
with Curds. 5. Meat Curry with Pastry. 6. Meat Curry with
Cabbage. 7. Meat and Split Pea Curry. 8. Massala Fry. 9.
Hamburg Steak Curry. 10. Cold Meat Curry. 11. Buffath, or
Curry with Vegetables. 12. Buffath of Cold Meat and
Vegetables. 13. Fish Curry. 14. Curry from Tinned Salmon,
Sardines, or Tuna. 15. Salt Fish Curry. 16. Massala Fry of
Fish. 17. Egg Curry. 18. Poached Egg Curry. 19. Eggplant
Curry. 20. Curried Stuffed Eggplant. 21. Stuffed Curried
Mango Peppers. 22. Mixed Vegetable Curry. 23. Split Pea
Curry. 24. Edible Leaves Curry.