The Memsahib's Cookbook: Recipes from the Days of the Raj

by Rhona Aitken

Evoking the lost world of the memsahibs and their households, this book celebrates the way of life of those ordinary Englishwomen who found themselves thousands of miles from home, in India. There they had to endure temperatures approaching 100 degrees fahrenheit, mosquitoes, strange foods and cultures, and the extreme difficulties of dealing with a large number of household staff of different faiths and customs. The book consists of a collection of the popular Anglo-Indian recipes they devised during the 19th and early-20th centuries, updated for cooking today. The recipes have been collected by the author from old books, from friends and relations, and during the time she lived in Sri Lanka. Some are familiar, such as mulligatawny soup, kedgeree and koftas; others are less well-known, such as the Chinese-style sargeant's chicken, charred mince and the very hot saheb's sauce. Alongside the recipes are the writings of Edward Hamilton Aitken, who was born in Bombay in 1851 and wrote about the nature and family life in an Indian village. In his day he was better-known than Kipling, and his shrewdly-observed stories about the butler, Domingo, the cook and the Doodwallah, abound with fun.

128 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1989