Ball curry and yellow rice

Where has the pantras gone?

Family tradition

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THE EXTRAVAGANCE OF ANGLO SAUSAGES

The Curious case of curries and croquettes

Like Bengali cuisine is incomplete without fish, Anglo-Indian food is non-existent without meat. Chicken, beef, mutton, lamb, pork — you name it and we gorge on it. We love meat,” says 78-year-old Pamela Rebeiro, as she escorts us down the narrow, cool corridor of her Collin Street house. Pamela, who is an Anglo-Indian, is a fantastic cook, quite known within the community. “Even our aloo chops are meat croquettes coated with potato. Aloo just got a bit of lip-service!” she laughs.Pamela is among the last few of a vanishing tribe of middle-aged or older women who know the secrets of Anglo-Indian cuisine — one of the most prominent pillars of Kolkata’s diverse culinary heritage. In and around Ripon Street, Elliott Road and other Anglo-Indian bastions in central Kolkata, women like Pamela bent over bubbling pots and pans and red-hot ovens as they dished out delicacies like juicy jalfrezi, tangy pepper water, rich ball curry, yellow rice, pantras and more. Lunch after Sunday service was an elaborate affair as the lanes would fill up with the rich aromas as families congregated around the table over food, conversation and maybe some music later in the afternoon. Much of that magic is gone, with flickers of that life and lifestyle surviving in corners like Bow Barracks.“There was a time when I used to cook for many, many people. We used to host parties almost every day. My husband, Rubin Rebeiro, was a musician, who used to play at Prince’s in Grand Hotel. He used to have hundreds of visitors. Ours was a buzzing house. Today, I live alone as my son works in Hyderabad and I don’t feel like cooking for myself. However, he’s got married and my daughter-in-law will be staying with me; so things may change,” says Pamela.People who grew up in and around central Kolkata have a deep connection with the community and its food. “There was a mansion in front of my Beniapukur house in which lived four or five Anglo-Indian families. One of them was Mr Jardine,” recalls actor-musician-director Anjan Dutt , who’s had a strong association with the community since childhood. “He had a very beautiful daughter, Alison, and I liked her a lot. I was very young then. They used to make some amazing kofta curry and yellow rice. The smell used to drift to our house and I used to gorge on the food. I don’t know if it was because of my tender age, or my strong admiration for Alison, but the mind-blowing flavour of that food is etched in my mind. I have never tasted any other plate of ball curry-yellow rice tastier than that. Now, they are all gone,” the director adds.“There are not many families left, to start with,” says Reethu Sarawgi, a septuagenarian retired teacher of La Martiniere for Girls, Kolkata. “The Anglo-Indian community felt isolated after Independence. Almost all my friends left by the early ’60s for the UK, Canada and Australia ,” she adds. Reethu feels her food habits have been influenced by her friends or her hostel life in school. “If you went to a school that is under the Church of North India, you would develop a love for Anglo food. I remember the delicious sausage curry and country captain — dry beef curry — made by a dear friend of mine, Yvonne Pinto, who passed away recently. I will never forget that taste,” rues Reethu, who is a Malayali by birth but grew up with Anglo-Indian friends, and still savours Anglo food almost every day.But it is not just the exodus, there are other factors to it too, says Anjan. “The wine-and-dine culture of Park Street died a sad death due to the heavy entertainment tax. Once my friend, musician Nondon Bagchi, and I held an informal survey and counted around 600 entertainers on Park Street — musicians, cabaret dancers, singers and so on. The whole lot of those people left, and with them, their culture also left,” the director adds.However, Anglo-Indian cuisine has never really been part of restaurant business in Kolkata. There are places that serve one or two items like jalfrezi and roast, but eateries dedicated to the cuisine have been a rarity. Traditionally, the authentic food is cooked in almost every Anglo household even today. A family lunch will mean a week-long preparation involving shopping for meat, marinating it with right ingredients, buying dill and other herbs and then finally preparing it, which could go on for a couple of days.“While we definitely love other cuisines, we eat Anglo-Indian food almost every day at our house. I had yellow rice and ball curry today, and yesterday mashi (the cook, a lady from Nadia) made pantras. My daughters are equally happy if they have pasta for dinner but our generation is a bit more traditional and we love our food,” says Barry O’Brien, quizmaster and president-in-chief of The All-India Anglo-Indian Association . “We Anglo-Indians take our food very seriously. Families swear by their cook, who used to be called boy, khansama or bowchi (derived from bawarchi). In my childhood, we used to have a fantastic cook, Appana Rao, who was from the Andhra-Odisha border. I remember, we never used to take packed lunch to our school, St Xavier’s, as it would get cold. Appana used to cook and the fresh hot lunch in tiffin carriers would be brought to school,” recalls Barry.Also, Anglo-Indians have a special inclination for leftover food. “Cooking ‘a little extra’ is our kitchen culture, mainly for two reasons — to cater to ‘sudden’, wanted or unwanted, guests, and to relish the dish a day later,” says Barry. “By far my favourite breakfast over the years has been quarter-boiled eggs, (not half-boiled, not hard-boiled!) mashed with aloo chops from dinner the night before,” he adds.A family lunch can mean a week-long preparation and daylong cooking. “Our families are closely knit. We still try and meet on every occasion for a large meal. Typical Anglo families still carry on this tradition,” says Christine Beaucasin, who works at the Oral School for Deaf Children. “Our parties are still incomplete without jalfrezi, vindaloo, pantras, roasts and so on,” she adds.But are there shops dedicated to Anglo-Indian groceries? “Not really. We use a lot of onions, ginger, garlic, tomato. You can buy them from anywhere, really. For meat and the sausages, we go to New Market or Entally bazar,” says Christina Samuel. “We usually have an elaborate three course meal — soup, side dishes and desserts. Each day of the Christmas holiday season has been extremely busy for us. We were either invited to someone’s place for lunch or dinner or some friends or family visited us,” says Christina. “While the tradition of cooking runs in family, tedious items like ball curry and butt curry are going out of fashion,” she says.Is the younger generation a tad reluctant to carry forward the cuisine of the community? While a section of the older generation thinks so, many of the youngsters don’t agree. “Our food is a family affair. It passes from one generation to the next. I love to cook. I make fantastic steaks. Anglo men are usually good cooks as they love to eat,” quips Joshua Samuel, Christina’s 32-year-old son.Brandon Claudius, son of hockey player Olympian Leslie Claudius agrees. “I don’t get time every day due to my erratic work hours but I am also a foodie. Korma, bhuni vindaloo — I love to eat and I love to cook for my family,” he says. His wife, Jilian, too, cooks Anglo food almost every day at home. “There are many Anglo-Indian snacks including kul kul and rose cookies that we used to make at home before Christmas. Now, we buy them from the market as those are very elaborate,” she adds.However, for those who are reluctant to cook, you have home delivery. “I’ve never enjoyed cooking and I’ve never cooked. I’ve always sourced my food from reliable home deliveries. And more often than not, I get Anglo food,” says Reethu.Veronica Pacheco, a retired service woman, delivers lunch and dinner to around 15 families every day. “They are all retired people. I have a dabbawala who delivers the lunch boxes to them. The menu is simple — rice, dal, sabzi and one non-veg item of fish, beef or pork,” she tells us. Apart from the retired households, Veronica also delivers to the clubs that serve Anglo-Indian food on special occasions. “Usually at Bingo parties, I prepare food for around 150 people. I served everywhere — Dalhousie Institute, Calcutta Rangers Club, Armenian Club and all. I prepare thorough Anglo-Indian food — aloo chops, shami beef tikias, pantras, cutlets, pork roast, tongue roast. My father, Vivian George Thompson was a very good cook and he taught me. When I lost my husband in 2012, I started feeling a bit lonely and so I chose to engage myself like this,” says Veronica, who stays alone as her son works in Melbourne .If you haven’t tasted Anglo-Indian sausages, you are missing out on a slice of life Kolkata has to offer. These hard-core pork sausages are far from the skinny machine-made Frankfurters you get at shopping mall freezers. Anglo-Indian sausages are stuffed with onion, ginger, aromatic herbs and sets of secret spice mixes apart from mince. “We make our own masala. From the garam masalas to haldi and coriander — we grind them to make it perfect,” says Bablu Khatik who runs Chaman’s Pork Shop at Park Circus market with his brother Rahul and uncle Sunil. Cooking the sausages also involves a unique process. You don’t need to grill or fry them; as they need boiling for at least 40 minutes. Here is a small tip for you. Take water just adequate to boil the sausages. Bring it to boil along with the meat (with pierced skin) and cook it till the water is absorbed. The meat will be cooked by the fat it releases. From balanced heat to right spices and sweetness of onions and cinnamon, the tastes explode in your mouth with a bang. The only problem is these sausages are not widely sold. Besides Park Circus market, you can find them at Entally market, Taltala market and New Market.Yellow rice-ball (or kofta curry): Rich meatball curry with flavoured rice cooked in coconut milk with a pinch of turmericPork vindaloo: Goan and Anglo-Indians fight over this spicy dish. ‘We hijacked vindaloo from Goan cuisine and now we make it better,’ quipsBarry O’BrienJalfrezi with white rice and pepper water: This meat preparation is on the dry side. Pepper water has no pepper in it but the gravy is made of tamarind paste and other masalas. You have to have white rice to enjoy the platterPantras: Deep-fried, meat-stuffed pancakesAloo chops: Croquettes made of minced-meat, coated with potatoHaddiguddi ballychow: Ballychow is a prawn paste that is used as an ingredient. Pork bones and a little bit of meat is cooked with ballychow and a lot of tomatoes