Bera, ek Club Sandwich aur ek Chota Peg lao, jaldi!

June 12, 2016 8:04 AM

If you ever had the dal tadka or the Club Sandwich and wondered who to thank, you may want to look at our Colonial Rulers and their second big gift: the Dak Bungalow.
More on colonial food from the British Raj. Recipes. Old recipes. Controversy in Portland. What came back Home. Comparisons. Hang on, deliciousness aside, what is a Dak Bungalow?
posted by infini (7 comments total)

Bungalow stems from one time a guy out there was building a two-storey house but ran out of money after the first floor. So he said to the foreman 'oh just bung a low roof on it.'*


* this is a lie
posted by GallonOfAlan at 8:23 AM on June 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

1. Colonial food fetishism is uninteresting to me for several reasons; a big one is that colonial or semi-colonial food is largely the only Indian food known in the west (e.g.: chicken tikka masala, pork vindaloo).

2. I hope that Portland restaurant burns to the ground. It takes a singularly ignorant person to say "Most people like Winston Churchill" in the context of British colonialism and food.

3. I don't mean to imply that Indian food has not benefited tremendously from Euro influence (most importantly, American ingredients). Today it is hard to imagine Indian food without hot peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, etc. From makki di roti to roadside guava vendors, so many Indian staples are recent introductions from America.
posted by splitpeasoup at 10:50 AM on June 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

I just want to note that the Portland restaurant Saffron Colonial is now called British Overseas Restaurant Corporation (yes, BORC). I have been relieved to see that it is usually mostly empty when I pass by.
posted by terooot at 9:24 PM on June 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

I once stayed in the Dak Bungalows at Moen-jo-daro and Harappa. Dinner was scrawny jungle fowl chicken with curry and dahl. I wasn't asked how I wanted my eggs (they were delivered sunny side up).

FWIW the Dak Bungalow at Moen-jo-daro is in a multistory blockhouse, so it is not a "bungalow". The one at Harappa is indeed single-storied, but is more of a row house. The local cop at Harappa made a point of stopping by and warning me (for my own safety) not to go out after dark, so I guess the more things change ...
posted by Autumn Leaf at 2:47 AM on June 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think a British colonial restaurant and a Winston Churchill themed breakfast would probably gone over better in Orange County.
posted by Bee'sWing at 5:29 AM on June 13, 2016

1. Colonial food fetishism is uninteresting to me for several reasons; a big one is that colonial or semi-colonial food is largely the only Indian food known in the west (e.g.: chicken tikka masala, pork vindaloo).

I think that's rather reductive, splitpeasoup. Colonial recipes and food writing can tell us a great deal about how colonising peoples were changed by their relationship with local cultures. It's interesting that you mention pork vindaloo as somehow inauthentic, when it has almost 600 years of history - containing within its recipe a story of global trade, religious wars, colonisation and even racism that contributes to our understanding of the massive cultural shifts that occurred in the early modern era. Lizzie Conningham's fascinating book Curry is a must-read for anyone who enjoys Indian food, and it will absolutely dispel any notions about 'authenticity' - the food cultures of the subcontinent are fascinatingly adaptable, a history of thousands of years of migration, settlement and colonisation that doesn't magically begin with the Raj. Is pilau (pilaf, polow, pulao, plov...) more authentic than a tikka masala? Masala crisps or aloo gobi?

People don't eat to be authentic. They don't eat things just because their cultural history or identification demand it. In the main, people eat things that taste good. That they enjoy eating. It doesn't matter that Bombay Duck isn't duck, or that Singapore noodles aren't from Singapore. We celebrate fusion foods like Tex-Mex and Cajun, and the origin stories of Caesar or Waldorf Salad, or chocolate chip cookies.

These things are interesting because they tell us how people lived their lives, how they coped with unfamiliar situations, how they integrated (or not) with radically different cultures. And changing food cultures tell us a great deal about the status of women in colonial and settler societies, as they were often the ones running the household and - if not cooking themselves - overseeing the provisioning. Whether you believe them right or wrong, the colonial periods of history happened - we can't and shouldn't erase them.
posted by prismatic7 at 5:36 PM on June 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Its a two way process. As anyone might note, many of the articles on colonial foods are from Indians themseves. Do we stop eating bread omlette at railway station tiffin houses after Independence? Shall we reject mushroom mutter ka rasa? As prismatic7 says, there's culture, history, and centuries of intermingling here.
posted by infini at 5:22 AM on June 15, 2016 [1 favorite]