Taste of Life: When eating out as couple was taboo
The taboo surrounding eating out had faded a little in the mid-twentieth century, but many had never been to a restaurant in India during that time
PUNE Food traditions are an essential part of culture and society and reflect a community’s history, values, and beliefs. Several traditions are passed down the generations. They travel across oceans and mountains and provide us with more than just sustenance.
I met Madhukar Shripad Mate, the noted archaeologist, more than a decade ago, to ask him about the restaurants he had seen or visited during his childhood and youth. He was in his early eighties then and had drawn a map for me with locations of several restaurants marked on it. He narrated how his father, Shripad Mahadev Mate, popular author and social reformer, often visited the “Jeevan” restaurant on Tilak Road.
During our conversation, he told me about a friend of his, Dr Khare, who had returned to Poona in 1954 after studying medicine in Dublin. Khare was an intelligent fellow who had adopted several Irish and English customs and etiquettes during his stay abroad. A few months after his return, he came to Mate with a request.
While in Dublin, Khare and his expatriate friends would visit a local restaurant for lunch on New Year’s Day. It was a tradition which gave them hope in a foreign country where they lived away from their loved ones with little money. Now back in India, Khare wanted to take his young wife to a restaurant for breakfast and follow the same tradition. However, he was not at all sure about the idea. He was not confident enough to be seen in a restaurant with his wife.
The taboo surrounding eating out had faded a little in the mid-twentieth century, but many like Khare had never been to a restaurant in India. “Purity” was important to several families, especially those belonging to the so-called “upper castes”. While several men ate out, women rarely stepped into an eatery.
Khare’s wife, too, had never visited a restaurant and she was scared that her in-laws and parents would be angry if they found out about her little adventure. Khare was also apprehensive about his reputation. He was about to start his medical career in Poona and did not want anything to jeopardise the same. He requested Mate to find a way out so that he could enjoy breakfast with his wife on January 1, 1955, without anybody noticing.
Celebrating the New Year on January 1 was quite unfamiliar to common Indians till almost the mid-twentieth century. When the British established their rule in India, some communities, like the Parsees and native Christians, became a part of European social life in India. Some wealthy Hindus and Muslims, too, attended Christmas and New Year parties in the twentieth century. But the common Indian was largely secluded from the European festivities in India. They were aware of the annual army parades held in every Indian city on January 1, but they almost never celebrated Christmas or the New Year themselves. They went on pilgrimages using discounted railway tickets and organised weddings during the Christmas vacations.
Great Britain and its American colonies began following the Gregorian calendar in 1752. Before then they celebrated New Year’s Day on March 25. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, some British families celebrated New Year’s Day more than Christmas. Victorian Britain gradually transformed the festivities around the New Year. Queen Victoria was obsessed with everything Scottish. She was passionate about the New Year’s Eve celebration of “Hogmanay”, which meant the last day of the year. Her subjects were quick to embrace her passion.
Gift-giving and “first-footing” were important to the celebrations. “First-footing” referred to the person crossing the threshold of a home after midnight on New Year’s Day. The first-footer traditionally arrived loaded with a coin, sweet bread, a lump of coal, and whiskey – gifts representing all the things the New Year would hopefully bring, such as prosperity, food, flavour, warmth, and good cheer.
Since Queen Victoria found Scottish customs at the New Year more to her taste, Anglo-Indians were quick to adapt them. Scotch cakes, Scotch shortbread, Scotch gingerbread, Edinburgh buns, Scotch whiskey, ale, salmon, herrings, haddocks, and oats, maintained their supremacy at the parties organised by the rich in Bombay and Poona.
A curious New Year’s Eve tradition was followed by the Irish living in the Bombay Presidency. The men would take freshly made bread called “barmbrack”, go outside their houses or barracks, and launch the bread outside of the front door. This was said to stave off hunger for the rest of the year. While in the Victorian era, this practice seems to have survived only in wealthy homes of Ireland, advertisements appearing in English dailies in Bombay and Poona indicate that this was a common practice here since several bakers sold “barmbrack” before New Year’s Eve.
The “barmbrack” was affectionately called the “Gort Cake”. It was sweet bread mixed with currants and raisins. It was also an old Irish form of divination. Charms were hidden in the bread and each charm would foretell what the future held for whoever found it in their slice: a coin for money and a ring for love. The charms were wrapped in paper before adding them so they stood out from the barm and no one broke a tooth.
In the mid-nineteenth century, gentlemen visited many homes on New Year’s Day. Eligible bachelors left their calling cards to show they had visited. This “open house” was called an “at home”. These took place from noon to the evening. In Victorian England, guests were served a wide buffet and eggnog with rum or brandy. “The Bombay Gazette”, on December 18, 1891, suggested including chicken and ham sandwiches, turkey, pickled oysters, sardines, chicken salad, lobster salad, fruits like oranges, grapes, figs, and nectarines, jellies, ice cream, cake, lemonade and whiskey. The salads were to be garnished with egg rings, olives, and celery. Sardines were to be served with parsley and sliced lemon. The menu suggests that the buffet would have been unaffordable to many Anglo-Indians.
Poona’s social whirl reached its apex for many at Christmas and the New Year in the early twentieth century. However, clubs and hotels in Poona did not excite the wealthy Europeans. They would flock to Bombay during the vacations and enjoy the festivities at swanky places like the Byculla Club or The Taj. The Taj was known for special programmes arranged by the enterprising duo Faletti and Framrose who devised between them a host of ingenious ideas to keep everyone interested and entertained.
Times changed. Indian independence became a practical possibility and rich Indian men started making their presence felt at Christmas and New Year parties. It was not unusual in the 1930s and 40s to spot them at restaurants like Muratore’s on New Year’s Eve. Those afraid to be seen at such places in Poona would visit Bombay.
When Khare narrated his ordeal to Mate, the latter told his friend that he did not know how to help him. However, Mate’s father had overheard the conversation. He spoke to one of the owners of “Jeevan” and made sure the Khares were let inside from the back door.
Khare and his wife enjoyed a quiet meal of “thalipeeth” (a savoury multigrain flatbread) and “sanjori” (a flatbread stuffed with semolina, jaggery, and coconut) on the first floor of the restaurant.
That day, they created a New Year’s tradition for themselves.
Chinmay Damle is a research scientist and food enthusiast. He writes here on Pune’s food culture. He can be contacted at chinmay.damle@gmail.com