Former actor and chef Tara Deshpande is whipping up dishes sourced from the yellowing pages of age-old recipe books that hark back to the days of the Raj
The Byculla Club Dining Hall
In 1805, Michael Hogan moved to the US after making a fortune while trading with the East India Company. The Irish ship captain bought land and settled in a town in northwestern Franklin County, and interestingly, named it after his Indian wife's birthplace. In 2017, when former actor and chef Tara Deshpande — who has a penchant for collecting old, dog-eared recipe books — came across The Bombay Cook Book at a yard sale in New York, she began a frantic search for Bombay High School, to which the book was ascribed. "Then, I realised, that it wasn't the Bombay in India," she shares. And that's how Deshpande discovered a little town in the US called Bombay that Hogan so lovingly dedicated to his wife, who hailed from present-day Mulund.
"I am a bookworm, and for a long time, I used to collect first editions penned by my favourite authors. But when I was in New York, I became interested in the British influence on American food. So, I would go to a lot of estate and yard sales and pick up vintage cookbooks from there. There was so much information in them, and yet, most copies have not been digitised [or preserved]," she shares, ahead of launching a range of dishes, desserts and soups that will be available on order and that hark back to the culinary aesthete of India's colonial past.
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The Byculla Club by artiste Cecil Burns
Take for example, the Byculla soufflé, a decadent and rich cold dessert, which has its roots in the Byculla Club. When the neighbourhood was formed on account of the Hornby Vellard project that joined the seven islands of Bombay, it became a fashionable and expensive location to live in. To entertain the British officials and Indian aristocrats, the club was established in 1833, and the soufflé became a crowd favourite. After the club was auctioned in 1920, the dessert, along with many other recipes, died a silent death.
"I have the third edition of Hannah Glasse's cookbook that dates back to 1765. She was the first woman to have printed a recipe for curry. It's a very tasty recipe and she provides one for an Indian pulao alongside it, too," Deshpande adds. In the same book, a recipe referred to as the Indian lobster cutlet is possibly the blueprint for the famous prawn cutlets that are ubiquitous across the colonial-era gymkhanas and clubs in the city. "This cutlet makes use of large prawns, which at that time, were only available in India. So, Glasse suggests in her book, to replace prawns with lobsters which were more abundant in Europe," she explains.
A copy of the age-old recipe book
There's also the classic mulligatawny soup. Speaking about it, Deshpande tells us, "I have a copy of a book from 1872 written by Mrs De Salis, in which she refers to the mulligatawny soup as a curry soup." She adds that the elaborate recipe is very different from the versions being served today.
"Vintage cookbooks give you a peek into the history of our cuisines. But what also piqued my interest was the fact that most of them were written by women. However, many didn't use their name and some simply said, 'Written by a lady'.
Byculla souffle
As these books slowly became popular they started using their names and even made a living out of them," she tells us, explaining what geared her towards this quest. It is with this mix of child-like curiosity and in-depth knowledge that Deshpande is seeking to bring back lost and treasured recipes and serving them with a dash of nostalgia.
Tara Deshpande
At Tara Deshpande Studios, Nariman Point (take-away only).
On March 23 to 29
Call 9711961446 (48 hours notice required for orders)
Cost Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000
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