Indian Cookery,

By Richard Terry, Chef-de-Cuisine at the Oriental Club.

 

Facsimile of the First Edition. Small 8vo. 50, [9, adverts] pp. A vey nice clean copy. Original blue cloth, lettered in gilt.

 

London: printed by F.K. Gurney, 16 Woodstock Street, Oxford Street, 1861 [but really Southover Press,

A facsimile, taken from a copy of the first edition owned by Janet Clarke, of the rare first edition.

 

A neat facsimile of an important early Anglo-Indian recipe book based on the dishes made by Richard Terry at the Oriental Club. Owned (and evidently used) by a former colonial businessman. 

 

"The Oriental Club in London was founded in 1824 as a meeting place for returning officers from Indian and the other colonies. Richard Terry, chef de cuisine at the Oriental Club, composed a cookery book in 1861, listing colonial hybrid meals that Britons returning from their empire travels could once again enjoy...Terry wrote in the preface that in ten years as chef de cuisine at the Oriental Club he had also gathered information for his recipes not only from his own repertoire 'but from Native Cooks, the proper ingedients that are required in each Curry or Soup to give it that flavour which it should possess to make it a palatable dish (The Routledge History of Food, p. 140).

 

A notice on the title-page states that the book could be purchased "at the addresses in the Advertisements at the end of the Book price three shillings and sixpence". The book was printed on Woodstock Street which was close by the Oriental Club on Hanover Square.

 

Many of the names of the curries and other dishes look familiar (such as chicken curry, lamb pullow (pilau), fish tamarind, ghee and tomato and apple chutnee (chutney). Some are less familiar, such as Perriwinkle Curry (p. 27) which even Terry admits "is seldom liked, being so bitter". Terry often provides interesting supplementary information about the dishes. For mutton curry (p. 12) he notes "I have made this curry for many years, and it has been highly approved of by members of this club". His chicken curry (p.15) requires paste and powders which can be obtained at the "Indian Depôt, In Leicester Square" ("the best paste and powder are obtainable in my estimation. I rarely use any other"). At the end of the book is a table giving the english names of Indian spices (p.47).

 

 

The present facsimile of this work was produced from a copy owned by Janet Clarke (gastronomy book dealer) and published by the Southover Press (1998).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stock Code: 252456