Club food

[Vikram]

a seperate thread - club food?

Starting a new thread from Howler's suggestion. Club food is a great subject and, with no modesty again, here's an (unedited version) of article I'd written on the subject for the Times of India sometime back. (eGullet guardians, please forgive my not posting a link, since the Times archives aren't available online).

The article is Bombay specific, so perhaps people could post examples of Club food from other parts of the country, or elsewhere from the Raj, or in fact just anywhere. (What's the food like in the London clubs that the Raj clubs were inspired by?) The clubs I've described are Raj relics, but I think the institutional nursery food they served are likely to be found in clubs elsewhere as well - the point of clubs being comfort.

Vikram

In Search Of The Perfect... Club Food

If one word were to be used to describe the look of the clubs left by the British Raj, it would be brown. Dark brown of Burma teak panelings and rafters. Polished brown parquet in their echoing ballrooms. Moth-eaten brown of the animal heads hung from their walls, interspersed with the sepia brown of old photographs and prints. Yellowing brown of ancient novels in their libraries. Oiled yellow brown of old cricket bats and squash rackets. Brown wood topped with green baize of billiard tables. Muddy brown playing fields with a lovingly maintained sprinkling of green turf on top. Brown wood and wicker planters chairs with long arms on which to put one’s legs up for the most perfect siesta.

And, of course, brown food. Buttery brown of roast potatoes and turkey at Christmas. Peppery brown of mulligatawny soup and meaty brown of stews. Turmeric stained yellow-brown of curries and dhal. Golden brown of melting butter on light brown slices of toast. Crisp fried brown of breaded mutton cutlets or batter dipped fish fillets. Bottles of brown sauces like tamarind-tangy Worcestershire or HP Sauce and sauce boats of thick brown gravy. Even the vegetables that accompanied this, like mashed potatoes or boiled carrots and beans, could be described as spiritually brown. Milky brown cold coffee on hot summer afternoons, or the red-brown of good strong Darjeeling tea. Brown glass bottles of cold beer beaded with moisture or the pinky brown of bitters swirling through a glass of gin. And rounding of the browns is the chocolate of cakes and puddings, light flaky brown of pastry and burned brown of caramel spun into nests for ice cream.

All this brown is not accidental. Brown is an earthy, comforting colour and comfort was the point of the clubs. They were originally set up for the young British officers and administrators as places of refuge from this hot unfamiliar country that they had been sent, many barely out of their teens, to govern. Their youth dictated their choice of food. London clubs like the Athenaeum or Reform might have been known for their haute cuisine. In India they stayed close to the nursery and boarding school dishes that their members had not left far behind. This meant eggs and bacon, lots of savouries on toast like mushrooms, baked beans, kidneys and the creamy cheese toasts called Welsh rarebits, the institutional cooking classics of British food like Irish stew and shepherd’s pie, and of course, plenty of puddings.

Indian cooks - Goans in the West, Bangledeshi ‘mug’ cooks in the East - proved adept at these dishes, producing very palatable versions of British dishes, in the most primitive kitchens and with nothing like the same ingredients. They had a notably light touch with pastry and had to be restrained from letting themselves get away with the ornamentation of dishes. In time, as the flavours of the country worked their way into the Raj, these cooks would serve as catalysts, spicing up the dishes and adapting native ones (rasam or mullaga-tani, pepper water, becoming meaty mulligatawny for example). The result was the fusion that was Raj cooking, and the clubs were where it could be had at its best.

In time the clubs changed. Women and children were allowed in, and then as Independence approached, they finally went brown in the most basic way, allowing in Indian members. This proved their salvation and clubs have maintained their status in an India very different from when they began. Some, like the community specific clubs (Parsi, Islam, Hindu, Catholic), set up in reaction to British exclusion, have dwindled. Some fell prey to market realities: the Byculla Club, one of the oldest in the city, and with a special soufflé in its name, was apparently sold for the value of its property. Yet the many clubs of the city continue, memberships as sought after as ever, and their food continues as well (the Ripon Club, in fact, seems to exist almost entirely on the basis of its fabled dhansak).

How much longer this will last though, is a moot point. The clubs are under pressure to modernise, broaden their menus, add the ubiquitous Chinese and Mughlai sections, bring in trendy flavours like Thai or Mexican or crowd-pleasers like pizzas. Clubs are also increasingly outsourcing to independent caterers. This isn’t all that wrong - some of the traditional food was undoubtedly too heavy and monotonous, and many of the clubs do need more efficient management. Yet it seems a pity that this must come at the expense of the old menus.

Club food is part of the history and identity of the clubs. One can only hope the day never comes when one will no longer be able to eat thin crisp Melba toast as the Royal Western India Turf Club, relish the soggy perfection of an open-hot beef sandwich swimming in gravy at the Bombay Gymkhana, or eat the best akoorie in town on the lawns of the Willingdon, or best of all, that club’s unique dish, a Kejriwal. Named after a past member and consisting of a cheese toast topped with a fried egg and chopped chillies sprinkled on top, the Kejriwal is a cholesterol bomb, but utterly delicious and in its oddity, its unfashionableness and almost nursery appeal, its a distillation of all that club food has stood for and why it must endure.

ends

[howler]

very nice article, vikram.

but i think the clubs have started down the slippery slope of modernising their menus. more people at the willingdon seem to order from the ghastly chinese menu than the kejriwal or the chilli chicken on toast (my childhood favourite). the breach candy club has totally renovated its menu to serve the worst club food around (though thankfully, you still get excellent chips and vinegar). didn't make it to cci/gym this time, but i couldn't imagine seriously eating dinner at any of them.

part of it, i think, is the increasing affluence and eating out preferences of the gujjus/jains. i was shocked to see the increasing number of veg dishes at the copper chimney and their khatta/meetha raita started my suspicions that coper chimney was gujju-ising its veg offerings.

in any case, if the rac is anything to go by, the english clubs are getting healthy. i was soooo disappointed the few times i've been for lunch/dinner there. nouvelle english cuisine is the best way to describe it. ugh.

[Suvir Saran]

very nice article, vikram.

but i think the clubs have started down the slippery slope of modernising their menus. more people at the willingdon seem to order from the ghastly chinese menu than the kejriwal or the chilli chicken on toast (my childhood favourite).  the breach candy club has totally renovated its menu to serve the worst club food around (though thankfully, you still get excellent chips and vinegar). didn't make it to cci/gym this time, but i couldn't imagine seriously eating dinner at any of them.

Very nice article, Vikram.

Howler, funny you should say this, everytime I stand at the stove for a couple of hours frying potato chips for friends and family (much to their reluctant and polite complaining), I fry them thinking of Delhi Gymkhana and the Breach Candy Club.

The other thing that brings back similar memories are cheese sandwiches that also were superb in Delhi Gymkhana and were a daily staple after our 2 hours of swimming in the summer.

The potato chips, cheese sandwiches, vinegar and ketchup were always there. If my mother or the driver were late to pick us up, we would get a treat of cheese balls or french fries.

The Golf Club in Delhi and the Delhi Gymkhana have each renovated their menus. They have also lost a lot of what was their unique and really nostalgic charm for me.

We ate plenty of the Indian Chinese at Delhi Gymkhana as young kids, but also were able to sample cuisines of other countries on Monday nights and special dinners organized around that country. Mondays in the summer would be an evening of games and rides for kids in the grand lawn and then an outdoor movie screening for the families and dinner.

[Suzanne F]

Thank you all; it is very interesting to read what constitutes an update to Curries and Bugles, Jennifer Brennan's book from the British point of view. Are you familiar with that book? How much of it still holds true, if I may ask?

[Vikram]

Thank you all; it is very interesting to read what constitutes an update to Curries and Bugles, Jennifer Brennan's book from the British point of view. Are you familiar with that book? How much of it still holds true, if I may ask?

Its a nice book, particularly in the way she weaves family history with Raj recipes. Pat Chapman of the Curry Club has done something similar with Taste of the Raj. The most definitive book on Raj cooking though is probably David Burton's The Raj At Table.

[Suvir Saran]

Thank you all; it is very interesting to read what constitutes an update to Curries and Bugles, Jennifer Brennan's book from the British point of view. Are you familiar with that book? How much of it still holds true, if I may ask?

Its a nice book, particularly in the way she weaves family history with Raj recipes. Pat Chapman of the Curry Club has done something similar with Taste of the Raj. The most definitive book on Raj cooking though is probably David Burton's The Raj At Table.

I have both books. What do you really think of each of them in relation to your own experiences Vikram, Howler?

I have enjoyed having them be a part of my reference material, but they seem very distant in some ways. Maybe I am totally lost here.

[BBhasin]

To add to Vikram’s interesting description of ‘Raj Clubs’. The following is what I remember from my childhood.

Basically these clubs served two kinds of foods

- snacky finger foods for local patrons who were there for the bar or for other activities like cards, kitty parties, swimming, sports etc. and

- regular meals for resident out of town members if the club had accommodation facilities.

The snack foods I remember from my childhood

Chicken sandwich

Mutton sandwich ( my absolute favorite)

Tomato or cucumber sandwiches

Chicken pakoras, paneer pakoras etc.

Fish fingers

Potato chips both the regular thin ones and the thick ones smeared with hot peppers.

French fries were popular with us kids

Freshly fried peanuts(with the skin) tossed with chopped onion, chopped green chilly, salt and a squeeze of fresh lime.

Shammi kababs

Mutton, fish or vegetable cutlets

Everything we ate with Tons of tomato Ketchup

As years progressed more kababs found their way into the menu like

Seekh kabab, chicken tikka etc.

And on ‘heavy crowd’ open- air movie nights or hot Sunday swimming pool afternoons there would be additions like Biryani.

Then came the Chinese invasion with chilli chicken, hakka noodles, etc

I don’t know what are the offerings now. Perhaps Vikram can enlighten us.

For the residents who were seeking a full meal I remember mostly

Soups, usually tomato, peas, dal or mullugtwany

Fried fish,

Roast mutton

Mutton cutlet

Chicken or mutton curry

Strangely I do not recall any vegetarian offerings.