Drink Softly And Wear A Dotted Bow Tie

Yesterday I asked Mr. P when he was going to write the post about all the fun he had with The New Criterion fellows during our recent vacation. He replied that he had to be in the right mood. I asked him what would help to get him into the right mood. He replied, "Red chicken with your fresh naan." "Red" is Mr. P's code for tandoori chicken.

Mr. P is on to something by thinking spicy Indian food will help put him in the mood to write about drinking with The New Criterion. It will because we, in the Detroit-area, are experiencing incredibly hot weather and if that wasn't enough, there's a bigger than usual war going on in the middle east. Heat and war do have a dulling effect on the appetite. Consuming spicy food in such a climate will stimulate your tastebuds and open your pores which will release much of the pent up steam. When Mr. P's tastebuds are stimulated and has released his pent up steam, he is one of the funniest men alive. So today is a red-chicken day at the Peperiums.

For some reason, dining on tandoori, naan, and cucumber raita while Israel and Beriut burn brings out the Winston Churchill within. Frankly, this war calls for a drink and given the potential of nukes soon being deployed, the bigger the drink the better. Since the temperature here is expected to soar over the 95 dgree mark, you just don't have to wear the classic Winston Churchill swiss dotted bow tie when doing so. Last week, Maximum Leader expressed an interest in the drinks the boys of the British Raj used to down by the gallon at The Royal Bombay Yacht Club. Since Winston, in his early years did some time in the British Raj, I thought it would be good for our collective spirits if I provided more information on those beverages.

Now, contrary to what E.M. Forster would have you think, there really was a gentlemen's code to life in the British Raj. Only a few gentlemen had enough social cache or a complete lack of social cache to wander about India with enough liquor in their veins to kill any malaria-carrying mosquitos on contact. The rest of the English did observe the knife-edge distinction between drinking and being drunk. Extreme heat or being in a war is no excuse for ceasing to be a gentleman. If you choose to drink, please continue observing the knife-edge distinction of drinking and being drunk, even if you are a lady. The cookbook authoress, Jennifer Brennan grew up in the closing days of the British Raj and has written beautifully about life, as well as drinking, in the Raj in her cookbook Curries and Bugles :

As C. C. Lewis remarked, good wine was not part of the libations available in India, since it did not survive the long voyage on unrefrigerated ships, nor the sharp changes in climate. Beer and spirits had to substitute and much ingenuity was employed in devising interesting and palatable ways to disguise the inferior wines that did make the journey, or use to the available spirits and liqueurs. Indeed, our drink "punch" derives from the Hindustani word "paunch," meaning five, or five ingredients in the traditional drink. In the seventeenth century, these consisted of : arrak, sugar, lime juice, spices and water.

In the eighteenth century, tea was subsituted for the spices, possibly owing to the efforts on part of the East India Company to promote their export before a wider audience. By two centuries later, punch had become the name for any drink made of rum, whiskey, brandy, wine or other liquor, in combination with water, fruit juice and sugar - served from a large bowl into glasses, either very hot or well iced.

Champagne cups and fruit cups were very popular for club buffets on such occasions as gymkhanas, tennis tournaments and dances. But for everyday drinking, whiskey and water or soda in large glasses and well diluted, was the normal tipple of choice; but not until 6 o'clock or sundown. After a full day's work, followed by a long ride or several chukkas of polo, or a hard, competitive tennis match, there was nothing nicer than to relax in creaking rattan or wicker chairs on the veranda of the club, watching a mali watering the lawn, enjoying the first cooling breezes of the evening, while gossiping about the day's doings in the station or the cantonment with a burra or chota peg (large or small) at one's elbow and the satisfying sense that all was in the world of the Raj.

At weekends the unspoken proscription against drinking during the day was relaxed. The hour or two before Sunday tiffin was the time for several pristine gimlets or pink gins but, again the rules applied. The drinks were as straightforward and honest as the people who drank them. Cocktails were not very popular, except times when one "lived it up" in the larger hotels: times such as being on leave in the hill stations; during the Weeks in places like Delhi, Calcutta, or Bombay; or as part of the round of celebrations for those who were leaving India. In the 1920s and 1930s, when cocktails became the rage of the international set, then did they catch on in India, but not to the same extent as in Europe or America.

The libations that follow are memorable invention of bartenders of the more renowned hotels in India, of the major clubs in the areas where the Raj congregated, or one of the regiments and, in some cases. of individuals whose inspirations added a little sparkle to life in India.

In some of the recipes that come next, there are a few inflexible rules to take note of:

1. Use fresh fruit.
2. If carbonated beverages are to be used, add them at the very last minute so the sparkle is not lost.
3. Chill all the ingredients before placing in the bowl.
4. Use only a large block of ice. Small ice dillutes and weakens the beverage too quickly, particularly in hot weather.

A Classic gimlet

1 jigger dry gin
1/2 teaspoon lime cordial
1/2 teaspoon sugar syrup (optional)
a slice of fresh lime

Take a big, wide-mouthed champagne glass and put in the gin, followed by the lime cordial, then stir in the sugar syrup, if you need to use it. Fill up with chilled plain water, add an ice cube and a thin slice of big, green lime.

Notes: The sugar syrup should correct any lack of sweetness in the particular lime cordial you use. Some people omit the water and merely fill up the glass with ice cubes. To my mind, the drink then only becomes perfect about half-way through, when the ice cubes have melted sufficiently.

Pink gin, according to the "Expert"

Take a thin, stemmed cocktail glass and shake in 4 o 5 dashes of Angostura bitters. Tip the glass to a drunken angle and twirl it between thumb and fingers. Whatever Angostura sticks to the glass through capillary action is precisley the right amount, although many "old kohais" [from what I've gleaned kohais would be the William Holden's of the British Raj] prefer a heavier measure in order to stimulate their heat-faded appetites, Pour off the superflous bitters and fill the glass with dry gin. That's all

Notes: I personally prefer to twist the thinnest curl of lemon peel on top, for its aromatics, but this is not the classic approach.

Sargodha Club tennis cup

For the purist, the chief differenc between a cup and a punch is that the former is mixed with soda water or another sparkling beverage. Punch is generally diluted with water, The exception to this is champagne, for obvious reasons.

8 fl oz sugar syrup
1 pint freshly squeezed lemon juice
8 fl oz brandy
8 fl oz strong India tea
8 fl oz sherry
3 bottles of dry white wine
1 cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced
1 quart soda water

1. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar syrup, lemon juice, brandy, tea, sherry and wine. Add the cucumber and let stand for 30 minutes.
2. Remove the cucumber and discard. Carefully place a large block of ice into the bowl and pour in the soda water.

Notes: Reserve the cup for after the tennis match, not during it, because the sight of an otherwise good player trying to hit two balls simultaneously is enough to make a grown man cry.

It has been Mr. P's and my experience that a pinch or in a time of war, a Pimms' cup made with Pimms, Schweppes ginger ale, ice and garnished with thin cucumber and orange slices or a decent IPA (India Pale Ale) are nice and refreshing openers to an Indian meal.

Attention Jane Auten enthusiasts: Man About Mayfair, Basil Seal is expected to say today whether I am right or wrong on my assertion that Elizabeth Bennet did not begin liking Mr. Darcy more when she saw his home, ie; it was his money that swayed her. Basil is very knowlegdeable on literature and his response ought to be good even if he proves that I am wrong. I am also hoping Basil will address whether Mr. Cusack's assertion that bow ties are Southern, is correct or not.

Here is some war reading for the Winston Churchillers. The NY Sun has decided to make its content available without subscription so this is the best news of the day so far.

Mrs. P

Comments

[Basil Seal]

My Dear Mrs. P, if you were like the Countess, Mr. P's mood would be the one you told him to be in...You must become "She who must be obeyed"...The Countess is always obeyed, and I mean now!

[Mrs. Peperium]

Ah, but if I were like the Countess I would have a cook. Who has ever heard of a Countess without a cook?

[Mr. Peperium]

The chicken, if anyone is interested, is doing fine. I'm experimenting with a lower heat, one that will seep through the thick coating of tandoori sauce, cooking the chicken without scorching the outside. Such pyrotechnics are reserved for dishes like the ribs we had last night, where the BBQ sauce gets carmelized in a semi-crispy, semi-maleable sweet tanginess that elevates the soul in a kind of Baptist Chapel Sunday-go-to-meetin' Praise the Lord and Pass the Okra kind of way.

But I digress.

As for obeying and being obeyed, I am put in mind of Black Adder III, the series that takes place in England during the French Revolution. I'm not going to go into the dialogue for the sake of the pure, unspotted nature of this blog. Let me just say it involves Rowan Atkinson running through the list of possible Continental brides for the Prince of Wales (Hugh Laurie) and their dominant bedroom personas.

But I hear my tandoori calling, It smells like a Bombay chophouse outside.

[Mrs. Peperium]

The mood, she shifts, no?

[Basil Seal]

I say, I've smelled houses in Bombay many a time, but they were'nt chop houses, what? Tiffinwalla...

[Mrs C]

Mrs. P, I have many pictures from the Oyster Bar. If anyone is interested in seeing any of them, contact me.

I especially like the one of you dancing on the bar in those cut-offs with the Confederate flag on the back.

[Mrs. Peperium]

Now the mood really has shifted. I think the photo of Mr. Cusack wrapped in the Papal flag is of far more interest to people.