The trail to Kedgeree by Peter Reeves Curtin University of Technology MotsPluriels no 15 - September 2000. http://www.arts.uwa.edu.au/MotsPluriels/MP1500pr.html This article was first published in Hobgoblin Magazine School of Social Sciences, Curtin University of Technology, issue 2, May 2000, pp.3-5 and 25. --- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar A snippet - But where does the haddock in Katie's 'party kedgeree' come from? There seem to be several strands in that culinary conundrum. Yule and Burnell's Hobson-Jobson was aware of the presence of fish in some English usages: In England we find the word is often applied to a mess of re-cooked fish served for breakfast; but this is inaccurate. Fish is frequently eaten with kedgeree, but is no part of it. But Crooke added, in editorial parentheses in 1903, "'Fish Kitcherie' is an old Anglo-Indian dish, see the recipe in Riddell, Indian Domestic Economy, p.437". And indeed it does seem to have become accepted: in 1867 Bishop Fraser said that he thought that 'kedgeree is a capital thing for breakfast' and by the 1870s both British - and Anglo-Indian - manuals on 'household management' had firmly included fish. Mrs James' Indian Household Management (1879), p.88 is clear: 'Kegeree [sic] is composed of the remains of cold fish, and is usually a breakfast dish' and Mrs Beeton in Household Management (p.140, also knows about 'kegeree' Even so, why was the fish added? The magnificent new Oxford Companion to Food has an interesting explanation in its article on 'Anglo-Indian Cookery' which was, it argues -- a product of British rule in India or, more precisely, a result of the interface between Indian cooks and British wives of British officers stationed in India. 'Kedgeree' then takes up the specific issue. It starts with the Ibn Batuta reference given by Hobson-Jobson and goes on to make the point that, in addition to mung dal, other lentils are used and that it is 'usual to add flavourings (onions, spices)'. It seems to have been under British influence and for British tables that flaked fish or smoked fish was built into the dish, replacing the 'moong' or 'lentils'; and again due to the British that chopped hard-boiled eggs came into the picture (plus, in de luxe versions, ingredients such as cream). It was this transformed dish which became famous as kedgeree, a British breakfast speciality. The extra piece of information that may be necessary in this explanation is - why did the smoked fish replace the mung? The answer is in the colours in the dish: in khicri the dal provides a red-orange colour contrast to the white rice; and so it presumably was the desire to remove the dal, but keep the colour contrast, which led to the use of smoked fish. http://motspluriels.arts.uwa.edu.au/MP1500pr.html