The Small Spaces of Empire: Long-distance Trade, Anglo-Indian Foodways and the Bottlekhana

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article is an invitation to shift the analytic focus of empire to its small spaces. Bringing one aspect of the trade history of British India – the trade in European provisions and foodstuff – in conversation with the history of colonial architecture and Anglo-Indian foodways, I argue that small spaces might reveal cultural practices and attendant structures of power that are not evident when our attention remains lodged in dominant transactions, large spaces, big events, and bulk commodities. In this article I specifically turn to the bottlekhana, a storage space in colonial buildings in India, and its role in mediating the consumption of European food. This line of inquiry takes the discussion of European imports to India to the realm of servants and women who rarely figure in trade histories of the British empire.KEYWORDS: Anglo-Indian foodwaysimport tradetrade historyEuropean provisionsbottlekhanasmall spacescolonial architecturematerial culture Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Advertisement of provisions, Calcutta Gazette, May 18, 1797.2 Kipling, ‘The Mother Lodge’, Sussex Edition, 152.3 Furedy, ‘British Tradesmen of Calcutta 1830–1900’.4 Ray, ‘Asian Capital’, 449–50.5 Roy, The East India Company, 208.6 For general merchandise see Tomlinson, ‘From Campsie to Kedgeree’, 779.7 Bowen, ‘Sinews of Trade and Empire’, 482–83.8 Bowen, ‘The Consumption of British Manufactured Goods in India’, 27.9 For the substantial literature on the subject see Tripathi, Trade and Finance in the Bengal Presidency; Jones, Merchants of the Raj; Ray ‘Asian Capital’; Marshall, East India Fortunes; Bowen, The Business of Empire; Markovits, Global World of Indian Merchants; Munro, Maritime Enterprise and Empire; Tomlinson, ‘British Business in India’; Ray (ed), Entrepreneurship and Industry; Roy, ‘Trading Firms in Colonial India’; Webster, ‘An Early Global Business’; Webster, ‘The Strategies and Limits of Gentlemanly Capitalism’.10 For example, for the export trade see Berg, ‘In Pursuit of Luxury’; Rappaport, Thirst for Empire.11 Arnold, ‘Global Goods’; Arnold, Everyday Technologies. For a history of consumption in South Asia from the late nineteenth century onwards, see Haynes, et al, Towards a History of Consumption.12 Collingham, The Taste of Empire.13 East India Company, Accounts Presented to the House of Commons, 1808; Report on the External Commerce, 1812; An Account of all Goods, 1820.14 An account of all goods, the produce of the East Indies and China, 1811.15 An account of all goods, 1820.16 Tripathi, Trade and Finance, 78.17 The market size for imported consumables was an estimated 1 million people in the first decades of the twentieth century, cited in Ray, ‘Introduction’, Entrepreneurship and Industry, 17–18.18 Hull, The European in India, 83–6.19 Chattopadhyay, ‘Colonial Port Cities’, and Chattopadhyay Small Spaces: Recasting the Architecture of the British Empire. For more on the liquor geography in colonial India, see Wald, ‘Governing the Bottle’; Goodman, ‘Spaces of Intemperance’; Fischer-Tiné, ‘The drinking habits of our countrymen’.20 Usually a full chapter would be devoted to the store room, in addition to references in recommendations for the management of servants and of preparations for camping. See for example, by Steel and Gardiner, Complete Indian Housekeeper and Guide, and Wyvern, Culinary Jottings.21 Deetz, In Small Things Forgotten.22 Ibid., 5.23 Milburn, Oriental Commerce, Vol. I, 187-195; Vol. II, 13–8, 113–22.24 By Milburn’s 1805 count there were 26 British, 12 Armenian, 6 Portuguese houses of agency in Calcutta, along with the ‘very numerous’ Indian bankers, merchants and agents of whom 21 were listed as the ‘principal’ ones (Vol. I, 170). For Bombay, 6 ‘European houses of agency’, 4 ‘wine merchants and shopkeepers’, 3 Portuguese and 4 Armenian ‘merchants and agents’, 16 ‘Persee, 15 Hindoo and 4 Mussulman merchants’ were listed, along with 2 ‘China agents’ and 6 ‘ship builders’ all of whom were Parsi (Vol. II, 234). For Madras 12 British houses of agency were listed with a mention of ‘a number of Portuguese, Armenian, and native merchants resident at Black Town’ (Vol. I, 66).25 Singh, European Agency Houses; Tomlinson, ‘From Campsie to Kedgeree’.26 Milburn, Oriental Commerce, Vol. II, 123.27 Edward Tiretta’s bazaar was established c 1780s, and passed through many hands, ending up in the late nineteenth century with the Maharaja of Burdwan. Gopi Mohun Tagore bought the China Bazaar and established the New China Bazaar in 1808 (Seton-Kerr, Selections, Vol. IV, 432–33). Bengali merchants and landlords owned most of the forty markets in the city in the second half of the nineteenth century. For more on this see Dasgupta, ‘A City Away from Home.’28 Kalikata Street Directory, 1915.29 Darukhanawala, Parsi Lustre, 227.30 Parsi entrepreneur Kekhashru Jamshedji Mody (1861–1928) had a business network of cotton mills, insurance company, hotels in Bombay, Poona, and Delhi and wine retail shop, mineral water factory in Poona. The firm of Messrs Sorabji Pestonji & Co, supplied the provisions and stores to Edward VIII during his stay in Bombay in 1875 (Darukhanawala, Parsi Lustre, 398). Edulji Bhikaji Nakra opened a wine and provision store in the Singareni Collieries in 1896 named B.E. Nakra & Sons followed in 1906 by Bhikaji Dadabhai & Co, and had extensive business across the Deccan in Warangal, Nalgonda, Nizamabad, Bidar, Raichur, Karimnagar, and Kopbal Districts. In 1934 Edulji Nakra started The Elite Wine and General Stores in Secunderabad catering to European customers (Darukhanawala, Parsi Lustre, 649–50).31 Furedy, ‘British Tradesmen of Calcutta 1830–1900.’32 The examples are numerous. In 1812 Lady Nugent noted that the breakfast service at the Lucknow Nawab’s palace was Colebrookdale china (Cohen, Lady Nugent’s East India Journal, 136). Afterwards Lady Nugent sent him ‘a present of a dessert service, of Colebrooke Dale china, each piece painted differently, and all highly gilt, with three dozen tea cups – they are very showy, and I dare say will please him very much, particularly as I did not see anything of the sort among his English china at Lucnow’ (153). For discussion of interiors with European furnishing see Jaffer, ‘Indo-Deco’; Ahlawat, ‘Empire of Glass’; Chattopadhyay, ‘Goods, Chattels and Sundry Items’, and ‘The Other Face of Primitive Accumulation.’33 There are frequent mentions of tinned biscuits, butter, jams and preserves in Bengali memoirs of elite households such as the Tagores from the 1870s onwards. We know from a description of a boat trip from Calcutta to Benaras taken by Rwitendranath Tagore that canned provisions – fish, vegetables, milk, cocoa – were taken along with grains, lentils, tea, butter, etc. to prepare meals. For special events in which Europeans were invited the meals were catered by European tavern owners and food suppliers (Tagore, ‘Jalpathe Kashi Jatra’).34 Calcutta Gazette, Aug 9, 1787.35 Ibid.36 Calcutta Gazette, June 8th 1786. Seton-Karr, Selections from the Calcutta Gazettes, Vol. I, 170–171.37 Milburn, Oriental Commerce, Vol. II, 123.38 Some commission agents, such as Morgan, Williamson, Davidson, and Co., sent their own boats upcountry once each month from Calcutta to Futtyghur to supply residents and retailers who did not have their own agents in Calcutta, at the same rate as they would do in the Commission Warehouse in Calcutta, with the additional information about how such shipment could be insured. Calcutta Gazette, Oct 18, 1787.39 Milburn, Vol. II, 123.40 Ibid., 123.41 Raphael, The Promise of the Foreign.42 Preserving fish by smoking and salting had been practiced by Indians in coastal areas of the subcontinent for centuries. In Hugli, the Dutch used timber brought from Batavia to manufacture wooden casks for storing the salted pork they produced downstream at Baranagar (Temple, 1911: 41).43 Hobbs, John Barleycorn Bahdaur, 103-4.44 Calcutta Gazette, 18th Nov 1806. Sandeman, Selection from the Calcutta Gazettes, Vol. IV: 422.45 Calcutta Gazette, 9th Aug, 1814. Sandeman, Selections, Vol. IV, 454–55.46 Ibid., 455.47 Havell advertised in the Calcutta Gazette.48 Mrs. Latimer, Journal, 1936.49 Accounts of Lord Wellesley’s Table Expenses, 1804.50 Writing c1880 Eliot James remarked that all English vegetables flourished well ‘with proper care and attention’: ‘We brought out plenty of vegetable seeds with us, peas, beans, radishes, &c., and they all did well, especially the peas. We had nearly a quarter of an acre planted with melons, green-fleshed, pink-fleshed, and yellow-fleshed, and delicious eating they were, more particularly after they had been iced … . Vegetable-marrows, cucumbers – trained to hang down from sticks – tomatoes, capsicums, chillies, egg-plants and cabbages, spinach and lettuces, and plenty of native products, yams, bringals (sic), and Indian corn’ (A Guide to Indian Household Management, 64-65). Wyvern included some more including asparagus, artichokes, watercress, some of which required ‘growing in the hills’ (Wyvern, Culinary Jottings, 127-8, and passim).51 Garrett, Morning Hours in India, 46-47. Annual Reports of Horticulture and Botanic Gardens in India carried lists of people and institutions to whom seeds were distributed. See for example, Nathaniel Wallich's report on the Calcutta Botanic Gardens, British Library, IOR/P/13/36 7 Apr 1841 Nos 26-32, 1840-1841. For examples of private correspondences regarding distribution of seeds, see for example, Letter from William Carey, 1824, British Library, Mss Eur C583.52 Garrett, Morning Hours, 14.53 Some of the most popular ones that went through multiple editions were Gollan’s Indian Vegetable Garden; Landolicus, The Indian Amateur Gardener; Grindal, Everyday Gardening.54 Major C. Dutton writing in 1882 remarked that it is ‘essential to keep up a garden for the sake of the vegetables’ (Life in India, 68), and his sentiments were repeated in various details in advice to Englishmen and women; see Steel and Gardiner, 130; Garrett, 11.55 Steel and Gardiner, Complete Indian Housekeeper, 131.56 Clutterbuck, In India, 241.57 James, A Guide, 64; Cuthell, My Garden in the City of Gardens, 219.58 Calcutta Gazette, Thu May 31, 1787.59 Calcutta Gazette, Jan 1814. For long river voyages, the pinnace would be exclusively used for food storage and preparation, while other larger boats were used for dining, sleeping and resting. See Mrs. Deane, Tour Through the Upper Provinces, for example.60 A Lady Resident, The Englishwoman in India, 89–93.61 Steel and Gardiner, Complete Indian Housekeeper, 148, 156. Also see Hull, European in India, 154–55.62 Steel and Gardiner suggested preserved haricot beans and the French product, Chollet’s compressed vegetables for the march (151).63 Ibid., 150-1.64 Examples are numerous. For a particularly interesting notes see Tisdall, Mrs. Duberly’s Campaign, 178, 184.65 Steel and Gardiner, Complete Indian Housekeeper, 151.66 Mrs. Latimer, ‘To Nathia Gate,’ April 14, 1918.67 Steel and Gardiner, Complete Indian Housekeeper, 152.68 See for example, Steel and Gardiner, Complete Indian Housekeeper, 152; Vansittart, From Minnie, 57; Mrs Deane, Tour Through the Upper Provinces, 2.69 Garrett, Morning Hours, 35.70 Vansittart, From Minnie with Love, 136. Eliot James’s estimation of wine, beer and incidentals for her household in Multan in the 1880s is comparable (37), but this she thought was without undue economy or hardship.71 James, A Guide, 73.72 Steel and Gardiner, Complete Indian Housekeeper, 14; Garrett, Morning Hours, 14.73 Wyvern, Culinary Jottings, 28.74 Ibid., 28–29. Other bottled items he recommended included ‘a little bottled of American ‘Tabasco’, ‘Messers Brand & Co.’s preparations for invalids, potted meats, soups, and strong essences of beef, chicken, &c., Harvey’s sauce, Moir’s sauces, Reading sauce, Sutton’s ‘Empress of India’ sauce, and mushroom and walnut ketchup, tomato preserve, caviar, olive farcies, and anchovies in oil (28, 35).75 Major Dutton, writing in 1882 remarked: ‘One cannot avoid having a great many tinned things, owing to the difficulty of making a really good dinner without them … . At dinner-parties the fish would be tinned, the bacon, the pâté de foie gras, asparagus and cheese, if all these things were used, and maybe others as well’ (100–101). See Roy on the status of curried soups in ‘Some like it hot’, 68–70.76 Hobbs, John Barleycorn Bahadur, 158.77 Chattopadhyay, ‘Goods, Chattles and Sundry Items’, 257; Collingham, Taste of Empire, 183–84. See Wyvern, Culinary Jottings, 25–6.78 Wyvern, Culinary Jottings, 500.79 Blanchard, Yesterday and Today in India, 45.80 Wyvern, Culinary Jottings, 286.81 Pinkham, A Bungalow in India, 44.82 Wyvern, Culinary Jottings, 16, 28, 273. The same advice was given about ‘spices’ that were supposed to be doled out to the cook in ‘atoms’ (16).83 Auction notice in the Calcutta Gazette, April 1st, 1784. Seton-Karr, Selections, Vol. 1, 34.84 Hobson-Jobson, however, has an entry for godown.85 As for example see Coatman, Portrait of an Englishwoman. Eliot James wrote ‘you will have somewhere in your bungalow, perhaps in a corner of your verandah a storeroom, called by natives a godown’ (61).86 Calcutta Gazette, June 10, 1790.87 Calcutta Gazette, Feb 7, 1790.88 For discussion of godowns in nineteenth-century Canton and Shanghai see Roskam, ‘The Architecture of Extraterritoriality’.89 Calcutta Gazette, April 15th, 1784. Seton-Karr, Selections, Vol. I, 40.90 Calcutta Gazette, Thu June 29, 1797.91 Calcutta Gazette, April 22nd 1784. Seton-Karr, Selections, Vol. I, 41.92 Calcutta Gazette, 28th June 1809, Sandeman, Selections, Vol. IV, 436.93 Temple, Diaries of Streynsham Master, 213.94 The godown as rental space is common in probate inventories of Indians in the nineteenth century.95 Calcutta Gazette, 7th May 1814. Sandeman, Selections, Vol. IV, 454.96 Chattopadhyay, Representing Calcutta, 97.97 Servants Account Book, 1804 and 1805.98 A century later the suite of servants needed to manage a vastly larger Viceroy’s palace in New Delhi was more extensive, their jobs redefined and their offices had different nomenclature. Headed by the Comptroller’s Department, the top positions in the hierarchy remained in European hands (Monteath, Notes for the Viceroy Elect, 31st Dec 1930).99 Mrs. Deane, Tour Through the Upper Provinces, 95.100 ‘Plans of Jails, Cutcheries, Circuit Houses, &c., in the Lower Provinces’, 1823.101 James, A Guide, 62.102 Mrs. Deane, Tour Through, 98.103 Plan of Lieut.-Colonel W.R. Gilbert's bungalow at Hazaribagh, c 1825.104 Vansittart, From Minnie, 118.105 Table Expenses for the Month of June 1798.106 Atkinson, Curry and Rice, np.107 Estate of Robert Dunlop, 1859.108 Lady Wilson, After Five Years in India, 50.109 Garrett, Morning Hours, 10. Other advice included ‘pieces of rag soaked in margosa oil’ (oil of the neem tree), Hull, The European in India, 198.110 Hull, The European in India, 85.111 Coatman, Portrait of an Englishwoman, 39.112 Godden, Two Under the Sun, 58.113 A dinner set, a breakfast set, and a dessert set – ‘if there is any idea of entertaining’--or half dozen dishes to match their dinner set was essential. Of other items, she considered ‘a set of side (or, as they are called here, curry) dishes is almost a necessary,’ and sundry dishes ‘with covers either plated, or the best block tin,’ tea and coffee pots, milk-jug and sugar basin, cruet and a pickle stand, and a set of two muffineers with a mustard-pot, ‘a few gauze wire-covers for putting over cold meat,’ jelly mold, China pudding molds, enameled iron sauce and stew pans, and a ‘patent digester is desirable’. The Englishwoman in India, 16–27.114 Garrett, Morning Hours, 10.115 The Englishwoman in India, 71.116 Estate of John Graham, 5 Feb 1859, 141-143; Estate of Robert Dunlop, Jan 31, 1859.117 Steel and Gardiner, Complete Indian Housekeeper, 2–3.118 Chattopadhyay, ‘Goods, Chattels’, 260–4.119 Steel and Gardiner, Complete Indian Housekeeper, 2.120 Ibid., 13.121 Vansittart, From Minnie, 68.122 Ibid.123 Steel and Gardiner, Complete Indian Housekeeper, 5–6.124 Coatman, Portrait, 40.125 Wyvern, Culinary Jottings, 24.126 Ibid., 26.127 Pinkham, A Bungalow in India, 48.128 Wyvern, Culinary Jottings, 291.129 Steel and Gardiner, Complete Indian Housekeeper, 13.130 Ibid., 67.131 For more on this see, Chattopadhyay, Small Spaces.132 For more on service spaces in British India see Chattopadhyay, Representing Calcutta, and Chattopadhyay, Small Spaces.133 Some of them such as Henry Pattullo linked the prospect to improved proprietary rights in land to acceptance of ‘British furniture and way of living’ (Guha, A Rule of Property, 44), while other hoped English education and Christianity might help the process of dissemination of English tastes.134 Omkar Goswami estimates that ‘by World War II the purchasing power of the urban populace had ‘almost doubled in real terms compared to the 1900–1 level’, ‘Sahibs, Babus and Banias’, 255–6.135 Basu, ‘Patit Daktar’, 4.