Tiny Histories

by Dixe Wills

  A Mughal emperor fears chicken bones and a Glasgow bus driver makes a complaint

  It’s a peculiar thing that, when sifting through ‘that great dust heap called “history”’, as the politician and author Augustine Birrell put it, we may sometimes come across incidents whose veracity can be counted upon more surely than that of episodes that hail from much more recent times. For example, take the development of one of Britain’s favourite dishes.

  There are two incidents, divided by a gulf five millennia wide, that are said to have combined to create chicken tikka masala. To visit the first of them, we must go back in time to the early 16th century and the Mughal Empire in south Asia. To eavesdrop on the latter event, so conventional wisdom tells us, we need travel back only as far as 1960s Glasgow.

  The tandoor oven was first used in what is now northern India and Pakistan around 5,000 years ago. Made of clay and using charcoal as fuel, it gave food a distinctive flavour. Chicken meat cooked in a tandoor with plenty of spices was a firm favourite five centuries ago in the Mughal Empire, which had expanded to include much of India around 1525. The first emperor, a descendant of Tamerlane called Babur, was a fan of ‘tandoori chicken’. What he was not so keen on were chicken bones, which were just the sort of thing that a world leader might choke on and die of (in that respect they were the medieval equivalent of the pretzel that nearly did for George W. Bush). One day Babur sent a command to his cooks that all the bones should be extracted before the chicken was placed in the oven. This could not be done without dividing the meat into much smaller pieces. The new dish of boneless morsels was called joleh in Persian, or tikka in Punjabi, and quickly became a firm favourite across the Mughal Empire. At some later point, cooks began to marinate the chicken in yoghurt before it was roasted in the tandoor.

  Fast-forward to an Indian restaurant in Glasgow sometime in the 1960s. The story goes that a Scottish customer calls the waiter over to complain about his food. His chicken tikka, he cavils, is too dry for his taste. The waiter takes his plate back to the kitchen and in a flash of inspiration – or perhaps annoyance at this philistine’s lack of appreciation for the dish – he pours some tomato soup into the sauce. The diner declares himself more than satisfied with the revised version of his order and the rest is history.

  One restaurant actually lays claim to being the very locale in which the incident is supposed to have happened. According to one Asif Ali, it occurred not in the ’60s but in 1971 at the Shish Mahal in Glasgow, owned by his Pakistani father, Ali Ahmed Aslam. The customer in question was apparently a bus driver, and the proprietor was suffering from a stomach ulcer and was thus eating some Campbell’s tomato soup at the time of the complaint. Looking down at his bowl, Ali is said to have suggested that some tomato soup be added to the rejected dish in order to make it more moist. Before long ‘chicken tikka masala’ (‘masala’ being a reference to the spicy sauce) was added to the menu as a sop to the British palate.

  Regrettably, this is not the sole tale told about the genesis of the dish. Some claim that the tomato had already been added during Britain’s occupation of India in order to soften the impact of the spices, to which the colonialists were unaccustomed. Owners of the Karim Hotel in Delhi maintain that the recipe has been known to its chefs since the mid-19th century. The city’s famous Moti Mahal restaurant also lays claim to the dish’s creation (dating it back to the 1950s). There’s also a possibility that the dish is a derivation of a recipe for shahi chicken masala published in London in 1961 in a book entitled Mrs Balbir Singh’s Indian Cookery.

  Whoever has the prior claim to the addition of tomato to the dish, it would seem that the incident at the Shish Mahal was the one that set chicken tikka masala on its way to fame. We can also ascribe the ‘tikka’ part to one man’s fear of death by chicken bone. Since that man single-handedly conquered vast swathes of Indian territory, establishing an empire that would last over 300 years after his death, it’s quite impressive that a single order with regard to his cuisine should have made such an impact on modern Britain, where chicken tikka masala now accounts for about 15 per cent of all curries prepared in the land.

  Its place in the national diet was affirmed in 2001 by the late Robin Cook, the British foreign secretary of the day. ‘Chicken tikka masala is now a true British national dish,’ he proclaimed, ‘not only because it is the most popular, but because it is a perfect illustration of the way Britain absorbs and adapts external influences.’ As Britons become more insular and more opposed to immigration, chicken tikka masala may yet prove to be a perfect illustration of the way we were rather than the way we are.

  Mr Bird loves his wife

  It is without doubt a discredit to society – or at any rate to English-speaking society – that the word ‘uxorious’ exists at all. Given the vows of eternal attachment and fidelity that couples exchange when they marry, it seems extraordinary that anglophones have a word that can be defined as describing someone who is excessively fond of his wife, as if there should be defined limits as to how fond one can become before it’s all getting out of hand. (It’s also revealing that no such word exists to denote someone who is excessively fond of her husband.)

  As it is, humanity can be thankful that Gloucestershire-born Alfred Bird not only loved his wife with a passion but also had the wherewithal to improve her life in two very particular areas. The couple lived in Birmingham, where Alfred opened a pharmacy. His wife, Elizabeth, suffered from not one food allergy but two, which was an impressive feat so long before such ailments became de rigueur. For a start, she was allergic to eggs, which meant that, among other foodstuffs, she could not eat custard.

  Alfred solved the difficulty in 1837 by discovering that cornflour made a perfectly acceptable – if somewhat unlikely – substitute for eggs. He and Elizabeth were the only consumers of his new egg-less custard for some time until they happened to serve the sweet sauce to their friends at a dinner party. Such was the positive reception that Alfred got it into his head to market the product. Alfred Bird and Sons Ltd was established and his egg-free custard powder proved a big hit with customers.

  Once Alfred had dealt with the difficulty over custard, he turned all his attention to his wife’s other digestive problem: she could not tolerate yeast, which meant that a great many products from the bakery were anathema to her.

  Alfred went to work again in an attempt to rectify the situation. It took him several years but eventually, in 1843, when he was still just in his early thirties, he successfully developed a yeast substitute – what we know today as baking powder but which he initially named ‘fermenting powder’. Bird’s formula was very similar to today’s baking powders, which are typically a mixture of sodium bicarbonate and weak acid salts such as mono-calcium phosphate and sodium aluminium sulphate or cream of tartar. When in contact with water, the bicarbonate and the acids react, causing the baking powder to replicate the action of yeast by releasing bubbles of carbon dioxide into whatever substance it’s added to (typically dough or batter), thus causing it to expand. Corn starch or potato starch is also added as a preservative, keeping the powder dry until use.

  If Elizabeth had not agreed to marry Alfred and he had gone on to live a life of bachelorhood or had contracted nuptials with a woman whose stomach was not averse to yeast or eggs, the world might well be without both baking powder and custard powder and be all the worse for it. The countless delicious recipes that call for baking powder would be lost to us, and custard would be a treat only served when whoever was preparing the pudding could be bothered to whip one up from eggs, milk and sugar.

  It’s also worth noting that the Birds’ son, also called Alfred, took over the business from his father. He went on to create egg-substitute powder, blancmange powder and jelly powder. Although Alfred Jr’s three substances were nowhere near as ground-breaking as his father’s innovations, they have doubtless brought joy to some quarter or other, the first being particularly useful to vegans.

  A nobleman doesn’t have
the time for a formal dinner

  The knack of being in the right place at the right time is something to be envied. In the modern world, it’s arguably a gift that is more important than talent and nearly as useful as being well connected or, if you want to be prime minister, going to Eton.

  It’s fair to say that, on many occasions in his lifetime, John Montagu (who did go to Eton), was in the right place at the right time but was simply the wrong man, particularly when it came to affairs of state. The political life of the 4th Earl of Sandwich is littered with fiascos so dire they would make any modern government minister proud. It culminated in his mismanagement of the fleet while First Lord of the Admiralty, which played a major part in the loss to Britain of its colonies in the United States (though, with hindsight, that may have been no bad thing).

  Thankfully for him, he had other arrows in his quiver. He was captain of the Huntingdonshire county cricket team. As sponsor of Captain Cook’s second and third voyages, he wound up with a good scattering of islands named in his honour, including two Montague Islands (off Australia and Alaska, respectively, and both with an additional ‘e’), the South Sandwich Islands in the southern Atlantic and the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii). Most memorably, though, he also gave his name to an item of food.

  The popular story told about Montagu’s association with the sandwich is that he was engaged in an epic game of poker one evening in November 1762. Unable to drag himself from the cards to eat dinner, he is said to have asked a flunky to bring him a piece of meat between two slices of bread – a snack his gambling chums are also said to have eaten quite frequently. If so, presumably their idea was that the bread absorbed the juices of the meat, thus keeping the hands clean for playing and saving the cards themselves from being unwittingly marked by traces of blood or grease.

  However, according to Sandwich’s biographer, N.A.M. Rodger, it’s rather more likely that he made this request to one of his servants while diligently working away at his desk.

  John Montagu and (possibly) his gambling circle were by no means the first people to have come up with the idea of using bread as a convenient receptacle for some other ingredient. The Romans were said to be partial to tidbits wrapped in bread, while in the Arabic world, pita breads stuffed with various fillings had been eaten for centuries before Sandwich came along. He wasn’t even the first Briton to hit upon the idea of clapping something in sliced bread. In 1748, a courtesan called Fanny Murray, who happened to include the earl among her clientèle, famously took the £20 note she had been given by one Sir Richard Atkins in payment for her services, slipped it between two slices of bread and butter and ate it contemptuously in front of him. Evidently, she had been expecting rather greater compensation for her favours. Since £20 back then is worth about £2,800 today, she may not only have eaten one of the first sandwiches ever made but also the most expensive.

  On account of Sandwich’s fame – he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty no fewer than three times – his ways with bread became widely publicised and the ‘sandwich’ soon caught on both in the beau monde as well as the lower rungs of society in Britain and throughout the Empire. Today they habitually form the cornerstone of picnics and packed lunches, there are chain restaurants dedicated to them, and there is barely a corner of the globe where this light meal is not known in some form.

  Without the sandwich, there would, of course, be no toasted sandwich-maker. The first one was invented by American Charles Champion in the 1920s and marketed as the Tostwich. However, it was only in the ’70s that Australian John O’Brien came up with the toasted sandwich-maker as we know it today, with its clamp action that seals the filling safely within the bread. The company for whom he set up a research and development wing, Breville, has gone on to sell tens of millions of his product. Thanks to him and John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, people all around the world have the opportunity of biting into a freshly toasted sandwich and squealing in pain as they burn the roof of their mouths off.

  Science

  God bless scientists. Frequently dismissed by a philistine public as geeky, nerdy and socially inept, they nevertheless push daily at the very boundaries of human knowledge, often without tea breaks. However, on occasion their breakthroughs have owed more to luck than scientific rigour; their successes have hung on a single decision made years beforehand; and the one brilliant discovery that has made their name and brought about a seismic change to society has occurred while they were pursuing something else altogether.

  Captain Robert FitzRoy is in need of a dinner companion

  Leadership can be a very lonely place – particularly so on board ship. Sea captains, unwilling to confide in or befriend subordinates lest it erode their authority, can find themselves horribly isolated. In the days of sail, when voyages could last months or even years, it could lead to mental breakdowns.

  While preparing in the summer of 1831 for a voyage to survey the southern coastline of South America, Captain Robert FitzRoy advertised for a young man to join him as a companion. The successful candidate for the vacancy would take meals with him and in return provide conversation. FitzRoy had taken over his ship when the previous captain – two years into an expedition and aghast at the prospect of mapping the inhospitable coast around Tierra del Fuego – had fallen into a terrible depression, locked himself in his cabin for a fortnight and finally shot himself. Having cast around unsuccessfully for a friend to accompany him, FitzRoy threw the net out wider. The 26-year-old captain was keen to have a naturalist on board: someone who could study the land they encountered while he busied himself with surveying the sea. Therefore, he would only accept applications from gentlemen who were students of natural science. In the great tradition of internships – a tradition perhaps more ardently adhered to today than it has ever been – the position would be unpaid. The ship on which the two-year voyage would be taken was the HMS Beagle.

  At the behest of his father – a doctor to the great and the good – Charles Darwin had started a degree in medicine at Edinburgh University in 1825. Unfortunately, he found he couldn’t stomach the dissections that were essential to his anatomy classes – he would literally run from the dissecting theatre to throw up outside. Thus his father reluctantly allowed him to switch to Plan B: a theology degree at Cambridge followed by a life as a parson. Without ever being inspired by his new subject, Darwin graduated in tenth place out of his class of over 150. More importantly, he fell in love at Cambridge: the object of his passion being insects, and particularly beetles. This brought him into the orbit of botany professor John Stevens Henslow. Having graduated, he had another two terms to spend at the university, and Henslow suggested he study geology under Professor Adam Sedgwick. This latter academic took Darwin on a geology field trip to Wales over the summer of 1831 and opened the 22-year-old’s eyes to the importance of scientific theory.

  When Darwin returned home, there was a letter from Professor Henslow waiting for him. The missive informed him of FitzRoy’s need for a dining companion/naturalist and that he (Henslow) had recommended Darwin for the post. The reluctant parson was jubilant and immediately declared his enthusiasm for the project.

  The only difficulty remained Darwin’s father, who was most displeased at the prospect of losing his son for two years on what he deemed ‘a wild scheme’ and ‘a useless undertaking’ that would prejudice his chances of becoming a clergyman and render him unlikely to want to ‘settle down to a steady life hereafter’. Darwin senior told his son he would only be won round if he ‘could find any man with common-sense who advises you to go’. Charles appealed to his uncle, Josiah Wedgwood II (of the famous pottery family), whose opinion his father respected. Wedgwood answered his brother-in-law’s objections point by point and the paternal consent was duly acquired.

  Even so, Charles Darwin still came close to missing out on the voyage, simply because Robert FitzRoy did not like the look of his face. The captain was a devotee of the renowned physiognomist Johann Lavater. In his autobiography, Darwi
n recalls that FitzRoy very nearly turned him down ‘on account of the shape of my nose! …[He] was convinced that he could judge a man’s character by the outline of his features; & he doubted whether anyone with my nose could possess sufficient energy & determination for the voyage.’ Thankfully, FitzRoy overcame his doubts and Darwin was recruited for the expedition.

  The pair set sail from Plymouth in October. After two false starts, when bad weather forced her to return, the Beagle finally made it away across the Atlantic on 27 December 1831. In an unwelcome echo of his days in the dissecting theatre, Darwin was violently seasick for much of the time he was on the water. It was a relief to him, therefore, that FitzRoy was only too happy to allow him to carry out his researches on land while the Beagle sailed about surveying the coastline, returning from time to time to pick him up. This was just as well, because rather than the forecast two years, the voyage would end up lasting for nearly five.

  The Beagle was a little ten-gun brig-sloop, one of about 100 Cherokee-class ships. The design had an unfortunate reputation for being difficult to manœuvre and predisposed to sink – neither of them ideal attributes for an ocean-going vessel. Despite this, FitzRoy successfully sailed her along vast tracts of South America’s coastline before heading home via New Zealand and Australia, arriving in the Cornish port of Falmouth on 2 October 1836.

  Had FitzRoy preferred to dine alone, Darwin would not have travelled on the Beagle. As a result, it’s unlikely he would ever have visited the Galapagos Islands. Had that been the case, he would not have been able to study the Galapagos Island finches. He noticed that members of what appeared once to have been a single species of (what he called) finches differed from island to island in one major aspect: their bills seemed to have adapted themselves to take advantage of whatever food was available at each location. In the second edition of his book, The Voyage of the Beagle, published in 1845 under the less snappy title Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle, etc., he noted: