EAST INDIAN CELEBRATION -ABBY'S PLATE

EAST INDIAN CELEBRATION -ABBY'S PLATE 

AUTHOR SPEAKS: 

I come from a community called East Indians, an ethnic group of Christians that are indigenous to Bombay or Mumbai. Most people don’t know we exist and get us confused with American Indians or other Indians from the East of India who aren’t really called East Indians. They’re called Hyderabadi, Bengali, Madrasi, etc all based on the culture or location they belong to.

But we’re called East Indians for a reason that’s really questionable. Our ancestors wanted to distinguish between other Indian Portuguese Christians such as the Goans and Mangloreans who were coming to Bombay by the gazillion. So they decided to show their affinity for the British East Indian Company (which had already ceased to exist) just to show that they were the first subjects of the British in Mumbai and that they were loyal, and changed our community name from Portuguese Christians to East Indians. When the application was made to the Crown to change the name of the community to East Indians, there was another application at the same time for the same name from a community in Calcutta, but that one wasn’t approved and this one was. Still, what a strange way to pick a name!

But anyways, to simplify, East Indians are the indigenous Christians of Mumbai and the North Konkan region of India. If you want to read more about our history and culture, head over to my other site and read the post on the East Indians of Mumbai and about the feasts celebrated by older East Indians, especially the ones who lived in the village of Poinsur.

But I’m here for the food. East Indian cuisine is spicy, tasty, delicious, luscious, mouth-watering, heartwarming, filling, and almost any other droolsome descriptor you might think of.

Here are some of our favorite East Indian recipes. For the ones we’ve not added here yet, just find any East Indian ‘aunty’ or ‘uncle’ (as they’re lovingly called’) and they should tell you. If you can’t find any, well, it’s probably because we are disappearing, isn’t it? If you find them, and they don’t tell you the recipe, let me know and I’ll take pics and write them up for you soon.

By the way, many of these recipes are available in our Abby’s Plate Cookbook Series books. This link will take you through to the list of stores to purchase my books. Or if you’re in Mumbai, ping Dad at 9819691124 and you can pick up discounted copies of the books.

Everything East Indian! Jevayla Ye!