Uploaded December 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Welcome friends, and welcome back to Sunday Morning and the Old Cookbook Show. Today, we’re cooking a full Victorian-era Indian feast—exactly as it would have been prepared in England in the late 1800s.
Using two editions of “High Class Cookery Recipes” (published in 1902 and 1906, with recipes dating back to 1886), we explore how curry evolved in Britain during the height of the British Empire. This episode features both a Bengal meat curry and a vegetable curry, cooked using period-appropriate techniques, ingredients, and assumptions—lots of butter, gentle heat, and an unmistakably English interpretation of Indian flavours.
Before cooking, we take a step even further back in time to Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (first published in 1747). This groundbreaking book contains the first known curry recipe printed in the English language, titled “To Make a Curry the India Way.” While it barely resembles what we’d call a curry today, it marks the beginning of curry’s long journey into British kitchens.
Along the way, we talk about:
The anglicisation of curry in 18th–19th century England
Why rabbit, beef, and veal appear so often in historic curry recipes
The rise of commercial curry powders and pastes in Edwardian Britain
Butter vs ghee, low-and-slow braising, and period cooking methods
The Columbian Exchange and how chilies, potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers reshaped Indian cuisine
What “authentic” really means when food travels across cultures and centuries
This is not modern takeaway curry—it’s lighter, sweeter, cinnamon-forward, and deeply tied to its time. To enjoy it, you have to meet it where it is: 1886 England, not 2025.
If you love food history, vintage cookbooks, Victorian recipes, or historical cooking experiments, you’re in the right place. Pull up a chair, pour a cup of tea, and let’s curry like it’s 1886.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts—especially on authenticity, history, and how cuisines evolve—down in the comments.
Thanks for stopping by. See you again soon.
Bengal Curry:
Ingredients.
Two pounds of Meat-Chicken, Veal, Beef, or Rabbit.
Six Onions.
One Clove Garlic.
Two Cardamoms.
One inch of Cinnamon.
One tablespoonful of Curry Powder.
One tablespoonful of Curry Paste.
Quarter of a pound of Butter.
Lemon-juice.
Salt.
Cut the meat in pieces; slice the onions and put them in a saucepan with the butter, carda-moms, garlic, and cinnamon; cook all this over the fire until the onions are quite tender, taking care that they do not brown; then stir in the powder, paste, meat, and salt. Put the lid on and let it simmer in the oven. If the meat used is chicken or rabbit, one hour will be sufficient; if beef or mutton, two hours will not be too long; add then the lemon-juice, and serve with well-boiled rice, separately.
Vegetable Curry.
Ingredients.
Two Carrots.
Two Turnips.
Half a pint of Green Peas.
Two Potatoes.
One Onion.
One and a half ounces of Butter.
Half a pint of Stock.
One tablespoonful of Curry Powder.
One teaspoonful of Lemon-juice.
One teaspoonful of Salt.
Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the onion sliced, and fry a few minutes. Then add the curry powder and stock mixed together, the salt, and the lemon-juice, and boil all together for about five minutes.
Have ready the carrots, turnips, and potatoes, cut into small pieces and boiled separately, and the peas nicely cooked. Put these vegetables into the curry and warm for about five minutes.
More info about Hope Air: hopeair.ca
hopeair.ca/impact-report-2024
Here is the link to our Apron: searchandrescuedenim.com/products/s-r-x-glen-friends-chef-apron?country=IO&variant=50865649877152
searchandrescuedenim.com/GLENANDFRIENDSCOOKING
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Join this channel:
youtube.com/channel/UCsU15yvILBmnHPeAf4SFVaQ/join
This channel is nothing without you our viewers! Thanks for watching the Old Cookbook Show and our Historical Cooking.
#LeGourmetTV #GlenAndFriendsCooking
Check out our Aviation and Flying Channel: youtube.com/glenshangar
Welcome friends, and welcome back to Sunday Morning and the Old Cookbook Show. Today, we’re cooking a full Victorian-era Indian feast—exactly as it would have been prepared in England in the late 1800s.
Using two editions of “High Class Cookery Recipes” (published in 1902 and 1906, with recipes dating back to 1886), we explore how curry evolved in Britain during the height of the British Empire. This episode features both a Bengal meat curry and a vegetable curry, cooked using period-appropriate techniques, ingredients, and assumptions—lots of butter, gentle heat, and an unmistakably English interpretation of Indian flavours.
Before cooking, we take a step even further back in time to Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (first published in 1747). This groundbreaking book contains the first known curry recipe printed in the English language, titled “To Make a Curry the India Way.” While it barely resembles what we’d call a curry today, it marks the beginning of curry’s long journey into British kitchens.
Along the way, we talk about:
The anglicisation of curry in 18th–19th century England
Why rabbit, beef, and veal appear so often in historic curry recipes
The rise of commercial curry powders and pastes in Edwardian Britain
Butter vs ghee, low-and-slow braising, and period cooking methods
The Columbian Exchange and how chilies, potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers reshaped Indian cuisine
What “authentic” really means when food travels across cultures and centuries
This is not modern takeaway curry—it’s lighter, sweeter, cinnamon-forward, and deeply tied to its time. To enjoy it, you have to meet it where it is: 1886 England, not 2025.
If you love food history, vintage cookbooks, Victorian recipes, or historical cooking experiments, you’re in the right place. Pull up a chair, pour a cup of tea, and let’s curry like it’s 1886.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts—especially on authenticity, history, and how cuisines evolve—down in the comments.
Thanks for stopping by. See you again soon.
Bengal Curry:
Ingredients.
Two pounds of Meat-Chicken, Veal, Beef, or Rabbit.
Six Onions.
One Clove Garlic.
Two Cardamoms.
One inch of Cinnamon.
One tablespoonful of Curry Powder.
One tablespoonful of Curry Paste.
Quarter of a pound of Butter.
Lemon-juice.
Salt.
Cut the meat in pieces; slice the onions and put them in a saucepan with the butter, carda-moms, garlic, and cinnamon; cook all this over the fire until the onions are quite tender, taking care that they do not brown; then stir in the powder, paste, meat, and salt. Put the lid on and let it simmer in the oven. If the meat used is chicken or rabbit, one hour will be sufficient; if beef or mutton, two hours will not be too long; add then the lemon-juice, and serve with well-boiled rice, separately.
Vegetable Curry.
Ingredients.
Two Carrots.
Two Turnips.
Half a pint of Green Peas.
Two Potatoes.
One Onion.
One and a half ounces of Butter.
Half a pint of Stock.
One tablespoonful of Curry Powder.
One teaspoonful of Lemon-juice.
One teaspoonful of Salt.
Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the onion sliced, and fry a few minutes. Then add the curry powder and stock mixed together, the salt, and the lemon-juice, and boil all together for about five minutes.
Have ready the carrots, turnips, and potatoes, cut into small pieces and boiled separately, and the peas nicely cooked. Put these vegetables into the curry and warm for about five minutes.
More info about Hope Air: hopeair.ca
hopeair.ca/impact-report-2024
Here is the link to our Apron: searchandrescuedenim.com/products/s-r-x-glen-friends-chef-apron?country=IO&variant=50865649877152
searchandrescuedenim.com/GLENANDFRIENDSCOOKING
Discount code to be used at checkout: GLENANDFRIENDSCOOKING
Buy us a cup of tea: ko-fi.com/glenandfriendscooking
Help us out with a PayPal donation: paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=T4FPGUQABAUTE
Join this channel:
youtube.com/channel/UCsU15yvILBmnHPeAf4SFVaQ/join
This channel is nothing without you our viewers! Thanks for watching the Old Cookbook Show and our Historical Cooking.
#LeGourmetTV #GlenAndFriendsCooking
Check out our Aviation and Flying Channel: youtube.com/glenshangar
