When a Queen of Cooch Behar Took One of Her Cooks to Alfredo Alla Scrofa

During the time of the colonial rule in India, the princely states were under the indirect rule of the British government and ruled by the local rulers on certain terms and conditions. There were some princely states which patronised European culture and cuisine. Princess Indira Raje of Baroda was married into the royal family of Kooch Behar in July 1913 discreetly in London without any blessings of the princess's mother. Indira Raje was engaged to be married to Madho Rao Sindhia, the Maharaja/ ruler of Gwalior. But the daring Indira refused to be his second wife and besides, found her suitor. Maharani Gayatri Devi, one of the daughters of Maharani Indira Devi in A Princess Remembers: The Memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur recalls that the biggest objection the royal parents of Princess Indira had to accepting the relationship between their daughter and the prince of Kooch Behar was that they believed that the princely state of Kooch Behar was heavily and distastefully westernized. 

They led a purely ''social" life, mixing with Edwardian society and entertaining streams of Western guests, ranking from royalty downwards, at home in Cooch Behar. By 1911 they had a reputation in India for unorthodox and wild behaviour which was certainly not calculated to appeal to my austere Baroda grandfather.   

However, just before the birth of the couple's child when Indira fell gravely ill, Indira's mother relented and with the intention of reconnecting with her daughter sent a Maratha cook to Kooch Behar so that the daughter could once again enjoy all the delectable Baroda dishes that she suspected that her daughter must be yearning for. Therefore, the princely family of Kooch Behar had one cook to prepare English dishes, one for Bengali food and another specializing in Maratha cuisine. Each had his own kitchen and a number of assistants. This arrangement accorded a very eclectic atmosphere to the royal kitchen of Kooch Behar. Typically, a princess from one kingdom engaged to marry a prince from another would join his realm, accompanied by a variety of people ranging from her personal attendants to cooks which provided opportunities for the intermingling of different cultures. For instance, macaron was introduced to France from one of its neighbouring countries, Italy when in 1533 Catherine de' Medici (the great granddaughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent) after her marriage to the future king of France, Henry II brought her cook as well as part of her retinue.   

Gayatri Devi while speaking of her mother adds,

She was a great gourmet, and any new gastronomic discovery was greeted with rapture. She encouraged her cooks to experiment and introduced them to all kinds of unfamiliar dishes. On one occasion she took one of our cooks to Alfredo's in Rome because she wanted him to understand what Alfredo's lasagna tasted like The cook had been a teetotaller, but in Italy she kept insisting, "Yon must have the wine, it goes with the food "

Thus, as Lizzie Collingham explains in her work, Curry, A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors (2005) that some princely states successfully assimilated European culture which was not very flattering to the British in British India, since their principal ideological rationale behind the colonial conquest of India was entirely based on the contention that Indian society was an uncivilized one and backward in nature and that it needed to be civilized, but Indians were incapable of achieving civilization on their own and so, it was the white man's burden to civilize such societies. However, when these resourceful wealthy princely kingdoms began to outdo the British on their own ground, it became extremely disdainful for them to acknowledge it.   

Notes

Alfredo's in Rome is renowned for its most celebrated dish, Fettuccine Alfredo. It was created in the early 20th century by an Italian restauranteur named Alfredo de Lelio. His restaurant was called Alfredo alla Scrofa in Central Rome. Now there are many Alfredo's. The original Italian recipe is different from how it is prepared in the United States. While the Italian Alfredo pasta requires only three ingredients: fettuccine (a type of pasta lunga or long pasta), butter and parmigiano reggiano (the king of cheeses and it originally comes from Parma, a city in Emilio Romagna), cream is typically added to American Alfredo pasta. Alfredo sauce, now available in Indian markets too, has ingredients such as heavy cream, milk, and cheese like parmesan (in the USA, the Italian cheese parmigiano reggiano is known as parmesan), mozzarella, etc. to it.