Inspiration: Marissa Nicosia’s modernization of a recipe in the University of Pennsylvania’s Ms. Codex 644 Grandmama Frankland’s recipe book. The manuscript was begun after 1700, but the Oxford English Dictionary shows that curry had made its way into English texts as early as 1598, in Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s Discours of voyages into ye Easte & West Indies. The fact that curry had long been connected to fine dining — the title The Forme of Cury (from the French cuire, to cook) had been attached to a fourteenth-century collection of English recipes associated with Richard II’s court — may well have lingered to make the spicy dish seem more familier.

While Frankland uses chicken in her dish, it was readily adapted for our vegan option.

To make India Curry Cut 2 Chickens in small pieces, wash them very clean, then let them simmer a very little while in water while they simmer fry a few onions Brown in Butter: Then put the Chickens with the water they simmerd in into a stew pan, put to them the fried onions, & one tea spoonfull of the India Mixture, & a tea spoonful of Mushroom powder: & when stew’d enough Serve up. with a plate of Rice boild in the following manner. Wash & pick y[ou]r Rice very clean Then put it into y[ou]r Sauce pan with a very little water over a slow fire, when the Scum rises,  Skim it clean, then cover it up close & let it boil very slow, when t[is] done enough turn it out in a Bason, press out the water & Then Turn the Bason over a Dish & let it come up in the shape of the Bason.

To read the recipe’s three manuscript pages, with a detailed description of what goes into Frankland’s “India Mixture,” click on the images below.