Calcutta: W. Newman & Co., 1879. First edition. Leaves measuring 184 x 120 mm. [12], vi, 451, [1], xii [ads] pp. Publisher's dark green cloth titled in gilt. Some rubbing, and a small stain to upper board. Yellow coated endpapers. Inner hinges expertly repaired. Ink ownership signature of tea planter Thomas Chalmers Inglis (1847 - 1893), dated 1880 in Takdah, to half-title. Also with Inglis' ink ownership stamps to half-title, margin of title-page, and margin of one page. Some foxing. Modern bookseller's ticket to lower pastedown. A Very Good copy . Though Dainty Dishes for Indian tables was popular, running to five editions by 1893 and a sixth in 1908, this first edition is rare. OCLC and Jisc record only four copies: three in the UK (BL, Wellcome Library, University of Strathclyde) and one in the US (University of Pennsylvania).

Dainty Dishes for Indian Tables, which was written anonymously for a readership of Englishwomen living in India, was published at a transitional moment for the culture of the colonial population. After the Company Raj ended in 1858 following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, "There was a deliberate effort to differentiate from the English diet of the Company days, which had a strong sense of Indian aristocratic flavor. There was an attempt to distinguish their eating habits from the earlier English colonialists of India" and to pivot towards recipes that were "more refined, elegant, and sophisticated" according to English tastes (Chowdhury, p. 21).

Twenty years on, cookbooks like Dainty Dishes "consciously advised adaptation of European style of cuisine against Indian style"; however, they were published for a population that "mostly depended on indigenous ingredients and also on native cooks" (Chowdhury, p. 22). In fact, though Dainty Dishes addresses a readership of English wives in India, it was ment to be used by the Indian kitchen staff employed by those women – an Urdu edition "for the use of servants" appeared simultaneously (p. ii). Dainty Dishes, then, illustrates a tension between the English colonist and her context: the book compiles mostly European dishes, but retains some of the Indian cuisine – like curries, chutnies, and dishes made using suji (semiola) – that had already become standard in the British colonial diet. Dainty Dishes is emblematic of a moment when "food became a site of colonial supremacy...The Indian ingredients were adapted to create and re-create a culinary experimentation that gave birth to continential flavor suiting the English taste and satisfying the cultural identity of the ruling race" (Chowdhury, p. 22).

Chowdhury, Rituparna Ray. "The Memsahib and her Home in the Indian Colony," in Culture, Religion, and Home-Making in and Beyond South Asia (2020). Very Good (Item #7952)