Country Captain, a chicken classic of southern cookbooks, became a staple in my childhood home after Mama read that it was a favorite of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. As the story goes, whenever President Roosevelt traveled by train to his Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia, his assistant would warn Mrs. W.L. Bullard, a highly talented local cook, to prepare Country Captain for the President’s arrival. President Roosevelt’s love of this dish, and later General George S. Patton’s rave review, popularized Country Captain and even assured its inclusion in the Army’s Meals-Ready-To-Eat. Mama wanted to try this dish which came with such solid recommendations.
In those pre-internet days, researching a recipe required going to the library and pouring through cookbooks. But as luck would have it, I was a budding foodie, just starting to buy cookbooks. I couldn’t afford expensive books on the little money I received as birthday gifts, but I was able to scratch together 99 cents to buy the weekly promo volume of Women’s Day Encyclopedia of Cookery (1966) at the local A&P. There in Volume 3’s chicken chapter, I found the Country Captain recipe.
Аlthough most of the called-for ingredients were familiar, the recipe also required curry powder, a spice unusual to Ukrainian cooking, as well as raisins and almonds. So Mama tried that Women’s Day, recipe and it was a hit. It became Mama’s go-to recipe whenever she wanted to prepare something that seemed exotic to her Ukrainian palate and which none of her friends could prepare. It also became part of my beginning cooking repertoire. Years later, Country Captain became my go-to recipe when Weldon and I first started to date. It was definitely a man-pleaser.
Over the years, I encountered many versions of Country Captain from all parts of the world, attesting to this dish’s global appeal. Delving into the history of this dish, I learned several possibly apocryphal tales about its origins which dispute southern claims that Country Captain originated in Charleston or Savannah.
Most food historians conclude that the curry powder in the recipe indicates its Anglo-Indian origin. The dish was probably first prepared by Indian cooks for English officials and their families in India in the 18th century during the British Raj, and migrated to Great Britain with returning military and seamen.
English food writer Jane Grigson in her The Observer Guide to British Cookery (1964) provides the following explanation of Country Captain’s curious name:
“The intriguing name comes from the English habit when in India of referring to anything Indian as ‘country’ (in contrast, often unflattering contrast, to ‘European’…). Country Captains were in charge of country ships, and a simple dish often served onboard of spiced kid, veal or chicken with onions was called Country Captain, too: it was well known by 1825, and like kedgeree was brought back [to England] as part of the diet they had grown used to by returning members of the Raj.”
The Hobson Jobson Dictionary: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases… (1903) confirms that Country Captain “is in Bengal the name of a peculiar dry kind of curry, often served as a breakfast dish. We can only conjecture that it was a favourite dish at the table of the skippers of ‘country ships,’ who were themselves called ‘country captains’… In Madras the term is applied to a spatchcock dressed with onions and curry stuff, which is probably the original form. [Dr.]Riddell says: “Country-captain—Cut a fowl in pieces; shred an onion small and fry it brown in butter; sprinkle the fowl with fine salt and curry powder and fry it brown; then put it into a stewpan with a pint of soup; stew it slowly down to a half and serve it with rice. [in Indian Domestic Economy (1849)]]”.
Dr. Riddell’s 1849 cookbook printed in Calcutta is one of the earliest published versions of the Country Captain recipe. Indian cooks still consider Country Captain a Calcuttan dish.
How Country Captain arrived in the American south and why both Charleston and Savannah claim rights of ownership is a mystery. One view is that Country Captain was brought to the Low Country by seamen in the late 18th or early 19th centuries, and since both Charleston and Savannah are port cities, either city could have been where the Country Captain recipe first landed. However, local historians think that Savannah is more likely the place of landing since it was the major shipping port for the spice trade and curry blends. By the 1800s Country Captain was known throughout the Low Country.
The first known published version of the Country Captain recipe in America, however, appeared in Miss Leslie’s New Cookery Book, published in Philadelphia in 1857. But Eliza Leslie had lived in England for six years as a child; thus, she possibly she encountered Country Captain there. So perhaps the recipe’s southern introduction is questionable. Eventually, the recipe was passed from cook to cook until it started to appear in local church and women’s club cookbooks.
Once Country Captain left India’s shores as part of a cook’s repertoire and landed in Great Britain and America, the recipe seems to have developed along two paths. In England, the Anglo-Indian original version continues to this day as a relatively simple dish containing a meat, chicken or beef or lamb, chili, garlic, ginger, onion and a few Indian spices served over rice.
In America, the original Country Captain recipe which was printed in Miss Leslie’s cookbook eventually took on embellishments. It became a fancier dish especially when it became a signature dish of Delmonico’s Chef Alexander Filippini who advised in his The International Cookbook (1906) that in addition to chicken, onions, green pepper and garlic, the cook should add “a quarter of a pound of almonds… [and] 3 tablespoons of dried currants… [garnishing] with six thin slices of crisp bacon … and serve with Indian chutney, separately, and a Bombay duck head if at hand.” While the duck head was cast aside as a chef’s frippery, Filippini’s other additions were quickly incorporated into the popular American Country Captain recipe.
Аccording to James Beard’s American Cookery (1972), the next American champion of Country Captain in mid-20th Century was Associated Press columnist, Cecily Brownstone, who became enamored with the Filippini recipe but enhanced it further. She prepared her own version of this dish by adding stewed tomatoes and substituting currants for raisins. Brownstone aggressively popularized her version of Country Captain in columns and cookbooks, rejecting other versions as “eroding the image of the dish.”
Nonetheless, the Brownstone version became the general basis for subsequent American versions with some slight modification in each. In The Fannie Farmer Cookbook (1965), Marion Cunningham added bacon, celery, orange juice and raisins to the recipe. The Joy of Cooking (1969) reprints the Brownstone recipe. Nathalie Dupree in her New Southern Cooking (1986) added Hungarian paprika, cayenne pepper and ground mace to the curry powder. However, The All New Joy of Cooking (1997) abandons the Brownstone orthodoxy by adding ground ginger, ground cinnamon, ground cloves as well as chicken stock, lemon juice and dark brown sugar. Lee Brothers in Southern Cookbook (2006) further embellish Country Captain by adding garam masala, carrots, substituting yellow for green peppers, fresh ginger and parsley. But in Flavours of India (1995), Madhur Jaffrey, a US-based Indian cookbook author, seems to abandon the Brownstone version to revert to the simplicity of the Anglo-Indian original by eliminating curry powder, substituting fresh ginger, adding cayenne pepper and fresh hot green chilis in addition to the green peppers, but also substitutes vegetable oil instead of butter with a tiny amount of sugar and white wine vinegar.
In our household, the Brownstone recipe presented in Woman’s Day reigned supreme with one exception: rice was served on the side, not added into the sauce for final cooking. Eventually, Mama dropped adding raisins and blanched almonds and my sister Maria prepares her version without these additions. I prefer the slight sweetness of the raisins or currants (whatever I have on hand) and the crunch of the blanched almonds.
In reviewing various recipes, I learned that there are strong opinions on how the chicken should be prepared for Country Captain. Some recipes, like Woman’s Day, call for a cut up fryer; others insist on breasts or thighs only. Still others promote skinning, boning and cutting the chicken into small pieces; I prefer using breast, thighs and legs, skinned but not boned because I think chicken cooked on the bone tastes better.
Mama always made Country Captain with McCormick’s Curry Powder. Using this commercial curry makes an excellent dish with a mild curry flavor. By all means, double up on the curry powder if a more distinct curry flavor is preferred. One note of caution, however: Country Captain tastes best with freshly purchased curry, not a jar from the back of the cupboard that hasn’t been used in years.
When I learned that “curry” was a composite spice, I started to make my own curry mixture, so it was always fresh. Switching to a homemade curry mixture adds heat and makes Country Captain more intensely flavored. I suggest you try mixing your own curry powder if you want a more complex curry taste and I provide a recipe for the curry mix I use below.
At the end of this blog, I attach a bibliography for readers who are as fascinated by the history of Country Captain as I am, and want to learn more about how it became an American classic.
Woman’s Day Country Captain
2 frying chickens (about 3 pounds each), cut up
2 medium green peppers, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
2 small onions, chopped
2 ½ cups (one 1-pound, 3 ounce can) tomatoes
½ cup seedless raisins
½ cup blanched almonds
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon crumbled dried thyme
1 teaspoon salt
½ pepper
2 cups partially cooked rice
Fry chicken in hot butter until brown. Remove chicken to a casserole. Pour off butter.
To skillet add green peppers, garlic, onions, tomatoes,¼ cup each of raisins and almonds, and seasonings. Simmer for 5-10 minutes. Put rice in casserole with chicken and cover with tomato mixture. Sprinkle with remaining raisins and nuts. Cover casserole and bake in a preheated hot oven (400° F) for 30 minutes, or until chicken is tender and rice is done.
Serves 8
Homemade Curry Powder
5 tablespoons ground coriander seeds
2 tablespoons ground cumin seeds
1 tablespoon ground turmeric
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons dry mustard
2 teaspoons ground fenugreek seeds
1½ teaspoons ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon ground cardamom
½ teaspoon ground chile peppers
Combine all ingredients in a small jar; close with tight-fitting lid. Use within 2 months.
Makes ½ cup
For more information on Country Captain see:
One year ago: http://www.kitchenepiphanies.com/fish-veracruzan-style-pescado-la-veracruzana/
Two years ago: http://www.kitchenepiphanies.com/spring-beet-salads-two-variations-on-a-theme/