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    Of incognito ice-creams and subversive menus

    Synopsis

    Chou En Lai had reason to be suspicious judging by what Nehru served him in ’54.

    Ice creamGetty Images
    A whimsical tweet by a former Indian foreign secretary this week of the menu of a banquet for visiting Chinese Premier Chou En Lai in New Delhi in 1954 may throw some light on subsequent unfortunate events between the two countries. Given that he and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru formulated the tenets of Panchsheel that year, the wishy-washy banquet may have initially given the Chinese leader some reason to be smug.

    After all, if the Kashmiri classic roghan josh could be altered to chicken from mutton by the Indian side for that banquet, why should the Macartney-McDonald line—or even the McMahon Line—be considered sacrosanct? But the presence of prawn mayonnaise on the menu-—ostensibly a British colonial leftover but with suspicious overtones of that very American concoction called prawn cocktail—could have made Premier Chou wonder whether Nehru’s shared apprehensions about the US (as recorded in the minutes of their 1954 meetings) were indeed bona fide.

    It is unknown whether the accompaniments listed merely as ‘potatoes, peas, cauliflower’ heralded the debut of Gobi Manchurian, but the final straw may have been the mysteriously named dessert, ‘IceCream Incognito’, with its covert implications. If what happened in 1962 is any indication, this subversive Nehruvian culinary mish-mash must have left a lasting impression.

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    (Catch all the Business News, Breaking News, Budget 2024 Events and Latest News Updates on The Economic Times.)

    Subscribe to The Economic Times Prime and read the ET ePaper online.

    ...more
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