Mulligatawny soup

Mulligatawny [ˈmɐlɨɡəˈtɑːni] ( listen ) is an English soup with origins in Indian cuisine. The name originates from the Tamil words millagai / milagu and thanni (மிளகாய்த்தண்ணி / மிளகுத்தண்ணி) and can be translated as "pepper-water", also known as rasam. Due to its popularity in England during the British Raj, it was one of the few items of Indian cuisine that found common mention in the literature of the period.

The recipe for mulligatawny varied greatly over the years, therefore there is no single original version. Later versions included British modifications that included meat but the local Madras recipe on which it was based did not. Early references to it in English go back to 1784. In 1827, William Kitchiner, wrote that it had become fashionable in Britain:

Mullaga-Tawny signifies pepper water. The progress of inexperienced peripatetic Palaticians has lately been arrested by this outlandish word being pasted on the windows of our Coffee-Houses; it has, we believe, answered the "Restaurateurs' " purpose, and often excited John Bull, to walk in and taste—the more familiar name of Curry Soup—would, perhaps, not have had sufficient of the charms of novelty to seduce him from his much-loved Mock-Turtle.

It is a fashionable Soup, and a great favourite with our East Indian friends, and we give the best receipt we could procure for it.

By the mid 1800s, "Wyvern", the pen-name of Arthur Robert Kenney-Herbert (1840–1916), wrote in his popular "Culinary Jottings" that "really well-made mulligatunny is … a thing of the past." He also noted that this simple recipe prepared by poorer natives of Madras as made by "Mootoosamy" was made by pounding:

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