A PINCH OF CURRY POWDER [To the Editor of the
SPECTATOR.]
SIR, In your issue of May 2nd you publish a very valuable letter of Sir Robert Peel to Lord Francis Egerton, dated December 11th; 1845. In your comment you ask if the " curry powder " referred to is merely a playful reference to Indian corn or not.
It seems an established fact that Norfolk's thirteenth Duke advised his tenants to try curry powder in hot water as an antidote to hunger. Spencer Walpole mentions this in Vol. V. of his History of England, page 130, and refers to the Times of December 10th, 1845.
The pages of the contemporary numbers of Punch are full of references to the grim suggestion. At the end of 1846 there is a notice of the " Duke of Norfolk's Cookery." In January, 1846, a poem entitled " Ye Peasantry of England," and dedicated to the Duke, recommends :- "When hunger rages fierce and strong To the curry powder go."
Punch also remarks in the same issue : " The second title of
the Norfolk Family is that of Earl of Surrey. We understand that the present head of the illustrious race intends to change Surrey into Curry,' for he insists that the latter was the original title of which the former is merely a corruption."—I
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