[Magdalen] Indian (and other) English

Grace Cangialosi gracecan at gmail.com
Mon Mar 2 18:57:56 UTC 2015


Funny, but growing up with a mother who loved her pressure cooker and used it to make wonderful beef stew and pot roast and other meals, it never occurred to me that there was anything to be afraid of. I still have the one I received as a wedding present, though I don't use it much anymore.
I do remember the injunction not to cook dried beans or spaghetti in it, because the skins or the fine noodles could clog the valve, but that was all.
I did have the safety valve implode once when I was cooking something...don't remember the circumstances now. But I just replaced the valve and bought an extra, just in case. I think maybe the earlier models didn't have the relief valve.
I've always used the Mirro brand.

On March 1, 2015, at 10:43 PM, Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:

After working so much with many Indian doctors and nurses , I developed a
positive fondness for the peculiarities of Indian English, which is as
different from American or British English as they are from one another. I
often peruse Indian cooking and other sites and I just came across an
expression I hadn't seen before. I am familiar with one expression which is
used frequently to describe the process of heating mustard seeds in oil
until they make a spluttering noise, which is always written in recipes,
"Splutter the mustard." That always makes me smile, but this one made me
laugh out loud. Indian cooks have a love affair with their pressure
cookers. I don't....I'm scared to death of them....but I was reading a
recipe today for dal which included the phrase "Pressure to four whistles."
It makes sense, of course, but verbing sure does weird language.....and
Indian English verbs a LOT!


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