“Our meat supply consisted largely of the flesh of wild pig, which we did not consider equal to good English pork, so we were very glad when the entertainment was varied by snipe, which are abundant in the wet rice districts and all marshy places in the Eastern Province, sometimes rising in flights of a dozen. I recently saw a letter from this very estate in which the writer describes a sudden arrival of unexpected guests, for whom, naturally, he had no provisions. He, however, went off trustingly to his favourite preserve, and in half an hour returned, having bagged 17-1/2 brace, which enabled him to feast his friends on roast snipe, stewed snipe, grilled snipe, and snipe curry!”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
according to receipt No. 60. Fry two pounds of pork chops cut from the loin, brown in a very little butter, pour off all the grease, add to them half a pint of Spanish sauce, and a tablespoonful of curry powder mixed smooth with two tablespoonfuls of cold water; cover the sauce-pan, and simmer the chops for fifteen minutes; then dish them in a wreath on a hot platter, pour the sauce on the bottom of the dish, and fill the centre with rice. 60. =Boiled Rice.=--Wash a quarter of a pound of rice in plenty of cold water, put it into a quart of boiling water with a tablespoonful of salt, and boil it fast for twenty minutes; shake it out into a colander, drain it, and shake it from the colander into the centre of the dish of chops; do not stir it with a spoon. 61.
Sources: The passage is from C. F. (Constance Frederica) Gordon Cumming, Two happy years in Ceylon, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Corson, The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical of 1877, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — burgundy cloth, boar stamp.