Origin of the Creole Cuisine of the Seychelles (Post 3 of 5- The Indians)

The Indian Contribution

The third contribution, that of the Indians, shaped the islands’ cuisine in the early 1850s when agitation against the slave system began to be heard in Europe. The colonists were being pressured to free their slaves. In 1850 the French and English colonies reluctantly granted emancipation to their slaves.

Slaves in Plantation- For Illustrative Purposes Only

Although they were freed and offered lowly wages, the slaves still laboured under often brutal and degrading working conditions, which prompted them to quit the toiling of the land to seek other jobs such as fishing. Consequently, the landlords being short of labourers started importing a workforce from India and with them came their spices.

This complemented the Indo-Portuguese influence that reached us through through Reunion and Mauritius. In the 18th century, there was considerable trading between Reunion, Mauritius and India and it was from India that several types of vegetables were introduced to these two islands and eventually to the Seychelles. These names of vegetables including bilimbi or belenbi, bringelle or brenzel, carambolle or karambol, margose or margoz, bred moroungue or bred mouroum, patole or patol, pipangaille or pipangay, safran, tamarin or tanmaren, jamalac or zanmalak, jamblon or zanblon, all have Indo-Portuguese origins. Even more interesting, is the fact that around 1690, a third of all the first families in Reunion included mothers were of indo-Portuguese descent. It is likely that the Indo-Portuguese mothers in the first families on Reunion island ‘Indianised’ the cuisine form the start. The mothers were instrumental in guiding and establishing culinary customs. Considering the social situation of the time, they probably passed their culinary knowledge, skills and customs on to their daughters or to slaves who helped them with domestic chores. This initial Indian Influence may have been prolonged and facilitated in the following years by notions of ethnic ‘specialisation’ among slaves: Indians, who were considered skillful and delicate and less hardy that the Malagasies or the African slaves, were most often used to do chores in the house or ‘courtyard’ instead of rough work in the fields. It is therefore safe to imply that the Indian contribution to the Seychellois creole cuisine was two-pronged and started quite early after settlement.

These early contributions were further boosted by a small number of south Indians who migrated to the Seychelles from Mauritius in the 1850’s and started engaging in retail trade. They were joined in the 1880’s and 1890’s by Gujarati traders.

It is interesting to note that, although curries and spices are fully integrated into the creole cuisine, two main sections of the Indian cuisine are not at all featured in the creole cuisine, even in amended form. These are the flatbreads that are characteristic of the Indian cuisine, especially chappati, paratha, poori and naan ,and the use of milk and milk products, namely dahi, raita, lassi and ghee, which is one of the hallmarks of Indian cuisine. Even the creole chutneys or satini bear no resemblance to the Indian chutneys. The Seychellois Creole chutney is usually made either from grated green fruits, vegetables or fish – mainly shark, salted fish and tuna, that have been tossed in hot oil with a dash of lime, fresh chilli and chopped onion. Unlike the preserved Indian chutney which is cooked and meant to be kept for quite a while, the Seychellois chutney is made fresh and consumed the same day. The fruit and vegetable chutney is used as an accompaniment for curries, grilled fish and bouyon whereas the fish chutney usually forms part of a main meal and is accompanied with boiled rice.

Some other dishes that have integrated well, with some minor changes, in the creole cuisine include chilli cakes or gato piman, jellibies or moutay and moroukou or moulouk.

Click here to read about the fifth contribution.