Chapter PIGEON ENGLISH to PILAU of P by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

confirming Lindsay.

1816.—“We hog-hunt till two, then tiff, and hawk or course till dusk … we do not throw our spears in the old way, but poke with spears longer than the common ones, and never part with them.”—Elphinstone’s Life, i. 311.

[1828.—“… the boar who had made good the next cane with only a slight scratch from a spear thrown as he was charging the hedge.”—Orient. Sport. Mag. reprint 1873, i. 116.]

1848.—“Swankey of the Body-Guard himself, that dangerous youth, and the greatest buck of all the Indian army now on leave, was one day discovered by Major Dobbin, tête-á-tête with Amelia, and describing the sport of pigsticking to her with great humour and eloquence.”—Vanity Fair, ii. 288.

1866.—“I may be a young pig-sticker, but I am too old a sportsman to make such a mistake as that.”—Trevelyan, The Dawk Bungalow, in Fraser, lxxiii. 387.

1873.—“Pigsticking may be very good fun. …”—A True Reformer, ch. i.

1876.—“You would perhaps like tiger-hunting or pig-sticking; I saw some of that for a season or two in the East. Everything here is poor stuff after that.”—Daniel Deronda, ii. ch. xi.

1878.—“In the meantime there was a ‘pig-sticking’ meet in the neighbouring district.”—Life in the Mofussil, i. 140.

PIG-TAIL, s. This term is often applied to the Chinaman’s long plait of hair, by transfer from the queue of our grandfathers, to which the name was much more appropriate. Though now universal among the Chinese, this fashion was only introduced by their Manchu conquerors in the 17th century, and was “long resisted by the natives of the Amoy and Swatow districts, who, when finally compelled to adopt the distasteful fashion, concealed the badge of slavery beneath cotton turbans, the use of which has survived to the present day” (Giles, Glossary of Reference, 32). Previously the Chinese wore their unshaven back hair gathered in a net, or knotted in a chignon. De Rhodes (Rome, 1615, p. 5) says of the people of Tongking, that “like the Chinese they have the custom of gathering the hair in fine nets under the hat.”

1879.—“One sees a single Sikh driving four or five Chinamen in front of him, having knotted their pigtails together for reins.”—Miss Bird, Golden Chersonese, 283.

PILAU, PILOW, PILÁF, &c., s. Pers. pulao, or pilav, Skt. pulaka, ‘a ball of boiled rice.’ A dish, in origin purely Mahommedan, consisting of meat, or fowl, boiled along with rice and spices. Recipes are given by Herklots, ed. 1863, App. xxix.; and in the Ain-i-Akbari (ed. Blochmann, i. 60), we have one for kima puldo (kima = ‘hash’) with several others to which the name is not given. The name is almost as familiar in England as curry, but not the thing. It was an odd circumstance, some 45 years ago, that the two surgeons of a dragoon regiment in India were called Currie and Pilleau. 1616.—“Sometimes they boil pieces of flesh or hens, or other fowl, cut in pieces in their rice, which dish they call pillaw. As they order it they make it a very excellent and a very well tasted food.”—Terry, in Purchas, ii. 1471.

c. 1630.—“The feast begins: it was compounded of a hundred sorts of pelo and candied dried meats.”—Sir T. Herbert, ed. 1638, p. 138, [and for varieties, p. 310].

[c. 1660.—“… my elegant hosts were fully employed in cramming their mouths with as much Pelau as they could contain. …”—Bernier, ed. Constable, 121.]

1673.—“The most admired Dainty where-with they stuff themselves is Pullow, whereof they will fill themselves to the Throat and receive no hurt, it being so well prepared for the Stomach.”—Fryer, 399. See also p. 93. At p. 404 he gives a recipe.

1682.—“They eate their pilaw and other spoone-meate withoute spoones, taking up their pottage in the hollow of their fingers.”—Evelyn, Diary, June 19.

1687.—“They took up their Mess with their Fingers, as the Moors do their Pilaw, using no Spoons.”—Dampier, i. 430.

1689.—“Palau, that is Rice boil’d … with Spices intermixt, and a boil’d Fowl in the middle, is the most common Indian Dish.”—Ovington, 397.

1711.—“They cannot go to the Price of a Pilloe, or boil’d Fowl and Rice; but the better sort make that their principal Dish.”—Lockyer, 231.

1793.—“On a certain day … all the Musulman officers belonging to your department shall be entertained at the charge of the Sircar, with a public repast, to consist of Pullao of the first sort.”—Select Letters of Tippoo S., App. xlii.

c. 1820.—

“And nearer as they came, a genial savour
Of certain stews, and roast-meats, and
pilaus,
Things which in hungry mortals’ eyes
find favour.”