Chapter KAJEE to KEDGEREE of K by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

Bombay alone. This and opening of Hospitals for the sick and starving, within the British settlements, were gratefully told to the writer afterwards by many Mahrattas in the heart, and from distant parts, of their own country.”—R. Drummond, Illustrations, &c.

KAUNTA, CAUNTA, s. This word, Mahr. and Guz. kantha, ‘coast or margin,’ [Skt. kantha, ‘immediate proximity,’ kanthi, ‘the neck,’] is used in the northern part of the Bombay Presidency in composition to form several popular geographical terms, as Mahi Kantha, for a group of small States on the banks of the Mahi River; Rewa Kantha, south of the above; Sindhu Kantha, the Indus Delta, &c. The word is no doubt the same which we find in Ptolemy for the Gulf of Kachh, [Greek Text] Kanqi kolpoV. Kanthi-Kot was formerly an important place in Eastern Kachh, and Kanthi was the name of the southern coast district (see Ritter, vi. 1038).

KEBULEE. (See MYROBOLANS.)

KEDDAH, s. Hind. Kheda (khedna, ‘to chase,’ from Skt. akheta, ‘hunting’). The term used in Bengal for the enclosure constructed to entrap elephants. [The system of hunting elephants by making a trench round a space and enticing the wild animals by means of tame decoys is described by Arrian, Indika, 13.] (See CORRAL.)

[c. 1590.—“There are several modes of hunting elephants. 1. k’hedah” (then follows a description).—Ain, i. 284.]

1780–90.—“The party on the plain below have, during this interval, been completely occupied in forming the Keddah or enclosure.”—Lives of the Lindsays, iii. 191.

1810.—“A trap called a Keddah.”—Williamson, V. M. ii. 436.

1860.—“The custom in Bengal is to construct a strong enclosure (called a Keddah) in the heart of the forest.”—Tennent’s Ceylon, ii. 342.

KEDGEREE, KITCHERY, s. Hind. khichri, a mess of rice, cooked with butter and dal (see DHALL), and flavoured with a little spice, shred onion, and the like; a common dish all over India, and often served at Anglo-Indian breakfast tables, in which very old precedent is followed, as the first quotation shows. The word appears to have been applied metaphorically to mixtures of sundry kinds (see Fryer, below), and also to mixt jargon or lingua franca. In England we find the word is often applied to a mess of re- cooked fish, served for breakfast; but this is inaccurate. Fish is frequently eaten with kedgeree, but is no part of it. [“Fish Kitcherie” is an old Anglo-Indian dish, see the recipe in Riddell, Indian Domestic Economy, p. 437.]

c. 1340.—“The munj (Moong) is boiled with rice, and then buttered and eaten. This is what they call Kishri, and on this dish they breakfast every day.”—Ibn Batuta, iii. 131.

c. 1443.—“The elephants of the palace are fed upon Kitchri.”—Abdurrazzak, in India in XVth Cent. 27.

c. 1475.—“Horses are fed on pease; also on Kichiris, boiled with sugar and oil; and early in the morning they get shishenivo” (?).—Athan. Nikitin, in do., p. 10.

The following recipe for Kedgeree is by Abu’l Fazl:—

c. 1590.—“Khichri, Rice, split dál, and ghí, 5 ser of each; 1/3 ser salt; this gives 7 dishes.”—Ain, i. 59.

1648.—“Their daily gains are very small, … and with these they fill their hungry bellies with a certain food called Kitserye.”—Van Twist, 57.

1653.—“Kicheri est vne sorte de legume dont les Indiens se nourissent ordinairement.”—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 545.

1672.—Baldaeus has Kitzery, Tavernier Quicheri [ed. Ball, i. 282, 391].

1673.—“The Diet of this Sort of People admits not of great Variety or Cost, their delightfullest Food being only Cutcherry a sort of Pulse and Rice mixed together, and boiled in Butter, with which they grow fat.”—Fryer, 81.

Again, speaking of pearls in the Persian Gulf, he says: “Whatever is of any Value is very dear. Here is a great Plenty of what they call Ketchery, a mixture of all together, or Refuse of Rough, Yellow, and Unequal, which they sell by Bushels to the Russians.”—Ibid. 320.

1727.—“Some Doll and Rice, being mingled together and boiled make Kitcheree, the common Food of the Country. They eat it with Butter and Atchar (see ACHAR).”—A. Hamilton, i. 161; [ed. 1744, i. 162].

1750–60.—“Kitcharee is only rice stewed, with a certain pulse they call Dholl, and is generally eaten with salt-fish, butter, and pickles of various sorts, to which they give the general name of Atchar.”—Grose, i. 150.

[1813.—“He was always a welcome guest … and ate as much of their rice and Cutcheree as he chose.”—Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. i. 502.]

1880.—“A correspondent of the Indian Mirror, writing of the annual religious