Mudiappa Chettiar ( 1900 -1973 ) ran a successful tailoring centre which catered to the Europeans on Bank Road. There were over 100 tailors with him. Around that time, an Indian named Mell who knew baking and had lost his earnings in Ceylon returned to India and sought a job at Vincent & Co Bakery, Trichy. The owner of the bakery referred him to Mudiappa Chettiar who set up a bakery that sold bread called Gladwell & Company with two friends on Variety Hall Road. Mell stayed with Mudiappa Chettiar. When the bakery shifted to Avanashi Road, the partnership ceased and the new bakery was called JM & Sons English Bakery after the wife of Mudiappa Chettiar, Jebamalai Mariammal. Mudiappa Chettiar and other bakers walked up to Madukkarai with baskets of bread to sell them for one anna per loaf. They bought provisions from TV Brothers in town. The maida which came from Karachi costs Rs.7 per quintal; the coolie charges to door deliver it was four annas per pack. A Standard Vanguard van ferried the purchases every day to the JM facility on Avanashi Road.
The other bakeries those days included Ayyar & Co, Davey & Co (belonging to Munuswamy Naidu, the father of the movie Moghul S.M.Sriramulu Naidu) and Ramakrishna Bakery.
Toddy was used to ferment the batter and young Joseph, the son of Mudiappa Chettiar went to the toddy shop at 6 a.m. to pick it up for their bakery. The bread was ready by 1 p.m.. The aroma reached the Judges at the court premises who would send someone to buy a fresh loaf for lunch.. During the Second World War, JM supplied bread to the army, and trucks picked up thousands of loaves every morning. JM used seven wooden ovens.
The JM English Hotel came up with a couple of rooms and the bakery began catering to Europeans, Government officials and others on a regular basis. They cooked on the railway platform and served food to the defence personnel. Soon yeast was used in the place of toddy. Yeast was expensive, but a baker from Erode taught Jebamalai Mariammal the art of making it. This practice of making yeast continued until Shaw Wallace began selling commercial yeast.
Mudiappa Chettiar and his family worked hard and supervised preparations day and night at the bakery. The entire family including women and children packed cakes during the busy Christmas season. JM catered at the time of VIP visits and the list of people who they served includes Dr.S.Radhakrishnan, Zakir Hussain and Indira Gandhi. The cooking was done at the Circuit House Road bungalow itself. Joseph, son of Mudiappa Chettiar, remembers the visit of Nehru and particularly his tall personal valet who used to go to the market, buy vegetables and cook for himself. The vegetable vendor refused to bill, but the valet paid for his stuff. Nehru is said to have given a tip of Rs.100 per head remembers Joseph. Nehru objected to the use of serial lights that were put up to welcome him on the Nilgiri hills while inaugurating a hydro electic power facility .He felt that our energy-starved region should not waste the same, not even for the Prime Minister.
The cost of a five-course meal was Rs.7 per plate and the entire cutlery came from JM. Mudiappa Chettiar attended on General Cariappa and Kruschev. JM catered at all the church functions and Masonic dinners hosted by G.K.Devarajulu. They trained executives in table etiquette before they travelled abroad from Coimbatore.
A number of military cooks who went to the front during the World War were trained at JM.
The JM family made the masalas for puffs as well. Joseph’s wife Gracey led the way and even today those recipes are a family secret. The Japanese cake, plum cake, apple cake, pineapple pastry and the bean cake were the favourites. The students of Stanes High School, especially loved them. JM home delivered its products too. The employees at JM were supplied with refreshments round the clock. In November, the JM family purchased dry fruits and other ingredients for the Christmas cakes and began the process that would take weeks to complete - just in time for Christmas and the New Year. Lawrence, the grandson of Mudiappa Chettiar, joined the family business in the 70s and has continued to impart training to bakers all over India.
(Rajesh is passionate about his city and is always looking for ways of documenting its history)
