guzis (01/27/83)
My Weekly (Ernest Weekly, An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, Dover) has it as coming from Tamil (S.E. India dialect) milagu-tannir, meaning pepper-water. I vaguely remember reading a short dissertation on the origin in one of the great culinary works (probably Dumas) that the dish was actually prepared by boiling red peppers and water, seasoning the broth and pouring over rice. How it got to become the full-fledged soup in the trip to England can probably only be explained in the way with food the Enlish seem to possess. But wait, my OED (if my eyes hold out) shows an alternate meaning as being "Applied as a distinctive sobriquet to members of the service belonging to the Madras Presidency" Probably an old slang term.