Indian food and the British

"Anglo-Indian food was one of the first truly ‘fusion’ foods of the world"

In England the most popular restaurant dish is chicken tikka masala. Marks and Spencer's claims to sell 18 tons of it every day! And it's not even an 'authentic' Indian dish but is a British invention.

"nobody is quite clear about its origins. It is possible that a chef in Birmingham, with too many tandoor-roasted chicken pieces ("tikkas") left over, decided to reheat them in a quick stir-fried curry sauce." SBS

And no it isn't clear who invented it because I saw other stories which said it was Glasgow not Birmingham and another one in which a customer asked for his chicken tandoori with a sauce, so the chef obliged to great acclaim.

The point is that it is a dish that shares a whole lot of characteristics with an Indian dish but which has been changed to suit the British palate. And of course then you have the arguments about whether it is authentic or not. To me it's a bit like arguing about the 'correct' use of language and grammar - it evolves for heaven's sake - and usually from the bottom up not the top down. And even Madhur Jaffrey - who is a supporter of the authentic - has a recipe for it. So if that's not a stamp of approval I don't know what is.

"Our own home cooking of a Thai or Indian recipe may not be authentic, but that only proves our willingness to adapt the ideas of others where it suits us. A fact that may horrify those who demand “authenticity” but suits most of us non-pedants who just want something good to eat. As any cook knows, authenticity varies according to who you ask " Nigel Slater

Mind you Anglo-Indian food, unlike language sort of evolved from the top down or at least the middle down because it was mostly the upper and middle-classes who went to India and brought back their recipes for the foods they were served there.

The real question to ask I guess is why the British should have become so enamoured of Indian food at all considering their own food is usually considered to be bland. It is argued that the British have always absorbed influences from elsewhere. They have also always had a fondness for spice - medieval trade was largely based on the spice trade, and the first multi-nationals - The Dutch and the British East India Companies made their fortunes from it. Britain, of course, had many colonies, but it was India that was truly the jewel in the crown and the one which has had most foodie influence. I think basically the British are interested in other cultures, although they can't help trying to modify them along the way. Nigel Slater, as usual, although talking about the eclecticism of modern British food, explains it much better than I:

"It would be churlish and uninformed to assume that this enthusiasm is a product of our own food not being good enough to retain our interest. Those who peddle that old idea need to catch up. British food has never been more interesting. It is more that we are, mostly, a nation of adventurous eaters. Our appetites are open-minded, our plates ever happy to receive something new. We should not be considered gluttons who eat anything that comes our way, but rather culinary magpies who pick up the best on offer." Nigel Slater

And the same could be said of Australia, Canada and the USA - immigrant nations all of them - and largely founded initially by the British. Immigrants from those colonies flooded into Britain and one result was restaurants providing their own food - initially to feed their own community and to earn a living and in the process introducing the host nation a different cuisine. In the case of Indian food it was also to feed the nostalgia for Indian food of the returning British. Queen Victoria had her own team of Indian cooks to provide her with Indian food. Where she led, the populace followed.

The first Indian restaurant in London was founded in 1810, although it eventually went out of business. In my childhood Veerasawmy - a grand days of the Raj kind of Indian restaurant was still operating in Regent Street.

Today they are everywhere. And in Australia too, although their development here has been rather more recent. There was just one in Melbourne when we arrived here in 1969.

So apart from Indian restaurants, what did those British colonists bring back to England? And they were brought back as long ago as the 18th century for Hannah Glasse has a recipe for a chicken curry in her 1747 Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy.

“the word curry is as degrading to India’s great cuisine as ‘chop suey’ was to China’s”. Madhur Jeffrey

The very name curry is a British catch-all phrase that really, to the British, means Indian food. It is not an Indian word - well there is kari - a Tamil word meaning sauce, but not at all meaning what we mean by it. So yes I guess it is degrading in the sense that it implies that Indian food is all the same, but I don't think it is meant in a degrading way. Although one has to wonder when you see remarks like this one - humorous but a bit derogatory! Though it does indeed demonstrate how much the British have taken Indian food into their hearts and homes.

"I was in India recently and kept thinking to myself 'it's OK, but not as good as the real thing'". Chris Tarrant

Some of the things the British brought back, or sort of invented/modified are:

Mulligatawny soup

"It’s believed the soup was created by Indian cooks for British officers who enjoyed traditional, peppery Tamil stews but would only eat them in soup course form. (The name is an Anglicization of the Tamil term for “pepper broth.”) Recipes for mulligatawny vary widely: curry powder, apples and chicken broth are often added, but Australians sometimes add tomatoes and bacon to the mixture as well." Stephanie Butler, History Stories

I don't think this is something you will find as much now. It featured in my first Indian cookery books, but I suspect you wouldn't find it either on an Indian restaurant menu or in a modern Indian cookery book. The P&O used to serve it on their ships. It's a hot, thickish, puréed soup. I loved it. I see Heinz makes (or maybe made) a version

Chicken korma

"Chicken korma for example, a mild and coconut-flavoured curry that’s a firm British favourite, was actually invented as an ‘Indian dish for the British’ – it didn’t exist before the British settlers went to India!" Estelle Page, Awesome cuisine

I think I disagree with this statement as most sources seem to think it's a mogul dish dating back as far as the 16th century. Mind you the British have no doubt bastardised it into something less grand.

"A noble dish that once graced the banquet tables of the imperial Mughal court, rich with cream and nuts and heavily scented with expensive spice, has become a byword for bland, a “starter” curry, beloved of children and others with unadventurous tastes." Felicity Cloake

Country Captain chicken

This is an old-fashioned British Raj curry - the kind that included sultanas and nuts - didn't like them and thankfully I think they have mostly disappeared. You certainly don't see them around, although Madhur Jeffrey has a recipe in one of her books.

Kedgeree

An aristocratic Victorian breakfast dish - we had it sometimes and I used to hate it, but I like it now. Based on an original dish with a similar name which combined rice and lentils. It is thought that it was invented in Scotland to remind returning Scottish soldiers of India. The British version is based around smoked fish and hard-boiled eggs.

Balti dishes

A modern invention - from Birmingham I believe. A lighter stir fry kind of dish.

Some others are - chutney in all its various forms, piccalilli - a British translation of an Indian pickle, HP sauce, Worcester Sauce, tonic water, maybe Chicken butter cream ...

So where to now? It seems to me that Indian food has not taken the big step up into haute cuisine, high-end eating, though I see there is an Indian restaurant in London called Tamarind that has a Michelin star. But I'm not sure it is doing anything amazingly new. There doesn't seem to be a Greg Malouf of Indian cuisine. Interestingly enough though the film The 100 Steps featured an Indian chef in a French village who seemed to be into India/French fusion cuisine and reaped Michelin stars for it. Not likely in France one would think - but it was a British film. There is not a lot of fusion cuisine in France - other than French versions of couscous. And not a lot of foreign food either.

And why am I writing about the British and Indian food? Well I'm about to go and cook my own very inauthentic version of curry for dinner. And yes I'm calling it curry.

"Cuisines have to change and evolve to remain current. It doesn’t mean that they’re not authentic." Meera Sodha