On visiting the UK for the first time a few years ago, some English friends of mine decided to take me out for a “typically British” meal. I don’t know what I was expecting, roast beef with Yorkshire puddings or bangers and mash, but imagine my surprise when the most typical national meal they could think of was curry and lager!
This intrigued me, and I decided to find out more. The UK must be onto a good thing if it’s even got to the point where the then Foreign Secretary Robin Cook hailed chicken tikka masala as ‘Britain’s true national dish’ in 2001. As I looked further into the creation of this popular dish, I was bemused to find out that legend has it created in a Glasgow curry house in the 1950s or 1960s, when an obstinate customer insisted on having his tandoori chicken served with gravy. As the tale goes, the chef added a tin of Campbell’s tomato soup, some yoghurt, a few spices, and voila! A national favourite was born! Apparently, Sainsbury’s even has a popular range of chicken tikka masala flavoured goods including pasta sauce, crisps, pizza, and chicken kiev. Marks and Spencer’s is renowned for their chicken tikka masala sandwiches. Talk about fusion food! These days, a typical hamper UK can be packed with a blend of flavours from the world over – even Eastern Europe meets India with a chicken tikka masala kiev! (Or is that a chicken kiev tikka masala?)
It’s not just the now ubiquitous chicken tikka masala either, and the appeal of the ‘strong, penetrating spices and herbs’ of Indian cuisine, according to The Guardian food critic Colin Spencer, has carried over to British preparation of many forms of fish, meat and vegetables. Sweetmeats such as “kul-kuls” and “rose-cookies” are now included in the gamut of traditional Christmas food favourites, and Anglo-Indian food tends towards the use of coconut, almonds and yoghurt in general.
Apparently, the cross-cultural culinary experience was one of exchange, and the advent of beetroot, amongst other European foods, in the Indian culinary hamper is due to the British.
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