[BITList] Fwd: [INDIA-BRITISH-RAJ] Culinary conquest

[John Feltham]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar" <bosham at gmail.com>
Date: 18 July 2009 3:35:59 PM
To: <india-british-raj at rootsweb.com>
Subject: [INDIA-BRITISH-RAJ] Culinary conquest
Reply-To: india-british-raj at rootsweb.com

The following is meant for tickling our 'humorous' bone. Let's
enjoy it without saying anything on the political issues involved
- or implied.

--- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar

Snipped from
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/sunanda-k-datta-ray-empire-strikes-back/364226/

Sunanda K Datta-Ray: Empire strikes back
Even the fish in fish-and-chips is more likely to be Vietnamese cobbler
July 18, 2009

Food has replaced politics as the stuff of revolution in a Britain
that has not known governmental upheaval since 1688. It is the
herald and symbol of social change. An East Bengal lascar who
lost his way in London's East End in the 1920s reputedly asked
a policeman to direct him to where other Indians lived. "I don't
know", the constable replied, "you'd better go on till you smell
curry." Now, one has to sniff for pockets that smell of cabbage
instead of curry to track down residual colonies of Englishmen
lurking in England.

If the British National Party, which made history recently by
sending two members to the European Parliament, were truly
patriotic, it would make the consumption of roast beef and
Yorkshire pudding three times a day compulsory. Sending back
immigrants won't help because it's the natives who now munch
samosas and sprinkle garam masala on lamb. The empire has
struck back; Britain's culinary conquest is nearly complete.

Birmingham once proudly (and profitably) manufactured the
brassware that British tourists bought in Benares as souvenirs
of India. Now, Birmingham demands proprietary rights over
balti curry (usually abbreviated to balti) and calls the city's
Sparkbrook, Balsall Heath and Moseley areas the Balti
Triangle. That's where  a restaurateur with the fine old British
name of Mohammad Ajaib supposedly first cooked  the dish
in 1977 in a flat-bottomed two-handled iron pot. The pictures
I have seen suggest a tawa or wok rather than a balti (bucket)
but tawa or wok curry doesn't sound as exotic. It doesn't echo
the wild romance of Baltistan.

The town council is now considering filing a legal claim for
trademark protection. If it succeeds, woe betide the restaurant
that dares to serve balti without acknowledging its debt to
Birmingham.

Unorthodox origins are not unusual. The world owes chop suey
to a thrifty and resourceful Chinese American cook who didn't
want to throw away the day's leftovers. The Bengali sweet ledikenny
was apparently an ingratiating confectioner's tribute to the sweet
tooth of the governor-general's wife, Lady Canning.

A hilarious pageant, England People Very Nice, now playing at
London's National Theatre, finds an equally ingenious explanation
for what is said to be Britain's favourite dish.

According to the play, chicken tikka masala was invented in Bethnal
Green which Bombay-born Mancherjee Bhownaggree represented
in the House of Commons as a Tory in 1895. When an indigenous
customer at an Indian restaurant complains that the chicken is too
dry, the proprietor pours just about every condiment he has into the
dish and thinks up the name on the spur of the moment to uproarious
applause from the audience.

We have it on ministerial authority that chicken tikka masala replaced
fish and chips as Britain's national dish.  The fish in fish and chips
used to be cod which costs £11.75 a kg; now, it's likely to be cobbler
(Pangasius hypothalmus) which is caught in the Mekong delta, frozen
and exported to Britain where it sells for only £5 a kg. My Bangladeshi
friend says Tesco sells three times more cobbler than it does sole
fillets. Soused in salt and vinegar, it may not taste very different  
from
cod.

But as aficionados know, food derives its flavour from accidental
circumstance. Cairo's Shepheard's Hotel preferred chefs with hairy
chests on which rissoles could be rolled. Bengali rossogollas are
best when bound in the moira's (sweetmaker's) sweat. Similarly,
the taste of fish and chips came not from fish, chips, salt or vinegar,
but the grimy newspaper in which it was wrapped. Styrofoam boxes
are tasteless. [snip]
=======================


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ooroo

Bad typists of the word, untie.