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Currying favor with unknowing palates
By Jonathan P Dyson
LONDON - Outside Le Raj, a small restaurant in Leeds, West Yorkshire, is a big,
bold advertisement for new, much larger premises into which Le Raj will be
moving soon. The new place will be called, simply, India - The Restaurant. Just
another indication of the continuing popularity of Indian food in Britain,
right? Well, no, and for one simple reason: the food sold at Le Raj, exactly
the same that will be on offer at India - The Restaurant, is in fact 100
percent Pakistani. The owner is Pakistani, the ingredients authentically
Pakistani; in fact, everything about the place is Pakistani apart from the way
it is branded.
 Countless
similar stories can be found right across Britain, as curry-lovers throng in
their thousands to "Indian" restaurants every night of the week, believing that
what they are eating is in essence Indian food. A total of Stg3.5 billion
(US$5.8 billion) a year is now spent by the British on curry. "Indian"
restaurants in Britain serve 2.5 million customers every week. Two years ago,
Chicken Tikka Masala, invented in Glasgow, was pronounced Britain's national
dish.
Just down the road from Le Raj is Sheesh Mahal, also owned by a Pakistani,
Azram Chaudhry. He neatly sums up the mentality of British curry-eaters: "When
English people come here, they think 'I'll have a curry,' which they simply see
as Indian food. They think nothing beyond that, and then go away happy because
they enjoy their meal."
Liz Foster, 42, while tucking into a curry at Le Raj, said: "I come here once a
month, and buy a Le Raj takeaway once every two weeks. I honestly didn't know
that I've been eating Pakistani food, but I don't give a monkey where it's
from, as long as it's nice food."
The blissful ignorance among the great majority of the British public is
particularly surprising, given the long history of the curry. Few people here
know, for instance, that there is no such thing in the subcontinent as a curry,
and that the word was first used by the Raj as a generic term for any spicy
dish.
Neither is it commonly known that 90 percent of "Indian" restaurants in Britain
are owned by Bangladeshis. Imagining their favorite dishes to be a direct
representation of the food on offer in Mumbai, Delhi or Kolkata, few realize
how the "curry invasion" began in earnest around the turn of the 20th century,
when thousands of Bengali "lascars", employed in intolerable conditions on
British ships, began escaping the seaman's life to start anew in England,
mostly working in the catering and textiles industries.
The development of "Indian" food continued steadily, until it was given fresh
impetus in 1971, when the trouble surrounding the creation of Bangladesh
persuaded many from the new country to come to Britain. This brought several
dynamic and imaginative Bangladeshi restaurateurs to the industry in Britain,
and their influence remains today.
Several elements of the "Indian" food sold in Britain bear no relation to that
on offer in India. Along with "curry", "balti" is another word for Indian food
invented in Britain. Used initially as a marketing tool, actually it came from
the traditional way of serving food from a balti or small bucket with a
ladle, it now appears in menus all around. Meanwhile, masala is used in
multiple dishes, unlike in India. And a curry powder, originally invented for
former residents of the Raj missing their favorite spices, has become hugely
popular.
But perhaps the most fundamental difference between Indian food and that on
offer in Britain is its homogeneity here. As soon as the ploy tried by the
Bangladeshi restaurateurs - to produce a set menu and deliberately brand the
restaurant as Indian - proved successful, the idea was copied right across the
country. Suddenly, a menu featuring some or all of tandoori, Tikka Masala,
Korma, Rogan Josh, Do-piaza, Bhuna, Dhansak, Biryani, and Jalfrezi emerged as a
standard offering, together with set rice and naan breads.
Few of the enormous disparities in food found across India have been accounted
for. This can be largely explained by the fact that the new Bangladeshi
restaurateurs had never been cooks back home, so they felt free to offer
anything as long as it proved popular. Meanwhile, they were astute enough not
to sell their places as Bangladeshi restaurants, but to brand them as Indian,
thereby tapping into the British imagination of exotic, mystical and romantic
India, rather than associating themselves with extreme natural disasters.
Another contrasting element is the consumption of alcohol, which many in India
feel ruins the taste of the spices. In Britain, the majority of curry-eaters
have a beer with their meal, and many go for a curry after a few pints in the
pub.
Despite the overwhelming homogeneity of "Indian" food here, there have been a
few signs, mostly in London, that there may be a growing discernment among
Britain's curry-eaters. During last year's Indian summer, Selfridges, the place
to shop in London, was selling food from India's coastal regions, such as
Magolorean chicken, and the North-West Frontier, including dum ka kid gosht.
Meanwhile, two restaurants in London, Zaika and Tamarind, have been given a
Michelin star, seen as a real indication of culinary excellence.
Restaurateurs have felt even greater pressure to change since a high-profile
revelation that the Emperor of India, in the Lake District, a holiday hot-spot
in northwestern England, refuses to serve Asian customers on busy days. The
management had tried to justify the move recently of turning away an Indian
couple on a wedding-anniversary night by explaining that Asians complained the
dishes didn't have enough hot spices, causing problems at busy times.
Azram Choudhry believes such problems should not occur, as restaurants should
be flexible: "I observe which spices my customers can cope with while they try
them out with their poppadoms, and then decide the nature of their main
courses. Eighty percent of our customers are English, and 20 percent Asian.
Everyone enjoys their food here, whatever their race."
Yet despite the signs of change in the British curry industry, five typical
curry-eaters could be seen when a group of men aged between 28 and 33, on a
stag weekend, walked into Azram's Sheesh Mahal. Andrew Knowles, 30, said: "It
makes a good meal after a few pints." David Downey, 33, agreed: "We're unaware
of where the food comes from, how it is made, and so on, but one thing's for
sure: we like it." It seems that for the great majority of Britain's
curry-eaters, it is still the case that as long they enjoy their food, when it
comes to questions of where it's actually from, they really don't care.
(Trans World Features)
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