Curry Week Offers at Marks & Spencers[/caption]I’m sure we all have anecdotes and apocryphal stories about the place of curry in our lives and in the British consciousness. I, for one, could do without any more politicians, when speaking at India-related events, claiming chicken tikka masala is the UK’s national dish. On one occasion a British colleague working in New York bemoaned the lack of decent curry in the US and said after a meeting back in London his first outing would be to a local “indigenous” curry house. By contrast I might miss a roast beef Sunday lunch. I am told that in the past the most junior hospital doctor would be sent out to get curries for other members of their team over the weekend, and use the code 666 over pagers to communicate the arrival of the food. Finally an Indian ex of mine loved Marks and Spencers’ chicken tikka masala so much my suitcase contained 4 or 5 packs on my trips to see her in Heidelberg.
My own personal memories of what is commonly known as curry is fairly limited. We didn’t eat out much as children and didn’t eat our mother’s Bengali food. The common perception certainly until probably the early 1990s was of fairly bland curries, varying only by levels of spiciness, often red-tinged with food colouring, served on a night out with copious quantities of lager and with plenty of poppadoms. This was in an era when pub opening hours were limited and one of the few ways of getting alcohol was in a restaurant. This was infamously parodied in a reverse context by the 'Goodness Gracious Me' team on the BBC in “Going for an English”[i]. Rowan Atkinson parodied the English in an Indian restaurant[ii]. Indian restaurants developed their own style often covered with flock wallpaper.
Thankfully things now have changed dramatically and the old-fashioned curry house is now probably a dying institution being gradually replaced by more upmarket restaurants and cafes. We have reviewed many of these on our blog. What is remarkable is the numbers of Indians, whether tourists or those living here, who frequent places like Masala Zone, Roti Chai and Dishoom. Indian street food has become vogue also, with markets at South Bank and other locations. Food like this is available in India and indeed the UK has taken their inspiration from India but adapted, productised and marketed effectively. Some might argue that overall the “Indian” food available in the UK is better than that found in Delhi. The cultural supremacy almost of Indian food in the UK might be regarded as akin to a form of reverse colonialism - a colonialism that began with the East India Company exporting spices from the Coromandel Coast to the UK.
What “curry”, in its broadest context, has done is to change British eating culture. Most homes have probably tried to make curry – thankfully that is a sea-change from the curry powder and sultanas days of the past – and one’s local supermarket will have stocks of almost every Indian spice. Special trips to Southall, Brick Lane and Handsworth to buy rare ingredients are no longer essential even for Indian families. However, just occasionally we might like to go to Southall or Quality Foods in Hounslow partially for the cultural experience.
British eating culture has changed to such an extent that most are willing to experiment with other cuisines such as Thai, Indonesian and Vietnamese. There is no question that Indian food with curry as its chief exemplar is now embedded in the British consciousness and it will continue to adapt and evolve but as important is its role in changing food culture in the UK more broadly.
[i] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdo79znnHl8
[ii] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4LHLM4WIw0
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