National Curry Week....What is curry's place in UK culture?

[caption id="attachment_1517" align="alignleft" width="225"] 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

Diwali in Trafalgar Square

Diwali arrived in London last Sunday – a week too early according to Susen’s cousin in Kolkata where the celebrations take place on 3 November.  But, as Susen said, we can be flexible.  There are many paths and many ways to celebrate.

We decided to experience the celebrations in Trafalgar Square via lunch at Masala Zone in Covent Garden.  Masala Zone was busy – lots of Indian families there as well, which was good to see. As a restaurant, it is growing on me.  I wasn’t sure at first, or at least just got an ‘OK’ from me – but it fills the existing gap for a mid-market Indian contemporary restaurant offering reliable quality.  Their lunchtime thali is good value for money - £10 for the grand thali, if choosing either a vegetable or chicken main curry.  I did get a little over-confident with my chilli experiments, ordering the masala chilli paneer – only to find the sauce burnt my mouth and I just couldn’t eat it.  To their credit, the manager swapped it for a chicken korma dish without additional charge or fuss.

Trafalgar Square was packed.  As we approached the crowd, a lone bagpiper across the road competed for attention against the Bollywood beat on stage.  It was great to see so many people on an overcast autumn afternoon, but it did remind me why outdoor festivals, particularly urban ones in London can be hard work.  The set up was conventional, with a central stage and screen for the live performances, with various food and other stalls around the edges.  But so many people means lots of queuing and trying to squeeze past people to view the performance.  I am probably just getting old.

It was great to see such a mix of people though and a feeling that it wasn’t just an Indian Hindu event, but something in which everyone could join in.  White women were walking round dressed in saris which almost seemed normal until a woman with Doc Marten boots and jeans on underneath her sari did make me wonder whether I had missed some new fusion fashion statement.  We then discovered the ‘Saree Experience’ stand where women were queuing to be dressed in a saree (over their clothes) which explained the new fashion.  One Indian street food stall was staffed entirely by white English people – which Susen seemed to think was strange, though the ethnic mix had not struck me as anything unusual at all.

Bastions of the British Empire watched over proceedings from their immortalised positions in the square.  I have no idea what Sir Charles James Napier (General of the British Empire and the British Army’s Commander in Chief in India – notable for conquering the Sindh province [now in Pakistan]) and Sir Henry Havelock (British General who oversaw the recapture of Cawnpore during the mutiny of 1857) would have made of the festivities, but I like to think they would be tapping their feet along to the Bollywood beat while the statue of Lord Ganesh looked back at them.  They might even have been smiling at the quirkiness of the big blue cockerel currently installed on the fourth plinth.

It would have been good to have stayed for Anoushka Shankar’s expected performance later on, and I also imagined how good thousands of lights and candles might have looked against the autumn darkness.  But it was time to leave.

We crossed the road, past Uganda House – the country who had unceremoniously expelled all Asians in Uganda in 1972, making the UK the beneficiary of so many skills, talents and hard work brought with the new immigrants who sought refuge here.  As we waited for the bus, the sound of Hare Krishna chanting could be heard, the bagpiper having finished his solo.

I felt like London had come of age, a place where, at its best, you are free to be whoever you want to be.  I’m still pondering the sari with jeans and Doc Marten’s though, but you never know.

Masala Zone – Restaurant Home Cooked Indian Food

Like Roti Chai this is one of those places we have been meaning to try for a few months now and so a quiet Sunday recently saw us taking the bus to the Covent Garden branch just behind the Royal Opera House for lunch. We had also been recommended Masala Zone by one of Asma Khan’s Bengali friends so it was somewhere we had to experience.

Masala Zone has a strong restaurant pedigree with others in its London stable including Amaya, Chutney Mary and Veeraswamy. It has a number of locations in the capital. The restaurant suggests that the best food in India is not found in restaurants but in the home and in the form of street food. The thali, a complete meal on a tray, is the centre piece of its menu and intended to replicate the combination of the home and the street. Furthermore, it suggests that its food is a far cry from that of the average curry house in the UK.

The restaurant has clean, modern lines, and the furnishings are simple but adequate. Unlike Wagamama’s or Busaba Eathai the tables are separate. In the Covent Garden branch Rajasthani puppets are suspended from the ceiling which gives the restaurant plenty of India related atmosphere, character, and colour.

On that Sunday afternoon the restaurant was quiet and we received an immediate warm welcome. There was quite an international clientele with Arab women and Indian families from India, who perhaps were taking economical options after the fall of the rupee.

The menu consists of street food, individual curries, and thalis which are small quantities of each dish presented in small bowls on a large stainless steel tray. The restaurant did have a number of special offers which rather confused us but we stuck to the main menu. Sue chose the Pre-theatre Thali with the Chicken Mangalore and I the Grand Thali with Goan Prawn. Otherwise our thalis were identical. Our thalis comprised rice, chapatti, dhal, cauliflower curry, potato curry, onion bhaji, raita, a small salad and coriander chutney. Immediately we felt the quantity of rice would be inadequate so we ordered more.

We found the thali worked well with well-judged combinations and quantities, rice apart. I found the cauliflower and potato curries to be very good and I could have eaten a lot more in theory. However, my Goan Prawn curry was rather bland and disappointing. But Sue’s Mangalore Chicken was very tasty, judging by the small bite I had. I’m not generally a great fan of chapatis but these were well-cooked and prepared. The thalis were surprisingly filling and we both struggled to finish ours, and weren’t able to tackle any desserts.

I would concur with Masala Zone’s marketing in suggesting that the food is better than that of the average curry house. The service was swift and professional. Apart from my bland Goan Prawn curry my only criticism would be that the breadth of the menu andd special offers might be confusing, particularly if trying to introduce people to a relatively new way of presenting Indian food in restaurants.

Our bill was £42 including service which included two rounds of mango lassis each. We thought it good value in terms of the quality of the food, good service and the location. I would rate it 6-7 / 10, and would suggest it would be ideal for a quick lunch or dinner but perhaps not worth a special trip. However, the chain is exactly what the capital needs to rival Wagamama’s or Busaba Eathai for quality and consistent Eastern food.

Masala Zone, 48 Floral Street, London WC2E 9DA  Tel: 020 7379 0101

www.masalazone.com