"..the Glaswegian origin story is definitively a crock of shit."

October 16, 2015 5:15 PM

Who Owns Chicken Tikka Masala? Complicating a popular origin story.
posted by Miko (31 comments total)

Ah well, we'll always have the balti and the phaal.
posted by Artw at 5:26 PM on October 16, 2015

See also this article (PDF) on the history of Indian food in the UK.
posted by asterix at 5:31 PM on October 16, 2015 [3 favorites]

Just so it's clear for future historians, Drinky Die was the originator of General Tso's Chicken Tikka Masala.
posted by Drinky Die at 5:32 PM on October 16, 2015 [15 favorites]

I care about this very slightly, being Desi and all.

But I'm commenting here because more people need to know that chicken tikka poutine exists and it is amazing.
posted by raihan_ at 5:32 PM on October 16, 2015 [32 favorites]

According to the article, the first Indian restaurant in England was opened by a man born before the United States existed. (I'm a sucker for historical trivia like that.)
posted by benito.strauss at 5:36 PM on October 16, 2015 [8 favorites]

more people need to know that chicken tikka poutine exists and it is amazing.

oh i am powerless
posted by Miko at 5:37 PM on October 16, 2015 [4 favorites]

According to the article, the first Indian restaurant in England was opened by a man born before the United States existed.

Who is quite an interesting person.
posted by thomas j wise at 5:43 PM on October 16, 2015 [3 favorites]

But I'm commenting here because more people need to know that chicken tikka poutine exists and it is amazing.

As experienced by a couple of MeFi LA meetups at Badmaash! :D
posted by Celsius1414 at 5:45 PM on October 16, 2015 [3 favorites]

"Yes. Beneath the streets of London is an incredible labyrinth of tunnels and pipes that is comparable with the sewage network in more ways than one. All Indian restaurants are linked to the same gigantic kitchen situated directly beneath King's Cross station. And nightly, beneath London's streets, the Madras flows..."
posted by effbot at 5:47 PM on October 16, 2015 [13 favorites]

The story may be a load of old cobblers, but it undeniably serves a purpose: it's a heartwarming sorry of postcolonial reconciliation, in which the colonised helps their former overlords find their soul and all is forgiven.

The one thing it calls to mind is the Union Jack itself, a symbol created when London ruled over England, Scotland and Ireland (Wales, presumably, didn't count any more than, say, Cornwall, whose unreconstructed language still had living speakers at the time). Anyway, the Union Jack, representing the harmonious union of these three components of the Kingdom, incorporates their symbols: the Cross of St. George, the Scottish saltire, and, umm, a red-and-white diagonal cross which represents Ireland, except that nobody in Ireland had heard of this symbol until informed of it by their colonial overlords.
posted by acb at 5:55 PM on October 16, 2015 [4 favorites]

A lot of the sub-and-pizza joints in my neighborhood are owned by Muslims from Pakistan, and so many of them also serve basic Indian fusion comfort food like chicken tikka masala, palaak paneer, and so forth. And yet, for some reason, none of them seem to offer chicken tikka masala pizza, which strikes me as a dreadful oversight.
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:59 PM on October 16, 2015 [4 favorites]

That's a shame! In my town we have several curry pizza places, as well as chaat restaurants which serve a delicious naan tandoori chicken wrap. Business opportunity, perhaps?
posted by yueliang at 6:03 PM on October 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

more people need to know that chicken tikka poutine exists and it is amazing.

There are no words to express my desire for this, only anime GIFs of people drooling in anticipation.
posted by Rangi at 6:37 PM on October 16, 2015 [4 favorites]

In the neighborhood where I work, there's a pizza place operated by South Asian immigrants, and it's a mind-blowing mixture of American-Italian and American-Middle-Eastern and American-Indian. They also have wings.
posted by box at 6:38 PM on October 16, 2015 [4 favorites]

They also have wings.

The place is run by angels?!
posted by tangerine at 6:54 PM on October 16, 2015 [22 favorites]

And yet, for some reason, none of them seem to offer chicken tikka masala pizza, which strikes me as a dreadful oversight.

I had a chicken tikka masala pizza at some really hip place in Charleston once. It was every bit as good as you would hope.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:54 PM on October 16, 2015

After all, if the UK is to become a nation with a massive foreign-born population, it might be best to embrace the notion of culinary traditions evolving in a perpetual conversation across the world, of infinite multiplicity, of foods belonging to no one city or niche, but being no less British, nor less Indian for all of that. Or maybe it’s a good excuse to scrap the whole tricky, heavy, and sometimes downright silly conversation. Because in the end, one doesn’t need any of that at all to enjoy some saucy mystery meat at three o’clock in the morning.

In Ottawa I came across chicken shawarma poutine. I'm still not right after that, but I would so eat it again.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:42 PM on October 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

But I'm commenting here because more people need to know that chicken tikka poutine exists and it is amazing.

BRB driving to downtown LA to try.
posted by weston at 8:46 PM on October 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

Chicken tikka masala on the same level as Arbroath Smokies, Cornish Clotted Cream, Melton Mowbray Pork Pies, Sherry Downs Jelly Ham, Hampton Freezers, Galway Jingle Steaks, Sussex Waxies, Welton Cream Jugglers, Mancunian Froth Cups, Cornwall Giblet Bakes, Feltzer Ham Whamers, and York Fatted Plug Whistles?
posted by vorpal bunny at 9:08 PM on October 16, 2015 [7 favorites]

Dean Muhammad was in a book I acquired in Dublin called 'Irish Raj' he was a fascinating man. 'Irish Raj' deals with the fascinating ties between Ireland and India. It's quite a good book.
I used to order tikka masala with fried potatoes in London and Dublin. Indians did better with the rice, as did the cheap Hari Krishna run place in Dublin. because badly cooked rice is common even in Chinese run places.
Tikka Masala is a good bit different from butter chicken.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 9:36 PM on October 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

consuming 25 million portions (2.5 billion pounds)

is a portion really a hundred pounds? no wonder my waist is growing.
posted by anadem at 10:43 PM on October 16, 2015 [7 favorites]

I had a chicken tikka masala pizza at some really hip place in Charleston once. It was every bit as good as you would hope.

The One True Curry Pizza is one that uses a freshly baked, but thin Naan bread as the base, and the curry as topping. Sublime, but very rarely available. Perhaps even a peshwari Naan for ultimate drunken sinfulness. Mmmmm. Perhaps this will be how I make my billions.

I was particularly interested to read that the first curry joint (of note - I have no doubt that there were unrecorded others) was called the Hindostaane Coffee House. Interestingly, in Vancouver, BC, the curry place I get most of my curry from is in the Law Courts, and is nominally a coffee shop called Grounds For Appeal, a quite excellent pun if you're a coffee shop, but a frankly bizarre one if you are actually a hole in the wall curry establishment, which it quite clearly is. Still, it is good to know they are, possibly unbeknownst to them, carrying on a hundreds-of-years-old tradition.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 1:40 AM on October 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

The reason I think chicken tikka masala works so well is that the chicken is cooked in the tandoor after being marinated with spices and yogurt, and then the sauce is added: it's already something that could be served but then you add another layer of flavor. The apocryphal story I think gets traction because it explains that aspect in a cozy human way.
posted by graymouser at 3:34 AM on October 17, 2015

I have been listening to a lot of very old English and Svottish songs lately, and have been struck by how thoroughly British folk songs adopted melodies that sound distinctly Indian to me. But, then, the first charter for a British business in India was on 1600, so I shouldn't be surprised. India has been exerting its cultural influence on Britain for 400 years.
posted by maxsparber at 7:41 AM on October 17, 2015

It's a good thing you can't easily patent recipes. Sometimes I just want to eat a burrito without reading an EULA.
posted by mccarty.tim at 8:12 AM on October 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

I had masala flavored potato chips once. They were all right.
posted by jonmc at 8:29 AM on October 17, 2015

Are any of these single point food origin stories ever not BS?
posted by PMdixon at 9:46 AM on October 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

I have often theorised that butter chicken and chicken tikka masala were evolutionary relatives, so that bit of history was worth the article alone.

Also if you're ever in NYC my favourite chicken tikka masala is made by Haandi, on 28th/Lex.
posted by eustacescrubb at 10:11 AM on October 17, 2015

effbot: ""Yes. Beneath the streets of London is an incredible labyrinth of tunnels and pipes that is comparable with the sewage network in more ways than one. All Indian restaurants are linked to the same gigantic kitchen situated directly beneath King's Cross station. And nightly, beneath London's streets, the Madras flows...""

I moused over this link fully expecting it to point to China Miéville's special blog that he uses for drunk-posting in the middle of the night...
posted by stet at 7:28 PM on October 17, 2015 [6 favorites]

people need to know that chicken tikka poutine exists and it is amazing.

BRB driving to downtown LA to try.

Reporting back. Pret-ty darn good.

Also, not a bad place to take a date, if the course of the evening was any indication.
posted by weston at 3:16 PM on October 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

Definitely one of my favorite date spots. Glad you enjoyed it!
posted by raihan_ at 3:24 PM on October 20, 2015