The British Raj

Trade between Britain and India may have begun around 1600, when Elizabeth I granted the British East India Company permission to trade in South Asian spices and silks.

By 1858, India came under the direct administrative control of the British Empire. There was considerable traffic back and forth between the two countries with Indian sailors employed on board British ships on short-term contracts and British families bringing Indian domestic servants such as nannies (ayahs) back with them upon their return to Britain.  A number of Lascars (Indian sailors) and cooks jumped off ship once afoot British shores, and set themselves up as cooks, especially in London and Southampton. 

 

The spread of curry beyond its home in the sub-continent is inextricably linked to the presence of the British Raj in India. Army personnel and civil servants acquired a taste for spicy food whilst in India and brought their newly found dishes home (or to other parts of the Empire) with them.

The British adapted the local dishes to suit their own tastes. Indeed, before getting adventurous with chicken tikka and masala sauce, mulligatawny soup was anglicised, as was kedgeree, which was originally a rice and lentil dish but was adapted by the British to be a breakfast dish containing fish. So it seems we Brits have always enjoyed playing around with our food!

Interestingly, the Portuguese, Dutch and even the French were in India long before or concurrently with the English and yet it was Britain that readily (and headily) adopted curry, not our foreign counterparts.

The rise of the curry house

In terms of modern history the popularity of curry in the UK is surely linked to the rise of the 'Indian' restaurant.  And yet the majority of UK-based Indian restaurants are run by people of Bangladeshi, not Indian, origin. Out of the country's 8,000 'Indian' curry houses, half are in London alone.

Over the years, Bangladeshi restauranteurs and chefs have been influenced by the likes and dislikes of their customers; the Birmingham-based supposed inventor of CTM being a prime example. In fact, they have become so accomplished at modifying dishes according to British taste and incorporating new dishes from other areas of the sub-continent for so many years now, the only thing that is definite about Indo/Anglo cuisine is that it’s pure genius in terms of hybrid cooking.

Certainly, Britain is a richer place, culturally, economically and spiritually because of its immigrant settlers and just one benefit of this is our wonderfully dynamic and extraordinarily diverse cuisine.

Cross culture

Fancy a curry? Ah, those delightfully promising words - oft said and nine times out of ten met with utmost agreement. We know what they encapsulate, too. Something meaty or fishy cooked in a delicious sauce, which depending on individual taste, is either soothingly mild and creamy, nicely infused with just enough kick or eye-wateringly hot and spicy. And a curry just wouldn’t be a curry without poppadums and lager – both very much British additions to Indian cuisine.

Indian food in this country has come a long way since the days of the typical curry house with its flocked paper, table cloths flecked with vindaloo, lager stains, and chicken tikka masala with an alarming radioactive hue…We are now in the lucky position of having some amazing Indian restaurants, including Benares in Mayfair, London, run by Atul Kochhar  - the first ever Michelin-starred Indian chef in Britain.

Curry Mile

Perhaps nowhere else in the country stands as a better example of Indian cuisine than Brick Lane in London and the Curry Mile in Rusholme, Manchester. Known locally as 'Banglatown' and lying in the heart of London's East End, Brick Lane is a vibrant, diverse area especially renowned for its curries. An existing ICON already, click and be transported to one of London’s liveliest hotspots.

Manchester’s 'Curry Mile' is a busy thoroughfare, around five kilometres (three miles) south of the city centre and home to the largest concentration of Asian food outlets in Europe.

From the early 1970s, thousands of migrants, mostly from Pakistan, settled in the suburb of Rusholme. Subsequently, a handful of sweet centres and cafes sprang up on the Wilmslow Road, though the northwest's first curry houses opened in the 1950s, catering to immigrant Asian textile workers.

Now the 'Mile' has more than 50 restaurants, takeaways and sweet houses, offering dishes from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Iran, with an estimated 65,000 visitors a week. There are also grocers, kebab houses, jewellers, and music and sari shops. Muslims from all over the UK come to Rusholme to celebrate the festival of Eid, which marks the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting.