The British have long enjoyed food with a bit of bite. And 200 years ago, an Indian migrant opened Britain's first curry house to cater for the fashion for spicy food
BY BBC NEWS | NOV 30, -0001
"South Asian dishes, in the highest perfection… unequalled to any curries ever made in England." So ran the 1809 newspaper advert for a new eating establishment in an upmarket London square popular with colonial returnees.
Diners at the Hindostanee Coffee House could smoke hookah pipes and recline on bamboo-cane sofas as they tucked into spicy meat and vegetable dishes.
This was the country's first dedicated South Indian restaurant, opened by an entrepreneurial migrant by the name of Dean Mahomed.
But Britons already had a taste for curry. A handful of coffee houses served curries alongside their usual fare, and in the gracious homes of returnees, ladies attempted to recreate dishes and condiments their families enjoyed on the sub-continent.
Food historian Ivan Day says cooking methods also differed. "The British didn't really get the idea of frying the meat in ghee or another fat. Rather than the fresh spices available in India, these had been on a boat for half a year."
Peter Groves, co-founder of National Curry Week, which started on Sunday, says the Western taste for spicy foods developed centuries earlier. "All the spices of the East came back with the people who fought in the Crusades."
The lucrative spice trade prompted various European powers to establish their presence in India, either through trading companies or colonisation.
This "masala" of cultures, and the Mughal conquest of India, resulted in hybrid creations, including Persian-inspired biryani and vindaloo, a Goan version of a Portuguese meat dish.
South Asians tend to label dishes by specific names like korma and dopiaza. "Curry is a catch-all term," says Dr Lizzie Collingham, author of Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors. "It's easy shorthand for 'what South Asians eat'."
Yet within three years of opening the Hindostanee in London, its proprietor, Mr Mahomed, applied for bankruptcy.
"It was a good restaurant but the climate was wrong," says Mr Groves. "People didn't go out to eat then. They tended to have their own chef or do cooking at home."
The restaurant carried on until 1833, but under different ownership.
The British enthusiasm for all things South Asian spread to the expanding middle classes over the 19th Century.
"Queen Victoria made it very fashionable, as she had an South Asian staff who cooked South Asian food every day," says Mr Day. At Osborne House, Victoria - the Empress of India - built an Indian-themed state room decorated by an eminent architect of the Punjab.
Curry became so popular, an 1852 cookbook stated "few dinners are thought complete unless one is on the table". Novelist William Thackeray - who was born in Calcutta - penned a Poem to Curry, and inflicted a blisteringly hot curry on his anti-heroine Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair.
But the interest in curry cooled after 1857 when Indian soldiers rebelled against British rule in the subcontinent.
India became the brightest jewel in the crown, but Mr Groves says British culinary interests were turning from East to West. "Everyone who was anybody had French chefs."
"At the beginning of the 20th Century, curry was not very popular," says Dr Collingham. "It was not well-to-do to have a house that smells of curry."
Instead, the British diet was dominated by red meat, accompanied by home-grown vegetables such as cabbage and potatoes.
At the same time, a number of Indian sailors jumped ship or were dumped at major ports including Cardiff and London. These seamen from Sylhet - now a region in Bangladesh - opened cafes, mainly to cater for fellow Asians.
"They were self-taught but they cleverly adapted themselves to the British palate," says Mr Groves.
And in the 1940s, they bought bombed-out chippies and cafes, says Ms Collingham, selling curry and rice alongside fish, pies and chips. "They stayed open really late to make money to catch the after-pub trade."
And so the ritual of the post-pub curry was born.
"It took quite a long time for the British to recover from World War II," says Ms Collingham. "They were willing and more open to try new things."
After 1971, there was an influx of Bangladeshis following war in their homeland, particularly to London's rundown East End. Many entered the catering trade, and today they dominate the curry industry.
Curry under street sign for Brick Lane
Just one of the UK's curry hotspots
"They own 65-75% of the Indian restaurants in the country. Without their input and hard work, we wouldn't have the curry industry that we have today," says Mr Groves.
An industry so popular the then foreign secretary Robin Cook described chicken tikka masala as "a true British national dish" - and yet another example of an Indian recipe modified for British tastes.
Ms Collingham says ultimately, the British love affair with curry boils down to the imagined glamour of the Raj.
