"One of the few Indian Cookbooks that I have enjoyed is Sameen Rushdie's (Salman's sister). It's out of print and hard to find but the recipes are good. It doesn't have chicken tikka masala though."
writen by: scott123
In reply:
1. I am not familiar with Ms Rushdies's work. Perhaps she never spent any time working in a tandoori takeaway in Camden and the omission is due to this lack of cullinary experience.
On the other hand, it may be because it is a book about recipes for Indian food, and consequently would not include this piece of Anglo-nonsense. Chicken Tikka Masala has the same relationship to Indian cooking as a Chicago deep dish pizza pie does to a pizza Napoletana. There is some connection somewhere, but exactly what it is is hard to define.
Chicken Tikka Masala is a classic example of what happens to a sophisticated and cultured foreign cuisine when it is "on-shored" to England.
Firstly, by far and away the majority of "Indian" restaurants in England are in fact run by Bangladeshis, whose natural background would be in the cooking of Bengal. This is not by any means the same as the court cooking of the Moghul Empire and the princely states of central and southern India. In other words, a great deal of "Indian" cooking in England is being done by people for whom it is nearly as foreign as it would be for the Spanish to be making Finish food. Innevitably, different cooking styles are applied to dishes to which they should not be, and by sheer force of numbers and lack of choice become accepted as the reality when in fact they are anything but. This is not to say that there is no genuine Indian cooking in England. It is, in fact all arround. But it is in the homes of Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis. It rarely comes out to play.
Secondly, the Bangladeshi restaurant owners, being expert businessmen first and foremost, realised that profits depend on giving people what they want. And what the average English customer wants is something that is recognisably foreign. That is to say, it is not the real thing, but is in fact something very familiar that tastes/smells slightly foreign, but not enough to put you off or require an adventurous gastronomic approach. So, Chicken Tikka Masala becomes a standard piece of tasteless filler in the same way that an American hamburger in England has become a thinly disguised piece of virtually poisonous shoe leather. Low expectations produce low quality input. Gresham's law prevails in all things.
So please do not confuse Chicken Tikka Masala with Indian cooking. It is, quintessentially, English, an absorption of half understood ideas and words into English life like "pajamas", and "thug", where the meanings shift almost as soon as they are spoken.
The origin of Chiken Tika Masala, like all urban myths is shrouded in mystery. But it is beleived that the true version of it's birth goes something like this:
A customer (with friends) at his local Indian restaurant, after having first consumed at his local (pub) the mandatory 10 pints of lager required to preceed an Indian meal, ordered and recieved a chiken tikka (a chicken kebab, itself of doubtful origin). However, on this occasion it struck him as too dry, and after the normal and expected altercation with the waiter (the details of which are best imagined, but are an essential part of this traditional form of improvised public street theater), sent the offending chicken tikka back to the kitchen.
The chef, knowing that the tradditional rules of the game required him to ensure that the customer accepted and ate the original dish served, albeit in disguise, grabbed the first thing available, a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup, and placing the discarded tikka into a wok, reheated the same and poured the can of tomato soup over it. With a handful of fresh coriander the dish was re-served to universal acclaim. Honour was satisfied, and the English team left thinking that they had scored. Only upon later reading the official results did they see:
Bangladesh 1, England 0, a result which still stands today.
This story may be slightly appocraphal, but it is widely believed to be close to the truth.
2. And now on a more serious and constructive note, I have recently acquired a new middle eastern cookbook. It is by no means a substitute for Claudia Roden, but it seems a quite comprehensive guide to a distinct area of the middle east, containing quite a number of recipes not included in Roden's wider reaching work.
Details:
The Morrocan Collection
Hilaire Walden
Hamlyn, London, ISBN 0 600 60584 1
I commend it to you.
Regards,
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