Chicken Tikka Masala appears to have credibly originated in the UK. It’s probably as British as Beef Stroganoff is Russian (okay, looking it up, it looks like the latter may be at least a bit of a myth, but it gets my point across).
As American as Mac and Cheese is my go-to, since while there were pasta and cheese sauce dishes elsewhere, Thomas Jefferson got obsessed with Elbow Macaroni specifically, and had the extrusion machines shipped to his property in the US while he was an ambassador in Italy.
He then created a simpler version of oven baked Mac and Cheese, and insisted on serving it at every formal dinner at Monticello, while he was president.
I’m not disagreeing there. But were those British chefs who came up with it? And not chefs they brought back from places which Brits had conquered? Obviously no.
And, needless to say, tikka masala is about as far from modern English cuisine as you can get.
Well, they were British chefs with South Asian heritage who of course were indirectly here because of horrific Imperialism
But it is British, its very British. Despite what Farage and co want you to believe, we’re a multi-cultural nation and have been for centuries.
British-Indian cuisine is at this point distinct and diverse enough from traditional Indian cuisine that it is its own thing. And its super widespread - even the racists discuss how shitty they are over a curry
You know, this got my mind working for a bit. We have a similar phenomenon in the United States, where just about every ethnic cuisine is kind of a bastardized version of the more authentic dishes brought here by people emigrating from their home countries. American Chinese, Tex Mex, etc are all distinctly American but have clearly been inspired by their origin but modified for western tastes and sensibilities. It makes me wonder at what point a certain cuisine is considered to be a genuine and unique creation, rather than just something adopted from elsewhere by way of either conquest or cultural exchange? How many things do we associate with a particular nationality as being their specialty when that style of cooking or method of preparation or presentation were probably acquired along the way somewhere and forgotten with time? I guess it’s hard to know for sure.
Another example.
Fish and chips is Portugese. Surprisingly, so is vindaloo
But, more to my point: let’s say I walk into an English pub, and ask what they’ve got on the menu. How many times do you think they’ll tell me about the unseasoned fried fish, or the unseasoned fried potatoes, before they mention “oh and we’ve got chicken tikka masala”
Not exactly a national dish, in my opinion.
“British chefs with South Asian heritage” lmao. That’s one way of putting it.
Yes. I agree. It is VERY British.
Would you like to go more into the origin of the phrase “British-Indian”?