Indian Food History

Originally posted by jdalton Indian food is not hard to find in North America. And curry is now a staple in China and Japan. But Britain has perhaps adopted Indian cooking more readily than most other parts of the world. I think it's fair to say that when it comes to food, the relationship between India and Britain has been fairly one-sided.

Well good Indian food seems to be hard to find in my region of North America even though so many expat Indians live here.  I avoid Indian restaurants like the plague now.  And speaking of world curry domination, once at a party, a girl from Hanover told me that her favourite street food back home was currywurst.  What an idea!

Originally posted by jayeshks Originally posted by jdalton Indian food is not hard to find in North America. And curry is now a staple in China and Japan. But Britain has perhaps adopted Indian cooking more readily than most other parts of the world. I think it's fair to say that when it comes to food, the relationship between India and Britain has been fairly one-sided. Well good Indian food seems to be hard to find in my region of North America even though so many expat Indians live here.  I avoid Indian restaurants like the plague now.  And speaking of world curry domination, once at a party, a girl from Hanover told me that her favourite street food back home was currywurst.  What an idea!

How do you differentiate good indian food from bad indian food, personally?

Originally posted by maqsad How do you differentiate good indian food from bad indian food, personally?

Usually for me, I like it = it is good.  But more rationally, it's food that's been prepared well and thoughtfully, like home cooking.  90% of the Indian restaurants here serve the same dreck: Buffet with day old pulau, bland and greasy butter chicken, roganjosh or some other lamb/goat dish, overcooked matar paneer or palak paneer, dry tandoori chicken and nan.  That's it.  Takeout places specialize in oily channa bhattura and samosas.  You get tired of eating the same bland crap after a while.  Most of these dishes cater to Western palates or at least Western conceptions of what Indian food should be and most places put minimal investment in the food and restaurant in order to keep prices cheap and profits high.  Now when we go out to eat Indian it's almost always either South Indian (because they ususally make everything fresh and usually just have higher quality food) or Hakka Indo/Pak Chinese (which still has the novelty of trying something new). 

Originally posted by jayeshks And speaking of world curry domination, once at a party, a girl from Hanover told me that her favourite street food back home was currywurst.  What an idea!

actually currywurst used to be THE street food in germany until beign displaced by Kebab.

I understand that Pinguin. Certainly the corn case wasn't maize at all.

The modern dietry evidence points away from a 16th century european introduction as well.

If I understand correctly, the biggest Chile eating areas are central america, not brazil. Spanish colonies not Portugese. Spanish however had very little contact with the Indian ocean. So the Portugese would have had to buy the chile from the spanish who grew/bought it in America. The portugese then have the ability to trade this with the chile eating regions on the east african coast, and their primary trade partner in India Vijayanagar.

We currently have:
Americas - Spanish - Portugese - Vijayanagar

Now if we just look at this, Vijayanagar must have bought a huge amount of chile. In order for that much penetration into South India and East africa the trade in chile must have been similar to the trade in Tea.
Where is the evidence of this trade? Spices out of Europe into india? Why did the Spanish give the Portugese who gave Vijayanagar the lucrative chile bush? The Dutch traded Manhattan to get an Indonesian island with saffron (I think a spice anyway). Vijayanagar was rich, it would have been a lucrative trade.
Where is the Great Chile Market of Goa?

Now lets look a bit further, Sichuan, North India, Thailand, and Mali are all big chile eaters. How did they acquire the chile taste? Its hard enough to believe that North India aquired it from south India. How exactly did Sichuan get the taste?
Mali aquiring it from Somalia? Its a tough ask to say Ethiopia aquired it from Somalia.

If the export of Chile was so high on Spanish and Portugese agendas why doesn't the Phillipines eat chille?

Quite frankly although some types of chile certainly originated in America, some did not.


Edited by Omar al Hashim - 20-Dec-2007 at 02:41

Do birds migrate east and west over the pacific or atlantic or is it always a north-south direction? Birds *with* wings that is..

I just would like to make something clear. The name of the pepper is Chilli in English and not Chile. Chile is the name of my country, which means cold in Quechua and Aymara, or cool if you wish

Now, in the languages of the Andes, the name is "aji" and not "chilli" which is a Mexican word.

all this food talk is making me hungry

Originally posted by pinguin I just would like to make something clear. The name of the pepper is Chilli in English and not Chile. Chile is the name of my country, which means cold in Quechua and Aymara, or cool if you wish Now, in the languages of the Andes, the name is "aji" and not "chilli" which is a Mexican word.

Oops. Well I don't see many Chilians transplanted into india either

I call it Mirch

The evidence? See the quote above:   http://www.scribd.com/doc/9127/The-History-of-Thai-Food?query2=History+Of+the+chilli+in+Thailand   You don't need to establish a trade when you can transpant a plant.   Now, the Spaniards were present in Asia in Phillipines.   Finally, who said everyone that knew Chillies use them for everything? In the Americas ONLY MEXICANS put Chilly in all theirs foods. The rest just use it once in a while. In Asia only some people use Chillies and other don't like that much. Why? It is just a matter of tastes, I guess.

Why would the people want the plant? Even if we accept the missionary version as true (I don't trust that site as 100% reliable) that still doesn't help for most of the chilli eating regions of the world.

Without question there are chilli varieties (eh Hallipenyo (sp?)) native to central america (I think you'll find that Guatamalans & Hondurians (?) are pretty keen on chilli too), it is quite possible that these varieties were introduced by the portugese to the rest of the world. But certainly there are also varieties that are not native to the americas, or travelled across long before 1500.

Originally posted by Paul Though in Britain it should more rightly be called Bangladeshi food as it was Bangladeshi immigrants not Indian who opened the restaurants and sold it to a nation.

Good point! I should know this, as I used to live in walking distance of Brick Lane a.k.a.  Banglatown.