"Steve couldn’t remember whether he’d ordered a murgh massala or the murgh korma—and was left none the wiser when his dish arrived."
-
I had just moved from Singapore to London with my family and we sat down at the Three Falcons pub as I scanned the menu I recalled my confusion when I noticed the "Old Delhi Butter Chicken" on the menu. Buettner’s essay on "Indian" food in Britain helps explain my confusion. Buettner provides a comprehensive review of how "Indian" food became a staple in UK culture and how it became considered British. Right around the time that Margaret Thatcher was in government and dismantling the British welfare state "Indian" restaurants provided working-class people with cheap and accessible food. One quote which Buettner uses is from a review from the 80s which states how “Steve couldn’t remember whether he’d ordered a murgh massala or the murgh korma—and was left none the wiser when his dish arrived. Either way it went down well,” given the price,". Many working-class Brits became dependent on Indian restaurants for quick, tasty, hot meals that provided them with food when they otherwise may not have been able to. However, many Brits also maintained explicitly racist attitudes towards people of South Asian descent with groups like the National Front being particularly active during this period and violent towards South Asian businesses.
However, into the 90s "Its mass popularity enabled fans to draw positive conclusions from how Asian restaurateurs altered their cuisine to accommodate British tastes and, to reiterate Robin Cook’s claims, made chicken tikka masala into a distinctly “British national dish.” This allowed for appropriations of South Asian cuisine in a way which was seen as acceptable and palatable to the still largely racist British public. However, the institutionally racist British state would go on to claim how "selected cities and neighbourhoods with sizeable Asian populations came to view their numerous restaurants as an opportunity to tell an affirmative story about local ethnic diversity. Indeed, they did so precisely in areas plagued with social and economic problems and where “race relations” proved persistently precarious. Styling themselves as Britain’s “Curry Capitals” became a central plank in a succession of local regeneration efforts". Ignoring racialised disparities in these communities and the violence which South Asians faced the British state and society was able to reframe these areas as places of "multiculturalism" and "tolerance" disregarding the lived experiences of many South Asians in these communities. It is then also no coincidence that Bradford and Birmingham some of the so-called "Curry Capitals" listed were also where in the summer of 2024 racist and Islamophobic mobs went around committing acts of racialised violence, highlighting how the British state and society continues to be racist to its core and the total failure to implement so-called "multiculturalism".