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British Chicken Curry


Today, we ventured to Sir John's Public House, a traditional Scottish pub in Kingston to try Sir John's Chicken Curry. Curry has a long legacy in British culinary history. Indeed, chicken tikka masala was named the United Kingdom's national dish in 2009. This dish was invented in Glasgow when a customer complained that his chicken tikka was too dry, to which the chef responded by adding a masala sauce. The term 'curry', used to describe a variety of dishes served in a sauce over a starch, gained prominence after the British colonized India. While the colonizers were in India, they were served traditional dishes, like rogan josh, which were predominantly meats cooked in a sauce. The British categorized all of these dishes as curries - a term they acquired from the Portuguese "caril" or "carree", used to describe spiced sauces and broths prepared in India. The term curry became generic. This correlates to the dish we tried at Sir John's Public House, simply called a chicken curry, rather than being described as a specific variation.

The colonizers became accustomed to these spiced dishes, so much so that they wanted to bring the traditions with them upon returning to England, or to another colony. If the colonizer could not afford to hire an Indian chef back in England, he and his family could attempt to make a curry themselves. Enter the curry cookbooks and recipes for the everyday cook. The first printed curry recipe in English appears in Hannah Glasse's cookbook Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, published in 1747. The recipe is featured in the recipe category of our blog. The popularity of curry grew across the United Kingdom. The spices were associated with healthy eating, believed to stimulate blood circulation, digestion, and the mind, possibly even capable of saving lives. This new public interest and enthusiasm for curry sparked the invention of curry powder.

By the mid-19th century in India, however, public opinion started to change. The East India Company was abolished in 1857, the wearing of Indian attire by Englishmen was banned, and Indian food and customs began to be looked down upon. Curry, though once fashionable, exotic, and associated with health and the elite, was now banished from fashionable tables. Although still eaten by the common British citizen, curries were described in derogatory terms, such as 'inordinately greasy and sweet' and 'quite unsuited to European taste.' The British in India turned instead to traditional British dishes. In Britain, however, everything Indian was fashionable - from the clothing to the jewelry and food. By the mid-19th century, curry had become well integrated into middle-class English society.

Curry has become a particularly popular pub food in Britain where nearly 6500 pubs serve it in some form. It is typically either Butter Chicken or generically labeled as 'Curry'. Sir John's Public House offers the latter in the form of "Sir Johns Chicken Curry." Sir John's is a British-style pub with food items such as pot pies and haggis. As usual I ordered the curry dish. The plate is visibly the product of a mix of cultures. Chicken wings are served in a turmeric spiced sauce along with assorted veggies such as carrots, peppers, celery, and onion on top of brown rice and topped with papadum. The dish has no pretensions of being an authentic Indian meal, as is evident by the presence of the very un-native to India vegetables and the chicken in the popular pub form of wings. The spice composition of the sauce and the prominently displayed papadum indicate the more eastern influences on the dish. The result of this fusion of cultures is a simple and mild dish that makes for a great example of the comfort food you'd expect from a pub.

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