Surprising origin stories of three of your most favourite foods
India has been colonised so many times that our native food habit has been influenced significantly by too many cultures. In fact, Indian culinary culture has been deeply impacted by the Mughlai, Persian, Mediterranean and Iranian cuisines over centuries. So, it’s no wonder that we often mistake some foreign origin foods as our own. Here's a list of dishes you believed were Indian but aren’t.
Chicken Tikka Masala
If you thought Chicken Tikka Masala is an Indian dish, and which the world tends to assume too, you couldn’t be more wrong. It’s believed that Chicken Tikka Masala (roasted, marinated chicken chunks in a spicy curry) was created in the 1970s by a Bangladeshi chef, Ali Ahmed Aslam in Scotland, Glasgow. Ali used to run a restaurant there, known as Shish Mahal. In an effort to please a rather unhappy customer, he added a mixture of mild tomato and cream to boneless chicken pieces marinated in yogurt and spices. Unknown of the history he was creating, Ali served his random creation on a skewer. Needless to say, the customer's mood transformed from dissatisfied to ecstatic! He returned with his friends time and again to enjoy this culinary masterpiece.
Today, this dish has such a global fanbase, that according to a 2012 study, people in the United Kingdom, it was the second-most popular foreign cuisine to cook in the UK, after Chinese stir fry.
Filter Coffee
The popular 'kaapi' of South India, also known as Filter Coffee, is not Indian either! India’s love affair with filter coffee is thought to have begun in the early 17th century Karnataka. The story starts with a Muslim saint from Chikmagalur, Baba Budan, who was returning from Yemen in Hajj, a pilgrimage to Mecca. During this journey, he is said to have smuggled seven coffee beans. Now, back in the day, it was prohibited to export green coffee beans out of the Arabian Peninsula to protect the monopoly of the local coffee producers and traders. However, Baba Budan not only sneaked them into India by hiding the beans in his beard (yes, beard!), he was also able to plant them in the Chikmagalur district's Chandragiri Hills, where they quickly blossomed. Thereafter, coffee plantations spread throughout the highlands of Coorg in southern Karnataka, Wayanad in northern Kerala.
As the British established their control in India, they witnessed South India's coffee culture and decided to market its production.
Samosa
This is undoubtedly one of the most popular street foods of India. But did you know that samosa has a Middle Eastern origin? Astonished? So are we! We all know that our beloved samosa is a fried or baked pastry filled with savoury ingredients such as spicy potatoes, onions and peas. This culinary delight arrived in India from the Middle East in the 13th-14thcentury. Back then, it was known as the ‘Sambosa’ as referred to in the work ‘Tarikh-e-Beyhaghi' by Iranian historian Abolfazl Beyhaqi. They were small in size, which made them popular as a snack for travellers who found it easy to carry them and enjoy on the go.
If you believe that the triangular samosa loaded with mashed potatoes is the only way to eat this savoury snack, you should know that there are more than 15-20 desi avatars of samosa enjoyed across India! Depending on the area, it can have various shapes such as triangle, cone, or half-moon. Right from ‘Lukhmi’ in Hyderabad to ‘Shingaras’ in Bengal and ‘Chamucas’ in Goa, there’s a whole variety of samosas to choose from.
So, next time you feel the temptation for these favourite foods, do remember who to thank!