Balti (food) - Origin and Etymology

Origin and Etymology

Balti cuisine became known throughout the UK during the 1990s, after initial growth in Birmingham since the 1980s. One school of thought states that name 'Balti' for food may reflect the fact that an ethnic group living in that area of north Pakistan are called Balti.

Alternatively, 'Balti' food is named after the pot in which it is cooked. That origin of the word is to do with the Urdu and Hindi word Balty - "Balty, s. Hin. balti, which means "bucket." This is the Port. balde." As mentioned in the late nineteenth century in Hobson-Jobson, the term 'balti' refers to the steel or iron pot in which the food is cooked or served, taken from the word 'balti', which is derived from the Portuguese word 'balde', meaning bucket/pail, which was taken to the Indian subcontinent by the Portuguese on their seafaring enterprises in late fifteenth century. Therefore, originally, the word 'Balti' refers to a bucket, then evolving to its meaning as a cooking pot.

According to Pat Chapman, the food writer, the origins of the word can be traced back to the area of Baltistan, in northern Pakistan, where the people cook in a cast iron wok similar to the Chinese way of cooking (Baltistan shares a border with China). In his Curry Club Balti Curry Cookbook, Chapman states:

The word was the subject of analysis on the BBC TV series Balderdash and Piffle. A menu from 1982 was cited as the first written reference, with The Curry Club's Curry Magazine Edition 29, winter 1984 answering a reader query about the definition of Balti. Written evidence seems to be scant prior to 1982, and the Oxford English Dictionary and The Curry Club welcome any contributions which will verify the first mention of Balti in Britain.