Origins
One explanation of the origins of the dish is that it was conceived in an Indian restaurant. Rahul Verma, an Indian expert on street food from Delhi, has stated that the dish originated, probably by accident with subsequent improvisations, in Punjab during the last 50 years.
There are also claims that a Pakistani chef Ali Ahmed Aslam, proprietor of the Shish Mahal restaurant in Gibson Street in the west end of Glasgow invented it by improvising a sauce made from yoghurt, cream and spices. In July 2009 Pakistani-born British MP Mohammad Sarwar tabled an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons asking that Parliament support a campaign for Glasgow to be given European Union Protected Designation of Origin status for chicken tikka masala. The motion was not chosen for debate nor has Sarwar spoken on this subject in Parliament. Others lay claim to the origin being Birmingham and Newcastle. Some people have drawn comparisons between chicken tikka masala and butter chicken, another Indian dish including chicken and gravy which was probably invented in Northern India.
Ethnic food historians and authors Peter & Colleen Grove also discuss various origin claims of Chicken Tikka Masala in their article "Is It or Isn't It? (The Chicken Tikka Masala Story)", in which one of their conclusions suggests that "The shape of things to come may have been a recipe for Shahi Chicken Masala in Mrs Balbir Singh’s ‘Indian Cookery’ published in 1961."
Read more about this topic: Chicken Tikka Masala
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)