The spice of life

Monday, August 29th, 2005

According to The spice of life, most “Indian” restaurants serve Bangladeshi food:

It was in the 1840s that lascars started jumping ship in the port of London (and Singapore, Southampton and New York too) and setting themselves up as cooks. Given that they all came from the same jungly patch of what is now Bangladesh, it was inevitable that their particular rice-heavy, pork-free cuisine came to represent ‘Indian food’ to the casual British mind. Even now, of the 8,000 Indian restaurants in Britain, the vast majority are run by Bangladeshis who come from what is still known at home as the ‘Seaman’s Zone’

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