From the curry houses of London’s Brick Lane to the ready-to-eat aisle of your local Sainsbury’s, Chicken Tikka Masala is recognised as a signature of the English diet. While Chicken Tikka and Masala spice blend are staples of Indian cuisine, the exact origin of the dish is hotly contested. Food historians Peter and Colleen Grove have pointed to Bengali chefs as the creators of this signature dish. However, the creation of the dish is most popularly attributed to Pakistani born Glaswegian chef, Ali Ahmad Aslam. According to Aslam, “We used to make chicken tikka, and one day a customer said, ‘I’d take some sauce with that, this is a bit dry.’  

Aslam then improvised a sauce made of yogurt, cream, tomatoes and spices to complement the Chicken Tikka. Famed for its distinct flavours unbeknownst to the British palette, news of Aslam’s culinary concoction spread through the isles, eventually being hailed as a “true British national dish” by Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook. 

Cook’s speech to the Social Market Foundation in 2001 celebrates the dish as a symbol of Britain’s multicultural success. While Cook recognises the Chicken Tikka Masala as a migrant invention, Cook’s speech fails to recognise the dish as a symbol of migrant resistance. The 1948 British Nationality Act saw the intake of Caribbean and South Asian migrants, with many from the Indian subcontinent seeking refuge from civil war at the end of the partition of India. While Britons relied on the labour of Commonwealth migrants to rebuild Britannia from the rubbles of war, the influx of black and brown migrants posed a threat to many white Britons.  

In 1964 a young and eager Aslam open his restaurant, the Shish Mahal on Glasgow’s West End. In Smethwick, Staffordshire, Conservative MP Peter Griffiths takes his seat on Smethwick’s constituency. Smethwick, a town with a significant Sikh and Punjab migrant population, faced many industrial closures. Understanding the frustration of job insecurity amidst growing immigration policies, Griffiths appealed to the frustration of many disgruntled Brits. Griffiths infamous campaign involved sporting slogans that would read “If you want a n**ger for a neighbour, vote Labour.” Following Griffiths’ election, a British branch of the Ku Klux Klan was formed with many ethnic minority residents receiving burning crosses in their mail.  

Anti-immigrant and racist sentiment persisted in the following decades with MP Enoch Powell sparking fears of “the black man [having] the whip hand over the white man.” Powell’s infamous 1968 Rivers of Blood speech provoked waves of racist attacks against Britain’s Desi population in the 60s and 70s. Amidst a history of racial violence and growing anti-immigration sentiment, Aslam proposes a solution to complaints over the dryness of Chicken Tikka. From this resolution, the Chicken Tikka Masala was born.  

Taken from the Indian subcontinent, thrown into a heated melting pot under high pressure, doused in indulgent white cream and rebranded as British dish, Chicken Tikka Masala is a ‘true British national dish’ as quoted by Cook. Steeped in Indian culinary tradition and looking towards multicultural ideals, the Anglo-Indian fusion dish represents Britain’s complicated history of colonialism, global displacement and migration. 

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