Episode 7 - Bad Table Manners

Ripples and Tipples: How Partition Changed Indian Food

In 1947, the British finally left India after 300 years of colonial rule. They created many arbitrary borders as they left, the most prominent of which was the line that was to separate India from Pakistan. The aftermath of this divide resulted in the greatest migration in human history, as millions made their way across hundreds of miles in the hope of creating new homes. The impact of this critical event is mirrored in what has become known as Delhi’s food culture, both at home and abroad. The well-known food historian Anoothi Vishal reminds us how partition lives on in India’s capital, while Jonathan Nunn, editor of the shape-shifting newsletter Vittles, shows us how the event created ripples in the imperial city of London. Partition transformed “Indian food,” in both colony and empire, and still shows its effects in new Indian restaurants today.

In this episode of Bad Table Manners, Meher chats with:

• Anoothi Vishal is a culinary historian and the author of Mrs. LCs Table: Stories about Kayasth Food and Culture and Business on a Platter: What Makes Restaurants Sizzle and Fizzle

• Jonathan Nunn is the London-based editor of Vittles and a food writer who has contributed to Eater London, The Guardian, and Prospect Magazine

Episode highlights:

The Culinary Impact of Partition:

• Anoothi outlines the impact of Partition on Indian food culture. She suggests that not only were tastes, dishes, and culinary practices lost, but also what she calls a “poetry” that infused Mughlai cuisine.

• The erasure of Mughlai cuisine made way for the now-dominant Punjabi palate, with its tomato-laden flavors, which became known as the global standard for “Indian” cuisine. Chicken tikka masala, Meher notes, was birthed in a context of violence.

Punjabi Cuisine:

• The restaurant business was a way for Punjabs to establish themselves in new spaces, and with them they brought dishes like butter chicken and chicken tikka. The tandoor, too, was used in new ways, to grill meat where it had only previously been used for roti. The tomato-and-butter gravy now commonly associated with Punjabi food was used to keep the grilled meat from drying out.

• Tandoori was not meant to be an indulgence, but rather an easy form of sustenance, Anoothi explains. It was, therefore, the first form of fast food in the burgeoning metropolis of Delhi. 

Changing Food Practices:

• Before Partition, Meher’s grand-aunt recounts communal dining practices that included tables laden with food and brief siestas, particularly after lunch. Too, public dining and private kitchens were off-limits to women. 

• Anoothi explains some other changes: 

  • Family cooks underwent a shift in status and power, from being highly paid and respected to “just another employee.”

  • The collapse of the feudal order shifted the focus away from hierarchical home kitchens to restaurants, public eating spaces, and street food, which were more accessible, especially for women. 

Partition’s Imprint on London Cuisine:

• Jonathan, who wrote Blurred Lines: The Big Bang, Partition, and a Tale of Two Londons, argues for the idea of a “second London,” a space where immigrant histories are centered over imperial victories.

• Waves of immigration in the wake of Partition, particularly from the newly formed Pakistan, shifted London’s perception of Indian food as new restaurants opened and democratized the offerings available, Jonathan notes.

• Dishes were tailored to white British palates, thus “flattening” Indian cuisine in London; they were arranged in terms of spice to make them easy to understand, and spice was often tempered. This allowed for certain Indian dishes to be successful, but regional dishes were impossible to put on menus. Indian cuisine was thus flattened into either curries or grills.

The Modern British-Raj Aesthetic: Is It Neo-Colonial?

• Meher wonders if Indian ownership of these restaurants does enough to disrupt the coloniality of this tempering of Indian food to make it suitable to white British palates. She and Jonathan discuss what a decolonized Indian restaurant would look like in London.

• A noticeable new trend, Meher comments, is a burgeoning interest in “authentic” South Asian cuisine and what she calls performative spice tolerance. The fact that Indian food possesses cultural capital is a rather new phenomenon, invoked largely because of Partition, which determined which South Asian cuisines were actually considered cuisines.