|
Queen
Loves Indian Food
By Subroto
Mukherjee
GlobalomNet
Media Service
|
|
‘’This
is very unusual for the Queen to do something like this,’’ a
spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace said. ‘’It is not the
Queen’s custom to do something like this. She does not normally
write forewords for books or endorse products but this is a very
good cause.’’
|
 |
|
Queen
Elizabeth is apparently passionate about Indian food. The palace
spokeswoman said ‘’the Queen has travelled the world and during
her trips she has tasted curry and other Indian delicacies and has
thoroughly enjoyed it when it was offered to her.’’ So it
wasn’t only the Indian food around in Britain. It could just have
happened with that visit to India that Robin Cook spoilt but other
cooks clearly did not.
|
|
Queen
Elizabeth II could hardly have hoped to live in England and escape
Indian food. Of the 9,000 or so Indian food restaurants in Britain, some
sit on the way to Windsor Castle, others are a few minutes drive from
Buckingham Palace, whichever way Her Majesty goes. She hasn’t dropped
in but the picture has been clear from castles and palaces.
Still, no one was expecting the Queen to write a foreword to an Indian
recipe book. Not even with the recipes from a string of new chefs to be
found in Favourite Recipes of the Raj. Learn now from Cherie Blair how
to make Kutchhi bhindi. From Glenda Jackson saag aloo. Tom Jones has a
recipe for prawn curry. Kevin Keegan, former England football manager,
for chicken tikka
masala. Novelist Irvine Welsh for saag paneer, comedienne Victoria Wood
for vegetable curry. The list goes on.
That recipe writers list was put together by the most determined Tommy
England has ever known. Tommy Miah, 42, came to Britain when he was 10.
He began his working life ‘’as a kitchen porter in a restaurant in
Birmingham,’’ he tells South Asian Outlook. And now, ‘’well, I
have been working with celebrities for the last 15 years.’’
Tommy Miah has at least as much skill putting together British
celebrities as in putting together an Indian meal. ‘’First there was
Sunday Times editor Andrew Neil,’’ Miah lists. ‘’Then Lord
Fraser who was trade minister. Edwina Currie wrote the foreword for my
second book.’’ In 1996 he wrote a book called A True Taste of Asia
where the foreword was written by the Queen’s former daughter-in-law
Fergie. Then came mouthwatering praise from Princess Anne.’’ The
Queen of England crowns it in claims of a royal coup.
‘’This is very unusual for the Queen to do something like
this,’’ a spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace said. ‘’It is not
the Queen’s custom to do something like this. She does not normally
write forewords for books or endorse products but this is a very good
cause.’’ Proceeds from the book
will go towards cancer research. In her foreword the Queen praises
the cause, and also the ‘’tempting array of recipes.’’ Favourite
Recipes of the Raj goes on sale in a few weeks at £9.99 and Tommy hopes
a sell-out will raise nearly £200,000 for the charity.
Miah says he asked three years ago to write a foreword for the recipe
book ‘’but we got a letter back initially saying that Her Majesty
was quite busy, so we never thought anything of it,’’ he says.
‘’Then out of the blue we got a letter from her saying she would
indeed write the foreword.’’
Queen Elizabeth is apparently passionate about Indian food. The palace
spokeswoman said ‘’the Queen has travelled the world and during her
trips she has tasted curry and other Indian delicacies and has
thoroughly enjoyed it when it was offered to her.’’ So it wasn’t
only the Indian food around in Britain. It could just have happened with
that visit to India that Robin Cook
spoilt but other cooks clearly did not.
Tommy Miah is building on the Raj name to sell to the British. There are
about 300 Indian restaurants in Britain that are Raj something or other.
Miah is taking that further. His own restaurant in Edinburgh, capital of
Scotland, is called The Raj. Last year he opened The Original Raj Hotel.
Each of its 18 rooms have a name, not a number. There’s the Bollywood,
the Maharaja, the Maharani, and others, with decor to match the names.
‘’All the decor came
from Jaipur,’’ Miah says.
Outside is a three-tonne marble elephant. And if that was not
enough, he’s just added on a six-tonne Ganesha. ‘’You should have
seen people when the crane brought that to the hotel,’’ Miah says.
He now plans to build a chain of Original Raj hotels across Britain.
Tommy Miah is working to put Indian food into the big picture. For a
charity ball in support of Anti-Slavery International last year he
produced another recipe book and called it A Taste for Freedom. Another
recipe book raised money for Scottish European Aid. Now, he says,
‘’different charities approach me for different projects.’’
It’s not just recipes he serves up. ‘’I went to 10 Downing Street
on March 9 in 1993 with a big curry to celebrate John Major’s
birthday,’’ says Miah. Major who was just back from launching the
Indo-British Partnership in India, held a happy celebration with his
staff over the curry. A year later he prepared curry for 8,000
people at the Earl’s Court exhibition centre in London. His managers
made sure that got into the Guinness Book of Records.
Tommy Miah launched an International Chef of the Year competition in
1991. The competition drew 400 entries. In its eleventh year last year
it drew more than 5,000. It’s an event the British media now tracks
from quarter-finals onwards. The finals are a news event fee dare
to miss. Miah is now consultant to British Airways and to the
Bangladeshi airline Biman. He is also
consultant to first class railway catering services in Britain.
‘’I have endorsed eight Uncle Ben’s sauces,’’ says Miah.
‘’I have endorsed wines from Portugal the Portuguese came to Goa in
1510, you know.” And that’s just starters. ‘’I’m getting
chased by a lot of food companies,’’ he says. What Her Majesty is to
him, he is becoming to lesser chefs. From cooking for celebrities,
he’s joined them. ‘’I want to inspire the young,’’ he says.
‘’I want them to be able to look at me and say, if he can, I
can.’’
Miah talks now with the cool of a celebrity. ‘’Of course, the Queen
was quite a challenge,’’ he says. ‘’Yes, I did this, people do
so many different things.’’ Miah has engaged Stuart Higgins, one of
the hottest publicists in London. The company that Miah reminds you does
handles publicity for David Beckham, Stuart Higgins, the same chap
who is the publicist also for David Beckham the star captain of the
English football team.
Not surprisingly lesser known chefs dismiss Miah as a publicity
stuntman, and that when it comes to serious eating, their food is better
than his. But even if it’s himself Miah is aiming at, his publicity
offensive has given Indian food a new profile, and a news profile,
endorsed by the rich and famous. The Queen has never written about fish
and chips; her foreword now is royal
reminder that it’s fish and chips the Brits are becoming strangers to.
India has come back to colonise Britain’s insides.
‘’It is a sign of the success of Indian food in Britain,’’ Miah
says. ‘’Indian food has just taken over from everything. It is good
for the whole of the Indian sub-continent that the Queen of England has
recognised that.’’
|
