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When I was fourteen and at school in Calcutta, I once made the mistake of swiping a piece of what I thought was Chilli Chicken from a Chinese boy’s tiffin box. Popping it into my mouth, I reveled in the salty umami flavours of the soy sauce, while wondering where the chilies, capsicum and onions were. Soon enough, I realized that this piece of chicken was not what I was hoping for. It was hard and bony, and one part went pop. Gagging slightly, I quickly spat out the morsel. To this day, I still wonder what the dish was (and if I inadvertently had a chicken’s head in my mouth).
Several years later, on a trip to China with a friend, we tried many dishes that still remain a mystery – including one that looked like hot & sour soup, but was actually a thick brown garlicky gravy; another dish was supposed to be schezwan fish but it came in a cauldron of soup and had a layer of oil and chillies floating on top. Both dishes were very different from what we expected.
Clearly, Indian Chinese is just an inspired, tamed down version of a small part of the huge spread that is authentic Chinese Cuisine. Desi Chinese has it’s roots in Calcutta, and Calcutta has played a huge, yet quiet part in the evolution of the food culture in India over the last century-and-a-half.
Gateway City
It all started with Chinese immigrants who set up a sugar refinery south of British Calcutta in the late 1700s. When the mill closed, it’s several dozen employees and their families moved to the closest city, setting up the first Chinatown in India at Tiretti Bazaar in central Calcutta. Subsequent waves of Chinese immigrants followed. Due to war and famine in their homelands, they looked for an opportunity to re-settle in this burgeoning capital of British India.
Over the following decades, the men folk worked as carpenters, tanners, dentists and drycleaners, and often, the women tended home and supplemented their income by selling meals. What started off as enterprising housewives selling steamed buns and fish-ball soup “Chinese Breakfast” on crowded pavements, slowly evolved into humble eating houses and then more…
Indianization Of Chinese cuisine
Cantonese and Hakka migrants had brought their cooking methods with them to Calcutta but could not always access the ingredients they needed. Dishes like “Chowmein” noodles were reinvented and stirfries replaced exotic meats (often) with chicken or local red meats; broths became more “gravy” like; easily available spices added a kick to recipes and subtle herbs that could not be found were often substituted or replaced; and so began the Indianisation of dishes. Over the next century “Chinese food” would spread out to other Indian metropolises and then to small towns, becoming an integral part of the Indian culinary landscape. To put things in perspective as to how far we’ve come, in the 1800s most Calcuttans (and Indians) had never encountered noodles, soy sauce or chopsticks!
Percolating Through Society
In 1920s British Calcutta, the glamorous restaurant Nan King was birthed with it’s violins and exquisite furnishings, putting Chinese food on a pedestal and making it exotic and sought after by the city’s elite. Close by, less glamorous, but equally delicious Eau Chew opened it’s doors. Tiretti Bazaar and it’s surroundings now ran the gamut from humble pushcarts to posh Chinese eateries, speeding up the adoption of this adventurous cuisine by locals.
Over the next few decades, Indianised Cantonese and Hakka Chinese food found it’s way into the mainstream offerings of Calcutta. Establishments like Jimmy’s Kitchen, Waldorf and Chung Wah cropped up. The success of these stalwarts would lend confidence to other Indian cities to start their own now-legendary establishments. Often the cooks and owners would come from Calcutta – Golden Dragon in Bombay being a case in point!
Mass Appeal Of Chinese Food
Tangra, Calcutta’s second Chinatown, which was formed around Chinese-run tanneries started stepping into the culinary limelight in the 1980s. Kafulok and Kim Fa were home-dining experiences that were particularly popular, relatively cheap and very accessible to a growing middle class that couldn’t regularly afford the fancier restaurants in the heart of the city.
Similar “democratization” was taking place on Calcutta’s main eating thoroughfare – Park Street. Ming Room by Trincas had opened it’s doors and started a new craze – it had added Indianised Sichuan flavours to the city’s existing offerings of Cantonese and Hakka. Ming Room was the first “Sichuan Inspired” restaurant in Calcutta and significantly cheaper and more accessible than the two exclusive Taj Hotel eateries in Delhi and Bombay. All of a sudden the fiery flavours of Schezwan Hot Garlic Sauce and Chilli Garlic Noodles were in huge demand!
It was clear to see that Chinese food in Calcutta’s 1980s had fully propelled itself to mass popularity by democratizing it’s offerings to suit all budgets. It showed the viability of these flavours to cater to the Indian palette. Restaurants across the country started adopting a few cults Chinese dishes and adding them to their repertoire – chilli chicken and it’s vegetarian counterpart chilli paneer being foremost on that list!
If you think about it now, every “multicuisine restaurant” in India serves Indian fare with a smattering of Continental and Chinese dishes. Desi Chinese appears on street corners and in school canteens and at Indian weddings. The culinary adventure that started in Calcutta has gone national.
Now in the 2020s, “Szechwan” “Schezwan” or “Sichuan” flavours can be found in everything from dosas to packaged chips and bhel! Food manufacturers have joined the game and desi chinese has now truly been integrated into the Indian flavour palette.
For a city that’s uproarious about it’s food, Kolkata inadvertently started a rather quiet food revolution. Sometimes all you need are circumstances and a curious few adventurers… I would, however, caution against stealing Chilli Chicken from a Chinese kid’s lunchbox!
This article is written by Anand Puri who is the third-generation owner of the iconic Trincas restaurant in Kolkata. This is his expression of the topic in his words