Curry is British, pizza is Japanese: Asia can grow fat on the West's post-lockdown appetite
LIVE TO EAT
Emerging from various forms of lockdown around the world and fed up with cooking at home, one of the first things many people will want to do is go back to their favourite restaurants.
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FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD
Cuisines traversing borders is not a new phenomenon. Eastern and Western food have had an influence on each other for centuries, and some types of Western food that inspired culinary inventions in the East have worked their way back in new forms. Historians note that the batter which makes a good tempura, and deep frying as a cooking method in general, was introduced by the Portuguese who arrived in Japan in 1543.
CURREY THE INDIA WAY
The Japanese have also tweaked curry, and had the audacity to try and patent it 10 years ago - the cheek. After all, we all know curry is British.
Replicating Indian food at home in Britain some 350 years ago was a tricky affair for returning soldiers, hungry tradesmen or even homesick migrant workers. But it did happen, and the first recipe to make "curry" was published in the 1747 cookery book The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, by Hannah Glasse. The author suggests starting with a couple of rabbits and chopping them up "to make a Currey the India way", with the main spices being pepper and coriander seeds, and finishing the dish off with a dollop of butter.
The first advertisement for curry powder appeared in 1782, thanks to the East India Company, England's powerful trading company at the time which dealt in Asian goods, offering "curry" as a powdered mix - a British derivative of Indian food.
A flood of Bangladeshi immigrants into the British food industry in the 1970s led to the popular Indian cuisine available in Britain today and created a new British national dish - Chicken Tikka Masala. There are now more Indian cuisine restaurants in Greater London than in Delhi and Mumbai combined, which suggests that if the curiosity for Japanese food continues to grow perhaps so will the interest in their version of curry for the sake of something different. House Foods and S&B Foods lead the Japanese market for the sweet and fruity curry mixes containing honey and apples.
PANKAKE ROLLS
Of course, the Brits also have a particular passion for Chinese food, which started to appear on menus in the early 1800s. But it was only after the second world war that Chinese food really started to take off thanks to returnees from Hong Kong. They too found it tricky to make authentic Chinese food in Britain, relying on sauces to produce the flavour of home. That's a key reason Lee Kum Kee and Amoy Food became such successful Hong Kong enterprises, as just about all the condiments used in Chinese restaurants around the world hail from here, and they are commonplace even on supermarket shelves in the West. Unfortunately, they are not listed equities.
The exploding popularity of Japanese food globally is possibly the biggest culinary trend in recent years, and I believe it can really be attributed to two things; the world got a taste for Japanese cuisine during the massive tourism boom there in the 2000s, and the Japanese food companies took the opportunity to develop an export business. Today, products which used to be a rarity overseas can be found cheaply enough that Japanese restaurants worldwide can be both authentic and cost effective.
Thai food has also benefited from a tourism boom enabled by cheaper travel, and today my Mum can rustle up an acceptable Thai curry for Dad - though she serves it with mashed potatoes. They too are desperate to get out of the house and return to their local Thai restaurant, where they make the food properly, to enjoy an authentic Pad Thai with friends.
ASIAN FOOD COMPANIES
All of this is big business for Asian food companies, particularly those that sell condiments and the basic flavours that are needed to recreate dishes on the other side of the world. The explosive growth of Japanese food has served Japanese companies such as Kikkoman and Ajinomoto well, to the point where about 60 per cent of their revenues now originate outside Japan.
In addition to liking their own cuisine, Japanese surveyed by YouGov also liked Chinese and Italian. But they insist that their own version of pizza, with criss-crossing mayonnaise on top, is the best way to eat it. That's criminal, for sure, but good business too as no less than 10 per cent of the egg yolks produced in Japan end up in mayo.
The Chinese have now started to latch onto the habit as well, dipping all kinds of things in Kewpie's unusually yellow, tangy-sweet mayonnaise. They no doubt caught a taste for it while visiting Japan where octopus balls, fried chicken and shrimp get plunged into the sauce. It's still early days, with only about 9 per cent of Kewpie's sales being international, but the company is confident that will continue to grow. Its new "Japanese" condiment has even found its way to the shelves of British supermarkets.
One of the least popular cuisines in Japan is the British one, where not even a dollop of mayonnaise helps the flavour. The British Embassy in Tokyo tried in earnest to kindle interest for the sake of British farmers. But the best they could do was to persuade national TV broadcaster NHK to make a documentary, which was broadcast titled "British Food - It's Not As Bad As You Think".
Come on, that's not fair, where do you think curry came from?
Neil Newman is a thematic portfolio strategist focused on pan-Asian equity markets
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
Copyright (c) 2021. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
