Punjab with Manjit S. Gill

Punjab—the Land of Five Rivers. Punjab—the Land of Milk and Honey. Punjab—the Granary of the Sub-continent. Punjab—the Land of an Indomitable People, reflecting the Spirit of Man. Punjab—the Land of Virile Men, the symbol of India’s Manhood. Punjab—Home of the tandoor and a superlative, robust cuisine. A cuisine richly influenced by all the invaders—from Alexander the Greek to Nadir Shah the Persian to Sher Shah the Afghan to Babar the Mongol.

A decade ago, on my first visit to London, I was overjoyed to see so many ‘Indian’ restaurants. Imagine my dismay when I discovered that almost all of them were Bangladeshi joints, miserable holes in the wall, selling ‘curry (made with curry powder-sic!) and rice’ with ‘poppadom’. Then, just five years later, the city boasted of some of the finest Indian restaurants—anywhere. A new breed of restaurateurs—the Punjabi from India and Pakistan—had ‘invaded’ Blighty and had launched a ‘campaign’ across the Atlantic. Thanks to them the world discovered the joys of Indian cooking. If India’s culinary art has, at last, found its rightful place among the great cuisines of the world, it is primarily because of the trail blazed by Punjabi food.