Tikka trouble
Let’s agree on the only thing we can, really. Done well, hummus, chicken tikka masala and the flat white are life-altering culinary inventions.
What there will be no agreement on is the provenance of this trio. Laying claim to them has become a matter of patriotism and cultural identity.
Chicken tikka masala, declared by the late UK foreign secretary Robin Cook to be Britain’s national dish, is now said to have originated in an Indian restaurant in Glasgow, Scotland. Historians of the Mughal Empire are not inclined to agree.
Hummus, that most political Middle Eastern dip, is claimed by all and owned by none.
And who it was that coined the term for an espresso with microfoamed milk is the latest in an evergrowing list of things that Australians and New Zealanders fight over.
That list, if you’re interested, dear reader, includes rugby, Russell Crowe and pavlova.
When it comes to the long and fraught histories of food items, some scores have been settled. After a dispute that has lasted 14 years, teff flour from Ethiopia is no longer patented as a Dutch invention. The flour, made by grinding teff seeds, is used in injera, the staple pancake-like bread that typically sits under fragrant Ethiopian stews instead of a plate.
Teff is part of Ethiopia’s heritage and has been farmed for centuries. It’s the country’s most widely grown crop, cultivated by an estimated 6.5million Ethiopian farmers.
The Addis Ababa government went to court in The Hague and won a ruling revoking a patent held by a Dutch company, Health & Performance Food International (HPFI), for the production and distribution of teff flour in Europe.
The Ethiopian Institute of Biodiversity Conservation had in 2005 teamed up with HPFI to provide varieties of teff that would be turned into products for the European market. Ethiopia believed the tie-up would not only boost its teff exports but also enhance technology transfer and improve overall production.
The plan was for the proceeds to be divided between the two entities, but in the end Ethiopia is said to have made only €4,000. Unlike the present gluten-free, superfood moment, there wasn’t really a market for teff products back then.
HPFI, run by agronomist Jans Roosjen, went bankrupt. But not before he took out patents on teff flour in the Netherlands and from the European patent office. This meant Ethiopia was barred from selling teff products in Europe, even after the company ceased to exist.
“It is an issue of our inability to own our national assets in the international legal system,” Fitsum Arega, a former commissioner of the Ethiopian Investment Commission, said of the patent.
It reminds one of the rooibos wars. Local Cederberg producers of the herbal tea fought a 10-year legal battle in the US over use of the “rooibos” trademark, and had to fight a similar battle in France in 2013.
They eventually won “geographic indicator” status for the tea, giving them ownership of the name and ensuring it can be applied only to SA products.
Other food items with this status range from Parma ham to Cognac, port and Greek yogurt.
There are plenty of other food fights still being waged; what is clear amid the bickering is the close relationship between food and national identity.
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