From Russia to Kiev

There is nothing Russian about Russian salad and Chicken Kiev is not a Ukrainian dish. But people persist in renaming dishes on the basis of politics

Acafé in Kochi has announced that it is taking Russian Salad off the menu. When I read about this, I was gobsmacked: are there still restaurants that serve the vile abomination called ‘Russian Salad’ in this day and age? Apparently there are. Some of you will remember Russian Salad from eating at dodgy institutional catering places and cheapo buffets. The salad is said to have a grand origin when it was invented in Moscow (the original included caviar and other luxury ingredients) by a Belgian chef. But, over the years, and especially on its journey to India, it became a catchall name for any kind of rubbish made from leftover vegetables smothered with mayonnaise poured from a bottle or (more likely) a cheap catering pack.

And they were serving it in Kochi till the aforementioned café took it off the menu apparently to punish Vladmir Putin and Russia for the invasion of Ukraine.

There are precedents for this kind of nonsense. During the US invasion of Iraq (which, cynics will tell you, was the moral forerunner of the invasion of Ukraine), a publicity-conscious American restaurateur decided not to use the name French Fries. It wasn’t that America also planned to invade France but that the French had failed to be sufficiently supportive of the US invasion of another sovereign nation.

This bit of errant nonsense would have soon been forgotten had it not been picked up by conservative Republican supporters of President George W Bush. They banned the name

French Fries and began calling them Freedom Fries. Another variation was Liberty Fries. Congressional dining rooms and lounges were instructed to remove the name ‘French Fries’ from their menus and to replace it with Freedom Fries.

It was an idiotic move, doomed to fail. The big fast food chains (Burger King, Mcdonalds etc.) stuck to calling them French Fries and eventually, when it became clear that the invasion of Iraq was a grotesque mistake, the names Liberty Fries and Freedom Fries were forgotten. Even the Congressional cafeterias that had been forced to adopt these silly names went back to saying French Fries on their menus.

As for the move against Russian Salad, I guess Putin could retaliate by renaming Chicken Kiev. The one time I went to Moscow nearly two decades ago, Chicken Kiev turned up on many menus. And I am assured that every tourist friendly restaurant in Ukraine gives pride of place to Chicken Kiev.

PLACE NAMES MEAN VERY LITTLE WHEN IT COMES TO FOOD. THE FRENCH LOVE APPROPRIATING THE NAMES OF CITIES FOR THEIR CUISINE, BUT OFTEN THE CITIES IN QUESTION HAVE NO REAL CONNECTION WITH THE DISHES THAT BEAR THEIR NAMES

Which is nice. But odd. Because Chicken Kiev was not invented in Kiev or anywhere in Ukraine. It is an American dish from the early part of the 20th century which was called Chicken Kiev in the hope of getting wealthy Russians (in those days, Ukraine was part of the Tsar’s empire—later it was absorbed into the USSR) to order it.

But such is the power of a name that eventually the dish was served all over the USSR (including Moscow) and Ukrainians adopted it as one of their own.

In a way, the same sort of thing happened to Spaghetti Bolognese. The dish was invented in England; the sauce was unknown in Italy. They did serve pasta with a meat ragu in Bologna but the pasta was not spaghetti and the ragu was very different, not keema in a tomato sauce. In fact, Chef Massimo Bottura maintains that there should be no keema in a ragu (he tears the cooked meat apart by hand) and no tomatoes.

But guess what? Once the dish became popular, Bologna adopted it. You will find spaghetti Bolognese now at tourist oriented places all over Italy, including Bologna.

Place names mean very little when it comes to food. The French love appropriating the names of cities for their cuisine, but often the cities in question have no real connection with the dishes that bear their names. Take Florentine. In French cooking, a dish described as ‘Florentine’ is likely to contain spinach and be entirely unknown in Florence. And the Florentine biscuit did not originate in Florence either.

In India, we are more responsible with the place names we add to dishes but when our food travels abroad, it picks up bogus names. No Tamilian will recognise the disgusting Madras curry they serve at Bangladeshi restaurants in the UK. Nor is it clear what Bombay Potatoes, a sort of dry potato sabzi popular in Britain, have to do with the Maharashtra capital. Likewise for Bombay Mix, a kind of glammed-up chivda that is hardly a Mumbai staple

In contrast, when we use place names, there is always a direct connection. Karachi Halwa (the recent target of pseudo-nationalist ire) did originate in Karachi in undivided India. A Hyderabad biryani does come from Hyderabad. Kolhapuri Mutton is a dish from that city. Kabuli channa were so named because they came to India from Afghanistan.

But we take liberties with our own restaurant names. All over India, you will find chaatwallas and halwais who use the word ‘Bengali’ in the names of their establishments. But you will search in vain for a single Bengali in the whole restaurant: the owners will certainly not be Bengalis. Nor will the guy who is making channa-tikki on the large tawa at the restaurant have anything Bengali about him.

My friend Gautam Anand says that the Bengali Market area of Delhi was where Bengali refugees were settled after Partition. Hence, the name and the association of the term Bengali with the many chaat shops there though, of course, it is now an entirely Bengali-free zone. Another theory is that the mithai that such places serve (all over India) has Bengali origins. Hence the name.

But even our kabab restaurants are named after places that have no connection to the cuisine. We know now that tandoori chicken was invented by Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs in Peshawar in undivided India. After Partition, Delhi became the centre of this cuisine.

But restaurateurs (most of them Punjabi Hindus themselves ) like to pretend that the cuisine has Afghan origins and Central Asian connections. So, the restaurants will have names like Samarkand or Kandahar or even Bukhara. Go to the city of Kandahar, ask a Talibani for Butter Chicken and he will think you are mad. This is not their cuisine.

So, it is with our Chinese restaurants. The only thing that unites restaurants with such names as Peking, Shanghai, Nanking and Hong Kong is that the food of none of these cities is to be found on their menus. Nor are there many Chinese people in the kitchens.

But I guess it sounds more inviting than calling the restaurant Kathmandu or Manali.

So, don’t pay attention to names. Or to politics. Food is much too important for that.

Many thanks to Kanchan Gupta who suggested the subject of this column.

The views expressed by the columnist are personal

For more columns by Vir Sanghvi, scan the QR code. Follow Vir on Twitter @virsanghvi

AMERICAN TREAT Chicken Kiev was not invented in Kiev or in Ukraine. It is an American dish from the early part of the 20th century

PESHAWAR ORIGIN Tandoori chicken was invented by Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs in Peshawar in undivided India. But restaurateurs like to pretend that the cuisine has Afghan origins