Below left and right Images from Madras. Middle Cleaning silverware.
Inside the dining room, with its 14 tables standing on a slightly sticky, thick carpet, each table had a slightly soiled but very starched tablecloth. The walls were covered in tawdry flock and the exhausted waiters, in their stained dinner jackets which were almost a deep, dark green through years of wear, adjusted their clip-on bow ties and prepared for the onslaught. They had an air of resigned acquiescence. Each table was dressed simply with a salt and pepper pot and a stainless steel sugar bowl filled with white sugar lumps. The call was for–because that’s all there really was — six chicken vindaloo, nine meat Madras, four plates of evil smelling, deep-fried, crispy Bombay duck and mango chutney and, of course, 15 pints of lager. The bewildered waiter wrote the order on a series of little duplicate pads and headed for the kitchen only to be called back by the blue-eyed fly-half with crinkly blond hair, who was training to be an accountant, and from his position of authority on the main table he would say, ‘Make that 30 pints.’
Eventually, on white plates, the pungent curries and mountains of plain boiled rice arrived. There was, of course, not enough cheap stainless steel cutlery to go round. The Madras was hot, fiery and acrid, the vindaloo was diabolical. One by one, chaps would go to the bog but, one by one, they didn’t return because the old hands knew that you could climb out of the window and then you wouldn’t have to pay your share of the bill. So, every Saturday night was a mad Madras night.
Well, dear reader, that was in another time. It was before Indian restaurants became a culinary force to be reckoned with, before silver leaf garnished fragrant biryanis. It was before Britain had ever heard of a tandoor oven, but it was at a time not so long after India gained independence from Great Britain and the country was still awash with ex-colonials who wanted to continue eating their meat Madras or chicken Madras and their Bombay duck. In reality, the concept of a meat Madras is entirely a figment of the British imagination, but that is something I learnt much later in life.
In the meantime, and hoping to fulfil some kind of youthful gastronomic holy grail, I left the west coast full of anticipation for my visit to Madras. But, they’ve changed the name! Yes, okay, Madras was the first important British settlement in India and yes, quite correctly, the Indians have given it back its original name, Chennai, but how can you now go into your favourite curry shop after a hard game and say, ‘9 meat Chennais and 30 pints of lager, please’?
Above left to right Taxis Madras-style. A little wood burner. In the paddy fields.
Chennai is India’s fourth largest city, the capital of Tamil Nadu. It is a young city by Indian standards. Its foundation in the 17th century by the East India Company also marked the foundation of the British empire. When the fortification — called Fort St George — was completed in 1640 the walls protected the East India Company’s factory and other European trading settlements. Its function was to serve as a base for British agents to prevent local merchants controlling the price of goods. It later became the city of Madras. As it grew, the local Tamil people assigned the name Chennai to the city, whereas the British stuck to Madras. In recent years, however, it has been decided that the official name of the city should be Chennai.
The city is the home of curry powder, which was originally developed in Madras for the nostalgic British wishing to re-capture the flavours of India after they returned home from the Raj. Huge quantities of curry powder are still manufactured in machines that resemble concrete mixers, but it is all for export. No Indian cook would dream of using it.
British buildings dominate the area. The Ice House was built to store ice imported from Boston until it was used to cool the gin and tonics of the British residents. The Madras Club was built as a place where the British elite could drink the G & Ts. The chief reminder of colonial days, however, is the High Court, the largest court of law building in the world outside London. To the south, 20 hectares of narrow lanes form the city’s largest market, Kothawal Chavadi, which includes a colourful fruit and flower section. On the outskirts of the city is Asia’s biggest film studio complex, just beyond the jaws of a fake shark which guards MGR Film City. On this enormous site, funded by the state government, are 36 sets standing ready for use. Tourists are sometimes invited to be extras, especially in Raj-era films.
Now, in the intervening 40 years between eating my first meat Madras and my first visit to Chennai, I have learned a lot and I certainly was not expecting to find an authentic meat Madras in Madras, any more than I would expect to find a spaghetti Bolognese in Bologna or a chop suey in Beijing. These, and many other internationally known dishes are, again, concoctions created by bewildered ex-patriots. I did, however, expect to find exquisite food, but I was disappointed. As with all big cities the world over, it is hard–not to say nearly impossible–to find the gastronomic heart of that place. I stayed at the Connemara Hotel where they had a specialist restaurant devoted to the Chettinad cuisine, which is fiery, hot and spicy and should be delicious, but it was not.
Away from the crowded streets.
Using all the resources available to me, I sought out the so-called good restaurants but, quite frankly, you will probably eat better in Southall or Birmingham, and that is not to mention how hard it is to put up with the inexorable poverty and squalor which gives birth to begging and harassment. So then you have to ask yourself, if you are finding this so offensive, why are you here in the first place. Well, the fact is the cooking in India can be one of the great experiences of life but it is best enjoyed at the home of Indians, no matter how rich or poor they might be. They treat their produce with such love and such care. They prepare their masalas with the same sort of love with which Van Gogh must have mixed his oils.
I spent some time at a magnificent palace where a family of four or six people were attended by over two hundred staff. The dichotomy lies in the fact that the poor can’t afford to eat in restaurants, so there are just absolutely fundamentally basic squalid soup kitchens, while the rich are so well off they can afford to have cooks at home, so no matter what you read in the otherwise absolutely essential Lonely Planet Guide to India, take their restaurant entries with a pinch of chillies.
If you do eat in the streets of any of the big three cities, Chennai, Calcutta and Mumbai, and you choose a place which is very, very busy, you will usually eat well for a few pennies, cents or dimes.
However, if you are in Chennai, make a point of eating at Hotel Saravana Bhavan. This is the ultimate in Indian fast food restaurants. They have a menu of over three hundred different dishes, mostly vegetarian. They serve up to 4,000 meals a day (by the way, it is not a hotel, the word ‘hotel’ in many parts of India means restaurant or canteen). You get a tray on which are eight, nine or ten little dishes, savoury, sweet, hot, sour. It is called a thali and the first person who replicates this brilliant concept (in many ways not dissimilar to Spanish tapas) in London will make a fortune and change the gastronomic mindset of a nation already obsessed with Indian food. Anybody