Indian Cooking - Anyone Know Why...?

[slipnot]

I've just made Mulligatawny soup which includes using beef. Most Indians can't eat beef for religious reasons, so why beef? Is it not authentic Indian food, or should it really include lamb? Thank you for any advice.

[Postdog]

It's not an Indian Soup. It's Anglo - Indian, probably - though don't quote me - first made during the British occupation and combining their cuisine with ours for the sake of the brits.

[Gromit]

It was made for the British Soldiers in India. An India would not recognise most of the food that passes for 'Indian' in our restaurants and shops.

[indianwells]

It's not an Indian dish. I think it was invented here, for the returning servicemen from India in colonial days. I think they missed their curry.
I'm probably completely wrong though. It has been known!

[slipnot]

Thanks to you Postdog and Gromit. I see what you mean - a bit like authentic tikka masala!

[dundurn]

I seem to remember the word means "pepper water" and it was Anglo-Indian, eaten by the sahibs and the memsahibs but not by the Indians themselves.

[slipnot]

Thanks Indianwells - with my chillis, it was certainly hot!

[slipnot]

Thanks Dundurn.

[Ethel]

Doesn't have to be made with beef - mutton is a favourite meat for this dish:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/glossary/m.shtml?mul ligatawny

And Sikhs can eat beef, if they are not vegetarian. Hindu's don't eat beef. Muslims eat beef. The 24m Christians in India also eat beef.

So with 138m Muslim, 24m Christians, and 19m Sikhs in India, I would say a beef curry is authentic Indian food.