f The idea of “Indian food”, between the colonial and the global

The Indian sub-continent is ethnically and culturally diverse, and its food cultures are widely divergent. The category of “Indian cuisine” is a modern construction, a culmination of a history of successive imperial movements and syntheses, with contributions by the Portuguese, the Mughals, the Persians and the British. Diverse ingredients and traditions are synthesised and re-shaped to create distinct styles of cookery and service. The British, being a capitalist and globalising empire, was the most potent in shaping and diffusing forms of “Indian food”. Colonial and post-colonial migrations of the twentieth century developed those formations into a restaurant culture, first in Britain, then diffused to other parts of the world, including India itself. Further mutations are in progress at present with the wide diffusions and hybridisation of food cultures and the seemingly opposite pull to “authenticity”.