What Chinese? Gobi manchurian is exclusively Indian

Most Indians imagine they are eating ‘Chinese’ food when wolfing down chowmein from a street cart or chilli paneer at a wedding; China denies their provenance as vehemently as it claims Arunachal Pradesh.

A similar reaction comes from Indians when told that the chilli-hot slop served in corner curry houses in the UK is ‘Indian food’. There may be a degree of similarity but many more degrees of separation, in both cases.

So, the call by a Union minister to boycott ‘Chinese’ food — that China baulks at claiming any association — makes as much sense as eschewing roadside burgers to oppose US hegemony.


What Indians relish as Chinese food today is an MSG-loaded testament to the supremacy of the Indian palate in India — garlicky, tomatoey, chilli-hot and, most importantly, mostly vegetarian. With cutlery, not chopsticks, of course.

Unlike Galwan and Dokalam, there is little chance of China ever asserting ownership. Indians must continue to eat ‘Chindian’ food — with regional variations like Chinjabi and Chingali and innovations such as idli manchurian and Chinese chaat — with nary a niggle of patriotic doubt.

Scholarly treatises deserve to be written on many aspects of the Chinese culinary evolution in India, from American chopsuey that has nothing to do with the US to gobi manchurian that has no connection with either the desert or the province.