BIRMINGHAM, England — The year after opening a small restaurant here in 1977, Mohammed Arif spent two weeks in his native Pakistan, where he saw spicy, aromatic curries being cooked and served, sizzling, in the same dish.
“It just came into my mind that I could take this idea back,” said Mr. Arif, whose thought gave life to a new dish — the Balti, a curry usually made of meat, chicken or prawns, combined with vegetables and a spicy sauce, and cooked over a high heat.
Mr. Arif’s recently refurbished restaurant, Adil’s, is thought to be the place where the first Balti curry was served in 1978, and lies in a colorful immigrant area of Birmingham where bustling shops sell South Asian food, spices and clothing.
More than 35 years later, at a time when tensions over immigration, assimilation and religious and ethnic differences seem to be growing ever sharper, this adaptation of Pakistani cooking to British tastes is a symbol of culinary cross-fertilization in one of Britain’s most multicultural cities. Most customers at Balti restaurants are non-Asian — a tasty retort to the much-mocked reports that areas of Birmingham, and of a number of other European cities, had become “no-go zones” for anyone but strict Muslims.
The area around Adil’s is now known as Birmingham’s Balti Triangle. Restaurants in other cities have their own recipes, and precooked Balti meals occupy supermarket shelves.
But does that make Birmingham’s Balti one of Britain’s traditional specialties?
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The popularity of Balti may be “phasing out,” Ms. Jaffrey said. “I don’t see the name that much anymore.”
Mr. Munro describes Ms. Jaffrey’s criticism as “culinary arrogance” and questions her concept of authenticity.
In fact, they agree that there are big differences between Birmingham Balti and food served in Pakistan, which is normally cooked in clay (not steel) dishes and over a lower flame.
Yet Mr. Munro argues that this is what makes Birmingham Balti a unique “fusion food,” one that is easy both on a Western palate and, thanks to the heat at which it is cooked, on the British digestive system.
“I have had a couple of thousand Baltis,” he said, “and I have never had an upset stomach.”
