Indian Chinese cuisine
Though Asian cuisines have mixed throughout history throughout Asia, the most popular origin story of the fusion food resides with Chinese labourers of Calcutta (now called Kolkata), who immigrated to British India looking for work.
[3] This idea of flavourful, saucy Chinese food cooked with Indian spices and vegetables has become integral to the mainstream culinary scenes of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, and its diffusion to nations like the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and the Caribbean such as Jamaica and Martinique have shaped and altered the global view of Chinese, Indian, and Asian cuisines like in most Southeast Asian countries of Indonesia and Thailand.
[5] The city's relation to the British crown made it a great place for material prospects and opportunity, which drew businessmen and immigrant workers from surrounding areas.
[2] Following Atchew's footsteps, waves of immigrants from the Guangdong province of China fled to India due to civil war, famine, poverty, and conflict, searching for safety and prosperity.
[6] Recognized as one of the first Indo-Chinese restaurants in the country, the still-standing corner eatery of Eau Chew gained its popularity by using the fashionable pull of exotic Chinese foods combined with non-threatening familiar flavours of chili, curry, and corn starch, to attract and keep-on customers.
[6] It is important also to note those Chinese returning from India to their homelands in China's south, for they often brought their new culinary practices and flavours with them, working to Indianize the taste of Cantonese-style foods in southern coastal cities such as Hong Kong.
[8] The significance of this route to ancient history is undeniable, the exchange of goods, diseases, and ideas from the East to West and vice versa has had a lasting impact upon the human story.
Chinese and Indian merchants would carry their goods across the borders separating the two neighbouring countries: silks, rice, and crockery coming from China, with a plethora of influential spices sprouting from India.
[11][12] Similarly, Asia's southeast was historically populated by immigrants from both China and India, namely the Han and Tamil ethnic groups who joined scattered aboriginal societies.
For example, the Chinese practice of rice cultivation was introduced to the regions of Southeast Asia and Nepal in the thirtieth century BC, where it has existed as an irreplaceable and undeniable staple ever since.
[13] Furthermore, now completely embedded within Southeast Asian culinary practices, Chinese cooking and eating implements such as spoons, chopsticks, and woks were other products which were introduced to the region.
Although not aligned with the greasy and pungent flavors of the culinary traditions which evolved in Kolkata, the simple foods of Nepal are often accompanied by rice, and consist of curries or spiced vegetables stir-fried or boiled in an Indian-style wok called a karahi.
[16] Tibetan food, in addition to high altitude and harsh climates, is geographically influenced by the flavours of the countries surrounding it: notably Nepal, India, and China.
Tibet is a nation heavily influenced by Indian Buddhist values (first brought in the fifth century AD), and with beliefs and ideas travels culture and food as well.
Indian or Calcutta Chinese food is readily available in major metropolitan areas of India such as Kolkata along with other towns and cities in West Bengal, Mumbai, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Delhi and Bangalore.
It is also available in a number of towns and at dhabas (roadside stalls), also popularly referred to as "Fast food", adjacent to major Indian roads and highways.
