Chicken tikka masala is regularly voted one of the nation’s favourite dishes, yet it was banned from a St George’s Day celebration for not being ‘English enough’…
Salisbury City Council rejected Tania Rahman’s application to have an Indian food stall at the event because her take on English cuisine wasn’t deemed to properly reflect the nation’s cultural palate.
When the shocked owner of Chit Chaat Chai asked why her bid to serve chicken tikka masala and other curry dishes was refused, she received clarification in the form of this very terse email:
Salisbury City Council have since apologised for the extremely dodgy decision and their ‘poorly worded’ explanation. They have also performed a U-turn and unbanned the curry-themed stall.
Understandably, Ms Rahman says she is unlikely to attend because “they didn’t want me there to begin with”, and she feels that the authority only changed their tune to stave off bad publicity.
“It’s only because of the uproar on social media that they’ve asked me back. Does it really have to go to that extent for them to realise the mistake they’ve made?” said Rahman.
We at JOE say good on Tania for sticking to her guns. We’d be only too happy to sample her extremely English dishes…
