Eating our words

Chop, cutlet and patty mean different things in the West and across India. Blame history, geography, even politics. Just don't let it get in the way of a good meal

- VIR SANGHVI

What do these three culinary terms often used in India but derived from the names of Western dishes have in common: Chop, cutlet and patty? If you said they were the names of popular dishes, you would be right. But here's the thing: Each of them describes a completely different dish in India from the one it refers to in the West.

Let's start with cutlets. In Western cuisine the term has two specific meanings. The first is a piece of mutton (with bone) from the neck of a lamb. The second, used most often for veal, describes a flat piece of meat (from the rib usually) that is breaded and fried.

Neither of these is a meaning we would recognise in India. We use the term to refer to a dish consisting of mutton (or chicken or fish) keema shaped into a flat patty, breadcrumbed and then fried. Rarely, if ever, will we use a whole cut of meat -it is nearly always keema-and over the years, vegetarian cutlets have also become popular.

Given that we had no breadcrumb tradition in India until the British got here, our version of the cutlet is probably a Raj creation.