A wok to remember

For us, no food is as comforting as Indian Chinese. But even the most familiar dishes travelled the world before they went local

- VIR SANGHVI

In much of the world, you have restaurants that serve comfort food. This is simple food that you could well make at home, but every once in a while you want to give yourself a break and go out for a filling and comforting meal.

When Indians go out to eat, it is usually for food that is not easy to cook at home. The most popular restaurant cuisine in India is still North Indian because we don't have tandoors at home.

Over the years, another cuisine has come to represent familiarity and comfort to us: Desi Chinese food. We know that it is not really Chinese but authenticity does not matter: We just want to be comforted.

I find egg fried rice comforting. If I am unwell, nothing hits the spot as well as a sweet corn soup with chilli sauce and soya sauce.

Contrary to what we sometimes think, the idea of bogus Chinese food is not exclusively Indian. The modern global Chinese menu was invented in America at the beginning of the 20th century by Chinese immigrants who found it difficult to get employment. They opened inexpensive restaurants offering cheap nourishment.

We eat a lot of starches and vegetables in India, so we don't realise how novel the idea of restaurants that served relatively small quantities of meat was in the America of that era. The early Chinese restaurants served rice (cheap) and vegetables with thin strips or small pieces of meat (also cheap).