A crunchy controversy

Papad and poppadom unite India and the UK, but the two are not the same. There's a potato involved and a legal dispute too

- VIR SANGHVI

I have always believed that papad unites India. Gujaratis like myself will not eat rice unless we have papad to eat with it. Sindhis are known for their papad. The fried papads of South India are justly famous for their flavour and their texture.

But papad also unites India and the UK. The Brits call it poppadom (with various different spellings) a corruption of the South Indian name. Way back in the 1970s, my father used to joke that soon, a typical English meal would consist of curry and rice with crushed pappadom sprinkled on it. I was only a child at the time and thought this was ridiculous, but now I think the old boy may have had a point.

One measure of how much poppadoms have been embraced by British popular culture is that they are often used for racial abuse. There has been criticism of a hit song called the Poppadom Song which, it is alleged, promotes racial stereotyping. (But not as much as it promotes crap music.)

For Brits, their poppadom (as distinct from our papad) is an all-day, anytime snack. They make it in all kinds of sizes. And one popular version (industrially produced and ready-to-eat) is made by Walkers, the company most famous for its potato crisps (what we call wafers). It is made in the same size and sold in the same kind of packet.

This is not surprising because a British poppadom, it now turns out is - hold your breath! actually a potato crisp.