Curry’s flavour squandered to curry favour?

Last Sunday’s Gala Dinner at the Hilton Hotel in Park Lane, held by the Federation of Bangaldeshi Caterers (FoBC) to dish out the Asian Curry Awards, should perhaps have been retitled “Carry on curry”. A very different event from some of the year’s other award ceremonies, the evening left the audience with a tired taste in their mouths.

This was the sixth FoBC Gala Dinner and the fifth round of Asian Curry Awards (as organised by the Asian Catering Federation [ACF]). Any evaluation of the event which the two organisations may hold will be made all the easier by the fact that event organiser Yawar Khan is Chairman [sic] of the FoBC and Asian Curry Awards, while also being Co-Chairman [sic] of the Asian Catering Federation.

Bangladesh is a great country, but even the strongest Bangladeshi patriot has to admit that we are not all there is to the continent of Asia: there’s the big boys, India and China, and too many little ones to name. When it comes to the “Asian” Curry Awards, though, it seems that there is nothing outside the standard UK “Indian” restaurant, staffed by Bangladeshis 99 times out of 100.

It was even stranger to read a letter sent on behalf of HM the Queen to the event organisers, thanking them for advising Her Majesty that the “Awards have expanded to include a wider range of pan-Asian cuisines”. Event organiser Yawar Khan records, in the programme, that organisers have received “an incredible number of high quality nominations for all award categories” this year. The Bangladeshi High Commissioner, Md Abdul Hannan, recognised their achievements with a message in the programme and by attending the ceremony: no other Asian High Commissioners followed suit on either count. What is the process for nomination? The programme lists the “2015 Finalists”, but the “East Asian” category is very small compared with the regional finalists very nearly all of whom appear to be traditional UK “Indian” restaurants. Is everyone who is “nominated” automatically a “finalist”? Who knows? Not us.

The FoBC is proud of its links with government, says Yawar Khan. Alas, the keynote speaker was Tom Brake MP – a very nice man, but one of the least influential MPs in the House of Commons. He is listed in the programme as “Deputy Leader of the House of Commons” – a post which he only held up to the General Election in May 2015, at which his party was all but obliterated. He is now Shadow Leader of the House for his Party (with only eight MPs, they each have to take quite a few jobs), but he is well out of government. Still, he did perform one useful function. The first speaker was Yawar Khan, of the FoBC and ACF – who, shamefully and possibly uniquely at public events held last weekend, made no reference to the atrocities in Paris. It was left to Mr Brake to made up for this slip, comment on the matter and whip those present into an impromptu minute’s silence.

The event was compered by Natasha Kaplinksy – a professional woman with much more experience of presenting live material than of the curry industry, she would have had to rely on the organisers to give her accurate material to work on. Alas for the usually polished Ms Kaplinsky, it was not a smooth ride. She failed to introduce Tulip Siddique MP and didn’t have the correct names for the representatives of sponsors Square Mile Insurance.

Sponsors NoQu and Square Mile Insurance, both companies providing restaurant-related services, were well matched with the event – as was the Aroma Ice Cream company. Kingfisher and Cobra beers were also sponsors: there won’t have been many bottles of that beverage washing down the Gala dinner, with its mainly Muslim audience.  These appear to have been the only sponsors of the event, and all of these companies except NoQ       u appear to be sponsors of the ACA already.

We did send a number of questions to the ACA/FoBC, as follows.

1. The Bangladeshi High Commissioner wrote in the programme and attended the event. Were there official representatives of any other Asian countries present?
2. How many people/businesses were nominated – and how many of them were not Bangaldeshi? How many were shortlisted?  What is the difference between the shortlist of 100 best eateries, 20 takeaways and 50 chefs which was to appear on the website and the list of “finalists” printed in the programme at the Gala event?  How many votes were cast for the nominees in the first stage of the process?
3. The following companies were referred to as sponsors in the programme: NoQu, Square Mile Insurance, Kingfisher, Cobra and Aroma Ice Cream. Were there any other sponsors?

We telephoned ACA/FoBC to ask why they had not answered our questions and they told us, “We are not going to respond to East London Newspapers.”

Sadly, this whole event was a triumph of form over substance. Awards must be the result of a process which is transparent if they are to carry any weight in wider society: otherwise, they suggest that the curry industry is slipshod and incestuous, which is no good for Asians or for curry.

[Adverts]