Pat Chapman’s voice booms over the microphone in the packed, noisy Barbeque Nation at T. Nagar. On a rainy Sunday night, the crowd shows no signs of thinning; more families arrive but none seem to leave. Near a small stage, a cooking station is set up and Pat is busy reading out instructions on how to make perfect marinades and soon enough there’s a small group of people around him hanging on to his every word. In five minutes, there is no room for anyone to pass by and people dig into their plates while thoughtfully nodding their heads.
This isn’t Pat’s first visit to the country (it’s apparently his 44th); he was in India in 1965 and in 1980 to the city and he’s seen some big changes even in the last 10 years he says, “All I see are big tower blocks,” and goes on to explain the marinades at the restaurant’s festival ‘Pat Chapman Grills The World’. “I’ve been known for teaching people how to make curry and when Barbeque Nation reached out to me six months ago about planning such a festival, I came up with ideas for 42 marinades originally,” he laughs adding that finally 14 were chosen after a series of back and forth emails and testing. Some of the marinades, he says, were out of his comfort zone and he had to change the ones that made use of alcohol. And judging by the horde of people who turned up and attacked the barbeque, it looked like Pat had got the marinades right.
For someone who’s called the ‘Curry Leader’, the person responsible for ‘Baltifying Britain’, and the founder of the Curry Club, Pat is the authority on Indian-British food. “Curry is still popular in Britain; there are about 9,000 Indian restaurants in Britain. Not everyone likes it (curry), but those who do have it at least once every three weeks. My little theory is that if you eat it every day, you start craving it and cannot pass one day without it; it’s like a curry fix,” he says. The advent of the curry culture in England, Pat says, started in 1947: “The British had no culture of dining out, but things started to change. There were many communities in Britain and many people out of work and so they turned to the restaurant business — although the food was served in silver cutlery, the food in itself was abundant and affordable and that made it popular.”
Pat’s relationship with India, however, does not stop there. His family lived in India from 1715 to 1935 where they worked for the East India Company. In 1935, his grandfather, a Yorkshire man as Pat puts it, retired from the British Indian Army and moved back to England and in 1940 Pat was born. His love for food, particularly curry, started since he was eight. “My mother was busy so I initially learnt how to cook from my grandmother. Later, I trained with a Gujarati chef and then I started Curry Club in 1982 and I never stopped learning ever since,” Pat says.
Pat says that he doesn’t differentiate between two curries; he loves them all equally: “India has so many regions and every single one of them is represented in restaurants in England and the exciting thing is that they’re all the best. I don’t really object to any curry whether it’s pork in Goa of beef in West Bengal; there’s nothing that I dislike.” He says he has been lucky with his cookbooks doing quite well despite the internet having a treasure trove of recipes and information about food, “I keep my finger on the pulse and working with chefs gives me the adrenalin to keep going. When I used manage light and sound systems for rock acts and festivals, I lived out of a suitcase. It isn’t easy but once you get into a rhythm you just have to keep going and that’s what I’m doing right now,” he laughs.
Pat Chapman Grills The World is on till the end of the month at all Barbeque Nation outlets.
