Takeaway takeover

FANCY A Chinese tonight? That question, or one very similar, must reverberate around the UK’s households most weekends, if not on many weekdays too.

Without a doubt, the institution of a Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese or even Lebanese takeaway meal is nowadays firmly entrenched in our culinary psyche, with many more nationalities’ cuisines adding themselves to the ever-growing list seemingly by the week.

Many of us think that takeaways are a relatively recent phenomenon. Not so. The first Indian restaurant (more specifically, a curry house) in the UK was opened in 1809, by one Dean Mahomed, whose Hindustani Coffee House in George Street, London, sold curries to ex-employees of the East India Company who had settled there. Customers could make the choice to either eat their food on the premises or take their meals home.

It wasn’t until just after the Second World War that Chinese food began to become an integral part of British gastronomy. In 1908, a former ship’s chef called Chung Koon