The Balti is a historic birmingham dish !!!!

What a load of crap. Birmingham is a good centre of Indian food (curries) in the uk. To try to claim some sort of protection in the same way as Stilton or Brie cheese, which have been made for over a hundred years is stupid, obnoxious, and criminally commercial. They'll be wanting to give Watneys Red Barrel or Angel delight protected status next. thye just hope that some peculiarly tasteless (in the olefactory sense) individuals will be stupid enough to pay through the nose for an average product because it can put an official label on it

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-18490695

Mike

I have never eaten a Balti in my life, I prefer the traditional curries. The thing is though the Balti was invented in Birmingham for Brummies, I can remember when you couldn't get it outside Birmingham. I remember my son asking for a Balti in a curry shop in Skegness about the beginning of the 80's and being told that they didn't sell that rubbish there. I noted that the last time I was in the same shop a couple of years back their main thing on the menu was different styles of Balti. I say if the Brummie curry houses want to protect something that they brought on to the market, then best of luck to them.

Phil
I have only eaten a Balti once and thought it was average and nothing special. The application appears to be for TGI staus (the most vague one and the one which , to my mind , is most dubious and probably only instituted to allow dubious claims as it is very broad.). this is described as :
Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG)
Open to products that are traditional or have customary names, and have features that distinguish them from other similar products. These features need not be attributable to the geographical area the product is produced in, nor entirely based on technical advances in the method of production.

The product does have a customary nam and it originated in Birmingham . It does not have any features that particularly distinguish it from other products (other than perhaps being a bit mediocre), and if they are going to claim that it has "techical advances in the method of production" then they should be told that both the frying pan and the pre-prepared sauce in a bottle have been around for a bit. Angel delight has a customary name, as do many other things. To my mind traditional does not mean since the 1970s. i don't think even the biggest pratt in PR has yet claimed the the Veatles are "Traditional"

As I say Mike never even having tasted it, I cant really comment on it's attributes. I always thought it looked a little dry for my liking. I like my curry with plenty of sauce and I like it traditional like the way the natives of the Indian continent cook it at home. After all though we all eat it the muck that is served up in curry houses is nothing like the real thing. How many Indians and Pakistanis do you see in curry houses having a meal out?

I think we are probably in agreement as to Baltis. my point is just thet the EEC scheme was aimed originally (before PR people started to see what their clients could get out of it) at traditional foods originating in a small area which had a particualr desirable characteristic. To my mind the only on eof those points which applies is that it originated in a particualr area, so any application shoul dbe refused.

Did Glasgow invent deep fried mars bars ?.

John

I think chicken masala was invented in Glasgow when one night someone in a curry house complained his chicken curry was too dry, so they added a tin of tomato soup to his curry sauce.

All this talk of inventing reminds me of Thomas Edison. If you listen to the yanks then you will know that he invented the world and everything in it.
Well he didn't invent electricity, the light bulb, telegraph, telephone or many of the other things he is popularly credited with.
What he really did was take someone else's invention and improve upon it, then no matter how small his contribution he would take out a patent (often dozens of them) on it and effectively hijack the original invention.

This Balti thing sounds like the reinvention of curry. I say if they can get the patents office to agree a patent application then they should get TSG status as well, otherwise it's just curry.

Interestingly my Mac spellchecker does not recognise the word "Balti" whilst Stilton, Brie, Cornish Pasty and deep fried Mars Bar all get recognition.

I was pleased to see that they're trying to get the Balti classified as a regional dish. I have to confess that I would LOVE to open up a Balti restaurant over here in Baltimore - what an advert!? The Balti Balti!