It’s the end of the working week. You sit down on the sofa and ask the all-important question: “What are we ordering?” According to Channel 5’s 2019 documentary Britain’s Favourite Takeaway, your likely answer will be ‘Chinese’ or ‘Indian’. It’s hard to imagine, then, that within living memory, there was a time when the majority of British people had not tried - let alone were regularly eating - what are now the nation’s ‘favourites’. How then, did we get here? The answer: migration.

 

Asian migration to Britain was part of a wider pattern of diversification in British society following the Second World War. The British Nationality Act of 1948 opened the door for residents of British colonies and the Commonwealth to migrate to Britain as ‘Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies’. As a result, the 1950s saw a rapid increase in migration from the colonies to Britain. By 1961, over 100,000 Indian and Pakistani nationals were living in Britain. Similarly, between 1955 and 1962, 85-90% of able-bodied males from San Tin in Hong Kong migrated to the United Kingdom due to a crisis in their agricultural sector. The recipes which accompanied these migrant groups, often going on to be served in restaurants up and down the country, have long been pointed to as evidence of Britain’s vibrant diversity and multiculturalism. This exhibition, however, looks at the restaurant environment as a site of superficial exchange in which instances of racism and intolerance sit alongside the consumption of our ‘favourites’. Ultimately, this is a business transaction: with an eye toward profit, migrant restaurant owners made changes to their recipes in order to appeal to the white British majority. And so we have to ask ourselves: how diverse is my Friday night takeaway?