Who Invented Butter Chicken? Indian Judge to Rule on Dispute Over Global Favorite 

A freshly prepared butter chicken dish is placed on a table inside the Moti Mahal Delux restaurant in New Delhi, India, January 23, 2024. (Reuters)
A freshly prepared butter chicken dish is placed on a table inside the Moti Mahal Delux restaurant in New Delhi, India, January 23, 2024. (Reuters)
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Who Invented Butter Chicken? Indian Judge to Rule on Dispute Over Global Favorite 

A freshly prepared butter chicken dish is placed on a table inside the Moti Mahal Delux restaurant in New Delhi, India, January 23, 2024. (Reuters)
A freshly prepared butter chicken dish is placed on a table inside the Moti Mahal Delux restaurant in New Delhi, India, January 23, 2024. (Reuters)

Butter chicken - one of India's best-known dishes globally - is delicious and apparently also contentious, with two Indian restaurant chains doing battle in court over claims to its origins.

The lawsuit - which has become a hot topic in India - was brought by the family behind Moti Mahal, a famed Delhi restaurant brand that has counted late US President Richard Nixon and India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru among its guests.

It claims restaurant founder, Kundan Lal Gujral, created the curry in the 1930s when the restaurant first opened in Peshawar before it moved to Delhi. In a 2,752-page court filing it has sued rival chain Daryaganj, accusing it of falsely claiming to have invented the dish as well as dal makhani, a popular lentil dish that is also laden with butter and cream.

The Gujral family is seeking $240,000 in damages, also alleging that Daryaganj has copied the layout of Moti Mahal's website and "the look and feel" of its restaurants.

"You cannot take away somebody's legacy ... The dish was invented when our grandfather was in Pakistan," said Monish Gujral, managing director at Moti Mahal.

Daryaganj - which was established relatively recently in 2019 - counters that its late family member, Kundan Lal Jaggi, had partnered with Gujral to open the Delhi restaurant in 1947, and the dish was invented there. That gives it the right to also lay claim to the creation of the dish, it argues.

Daryaganj shared with Reuters a faded, hand-written partnership document registered in 1949 to back its argument.

The dispute has captured the nation's attention with Indian TV broadcasters running segments on the history of the dish and debate raging on social media.

"It's an offbeat, unique case. You really don't know who created the first dish of butter chicken. The court will be hard pressed and will need to rely on circumstantial evidence," said Ameet Datta, an intellectual property lawyer at India's Saikrishna & Associates.

Testimonies of people who can link the brand to the dish they consumed decades ago could be critical proof, Datta added.

Made with tandoor-cooked chicken pieces mixed in a tomato gravy with dollops of cream and butter, the dish was ranked 43rd in a list of world's "best dishes" by TasteAtlas as rated by nearly 400,000 users. It was the second-ranked Indian food after butter garlic naan bread. The two are often paired together.

The case was first heard by the Delhi High Court last week and the next hearing is scheduled for May.



Japan’s Sado Mines Added to World Heritage List

This photo taken on May 9, 2022 shows a mine on Sado island. (AFP)
This photo taken on May 9, 2022 shows a mine on Sado island. (AFP)
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Japan’s Sado Mines Added to World Heritage List

This photo taken on May 9, 2022 shows a mine on Sado island. (AFP)
This photo taken on May 9, 2022 shows a mine on Sado island. (AFP)

A network of mines on a Japanese island infamous for using conscripted wartime labor was added to UNESCO's World Heritage register Saturday after South Korea dropped earlier objections to its listing.

The Sado gold and silver mines, now a popular tourist attraction, are believed to have started operating as early as the 12th century and produced until after World War II.

Japan had put a case for World Heritage listing because of their lengthy history and the artisanal mining techniques used there at a time when European mines had turned to mechanization.

The proposal was opposed by Seoul when it was first put because of the use of involuntary Korean labor during World War II, when Japan occupied the Korean peninsula.

UNESCO confirmed the listing of the mines at its ongoing committee meeting in New Delhi on Saturday after a bid highlighting its archaeological preservation of "mining activities and social and labor organization".

"I would like to wholeheartedly welcome the inscription... and pay sincere tribute to the long-standing efforts of the local people which made this possible," Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said in a statement.

The World Heritage effort was years in the making, inspired in part by the successful recognition of a silver mine in western Japan's Shimane region.

South Korea's foreign ministry said it had agreed to the listing "on the condition that Japan faithfully implements the recommendation... to reflect the 'full history' at the Sado Gold Mine site and takes proactive measures to that end."

Historians have argued that recruitment conditions at the mine effectively amounted to forced labor, and that Korean workers faced significantly harsher conditions than their Japanese counterparts.

"Discrimination did exist," Toyomi Asano, a professor of history of Japanese politics at Tokyo's Waseda University, told AFP in 2022.

"Their working conditions were very bad and dangerous. The most dangerous jobs were allocated to them."

Also added to the list on Saturday was the Beijing Central Axis, a collection of former imperial palaces and gardens in the Chinese capital.

The UNESCO committee meeting runs until Wednesday.