balti birmingham
‘You cannot beat the vegetable baltis over in Sparkbrook,’ enthuses Colin, my grandly-turbanned Sikh cab driver, in a fierce Brummie accent, ‘it is to die for, but not literally, we all get on up here!’ he quips. So begins my introduction to the Balti triangle, Southeast of Birmingham’s heaving, modern city centre. It is a well-established melting pot, half a dozen streets being home to a vibrant Asian quarter, the majority of residents having roots in Pakistan’s east; Lahore and Kashmir. The area is under sporadic reconstruction since, in 2005, Sparkbrook found itself battered by 4 minutes of freak winds in Britain’s worst tornado in 30 years. Undeterred the British born second, third and fourth generations continue to make a success of all things Pakistani. From Uncle’s Home Stores, selling household goods and specialised cooking equipment, to the , bespoke and bejewelled sari making, to indigenous sweets (ladoo, burfi and para) and authentic gourmet cooking, they are a tough lot, hewn from hard labour and perseverance in the face of discrimination and hardship. The first wave of determined, Muslim migrants settled in this triangle of roads from the early 1960s when the established Irish residents, finding greater social acceptance became upwardly mobile and headed to the more genteel outlying suburbs. The neglected streets and cheap housing soon began to fill with newly arrived Pakistanis, seeking work at the nearby Lucas plant and the surrounding automotive factories. They brought with them their families, and their unique, spicy recipes; shops soon sprung up providing the fresh ingredients for a piquant taste of home like the unique Pakistani red carrots, renowned for their sweetness, or pre-packed fenugreek seeds and the ubiquitous ginger and garlic purée.
With the multi-faith mix demanding no beef or pork, the Lahore truckers’ favourite curry, cooked up in a hubcap (very spicy with chicken or lamb on the bone) is credited as the forefather of the Balti, according to veteran chef Mohammed Asram at the Al Frash Restaurant on Ladypool Road. ‘The bone gives flavour and we know what we are eating!’ The famous, deliciously spicy Balti is a uniquely Birmingham invention (the fast-heating pressed steel bowl was originally made only here). More »