It’s red, it’s creamy, it’s spicy, it’s chicken tikka masala. Except you might not be able to just call it that anymore. Unless it’s coming from Glasgow.

Glasgow City Council is thinking of trademarking chicken tikka masala. Like Scotch whisky or champagne.

That’s right. Immigrants to Glasgow claim they invented that Indian restaurant staple 40 years ago. The story goes some customer found the chicken tikka too dry and wanted some gravy and the cook dished up something with tomato soup and cream. Now it’s a staple, fattening generations of tourists.

And Glasgow wants to brand it. What the hell?

Is this in a long line of patents for everything indigenous. Turmeric, neem, basmati rice have all had to fight attempts to patent them in the West. There is already a Jasmati and Kasmati and I believe a Texmati patented out there.

Before in the days of the East India Company the old colonials just came and took the natural resources. Now they want to patent it so the locals have to pay to use it. And here I was thinking the Brits would just be grateful for being saved from the lumpy darkness of Yorkshire pudding.

Sure, Chicken tikka masala might be Britain’s unofficial national dish. It might also have been cooked up in Glasgow. But like the Kohinoor in the Queen’s crown it does not belong to the Brits. It may have been first cooked in Glasgow but there is nothing about chicken, tomato sauce and cream that is unique to Glasgow.

If they get to trademark that, who gets to trademark biryani, idli, sambar, naan, dal, tandoori, dum cooking, etc?

It’s time to bring chicken tikka masala into open source.