Food

Chicken makhani, or butter chicken (Courtesy of Amit Panwar)

The Butter Chicken Effect

As a lawsuit unfolds over the dish’s origins, it’s time to ask: has its popularity done more harm than good for Indian cuisine?

Food articles get the most love at The Juggernaut because they resurface nostalgic moments. Think: how a Portuguese technique led to a Bengali sondesh explosion to how kithul palm treacle became a Sri Lankan favorite to why it’s so hard to open an Indian restaurant in America to how fake cinnamon came to rule the world. 

We’ve also profiled the who’s who in the restaurant and food and beverage industries, from Dishoom co-founder Shamil Thakrar to chef Padma Lakshmi to James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award winner Madhur Jaffrey. Our food writers include staff writer Mehr Singh, who has also written for Eater, Priya Krishna, now a staff writer at the New York Times, Nikhita Venugopal, Rohan Kamicheril, Myles Karp, Tania Banerjee, and several others.

Why it matters: The gatekeepers of food journalism often have little to no curiosity for Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Nepali, Sri Lankan, Bhutanese, and Afghan recipes and cuisines. Or, they love passing off critique of Indian food as humor, satire, or just plain harmless. We write stories about our culinary traditions with depth, nuance, and fun.