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The tingling of the taste buds, the watering of the eyes – it’s almost like being in love.

And Britain’s passionate affair with the curry has hit a 200-year ­landmark.

In 1810 a surgeon from the army of the British East India company opened the Hindoostane Coffee House in George Street, central London.

The venture was not a success but, its founder, Sake Dean Mahomed, unwittingly became the Cupid who started Britain’s 200-year love affair with sub-continental cuisine.

The first Indian restaurant to ring up profits was the Veeraswamy, opened by Anglo-Indian Edward Palmer at the British Empire ­Exhibition of 1924.

It was so popular that he moved it to Regent Street where to this day it is frequently fully booked.

By the start of the Second World War in 1939, there were six curry houses in Britain. Six years later, Indians arriving to help rebuild London started in earnest the growth of the nation’s favourite restaurants.

The migrant workers established cafes and canteens to feed thems and their families. But curious natives soon discovered the spicy food which was a revelation compared with bland, rationed British food.

From these cafes grew a national obsession with the likes of chicken tikka massala, naan bread, Bombay potatoes and lamb pasanda, spelled variously around the land.

By 1982 there were 3,500 curry restaurants in Britain. Today there are 12,000. More than 80% are run not by Indians but by Bangladeshis.

Two-thirds of our eating out is in curry restaurants, where we spend £5million a day and eat 205 million poppadoms (or papadums – most items of Indian cuisine have variations on their name) every year.

And London has more Indian restaurants than either Mumbai or Delhi.

The largest Indian restaurant in the world is the Aakash in Cleckheaton, West Yorks.

The former Providence Place United Reformed Church, built in the 1850s, can feed 750 people at the same sitting.

The biggest naan bread was made for the 1999 Kingfisher National Day by the Bengal Brasserie restaurant, in Hither Green, South East London.

It measured two inches thick, 66cm (26in) long and 58cm (23in) wide, and weighed 4kg (8lb 12oz).

Pat Chapman, who runs the 45,000-member Curry Club, said: “Curry was something the working man had never seen and it was at a price that everyone could afford.

“It tasted great, was cheap and was mildly addictive. When it first started it catered for people back from the Raj who had developed this peculiar taste for the exotic dish.

“It didn’t really catch on as it was only old Indian hands who liked it. My mother came back from India in 1933 and she used to go to ­Veeraswamy every week as she loved curries so much.

“Then in the 50s a lot of Bengalis who worked on the docks were made redundant and opened up restaurants. To keep costs down they kept off the high streets but to make up for it they brought in red flock wallpaper and dinner-jacketed waiters to make it seem more posh.”

Many of the dishes we know and love would be unrecognisable in India. Chicken tikka masala was created in Britain when a chef added tomato and onion paste to grilled chicken. The dish was unknown in India until the 90s when British companies began exporting it.

Many other dishes considered traditional Indian staples are also not authentic. “Ninety-five per cent of Indians don’t know what a vindaloo, jalfrezi or a madras curry is,” says cookery writer Camellia Panjabi.

Earlier this year four master chefs from Indian and Bangladeshi restaurants in Britain travelled to Kolkata.

They showcased the best of British curries, such as chicken tikka masala and baltis, to appreciative diners.

Even the word curry can’t be traced back to the India or its neighbours.

The word was coined by the British in India and has no direct translation into any of the sub-continent’s 15 or so languages.

Many Indians feel it demeans their food and prefer to use other words to describe each dish.

What’s more, one of the earliest known recipes for meat in a spicy sauce, dating from 1700BC, appeared on tablets found near Babylon in Mesopotamia – what is now Iraq.

Taj Mahal is the most popular name in Britain for an Indian restaurant. Adrian Davey, managing director of Cobra beer, said: “We did a survey that found Bromley – not Brick Lane or Bradford – had the most Indian restaurants per capita, with one curry houses for every 853 residents.

“And six of the top 10 came from the south.”

Pat Chapman believes Britain’s love affair with curries could not be more intense. He said: “We have seen a tailing off of restaurant openings so we may have hit a peak.

“Before curries we didn’t really know international food. But it helped pave the way for many other cuisines which people like exploring.

“It has become a deep-rooted part of Britain and its culture.”

Nine years ago, the late Robin Cook suggested that chicken tikka masala had become the national dish.

Perhaps now is the time to make that official.