Goat Doughnuts Go Global

This is probably not what Eric Schlosser, author of the best-selling book Fast Food Nation, was thinking about when he wrote, "The values, tastes and industrial practices of the American fast food industry are being exported to every corner of the globe, helping to create a homogenized international culture that sociologist Benjamin R. Barber has labeled 'McWorld.' "

Barber and Schlosser fret about the emergence of a world culture based on bland American tastes. But they didn't take into account the Weirdness Factor -- people don't always behave like sheep.

Troy Fields

Local franchise owner Laila Vastani serves up an unlikely fusion of French and Indian cooking.

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Hot Breads Bakers and Confectioners

5700-A Hillcroft
Houston, TX 77036

Category: Restaurant > Bakery

Region: Outer Loop - SW

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713-785-1212. Hours: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.

Aloo puff: $1.25
Minced goat croissant: $1.50
Keema pizza: $1.50
Chicken tikka Danish: $1.50
Chicken croquette: $1.50
Chicken hot dog: $1.50

Part of the Foreign Franchise Invasion series

5700A Hillcroft

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More About

• Eric Schlosser
• Mumbai
• Benjamin Barber
• Meat
• Indian Food and Cooking

In May 2001, Hindu activists in Bombay smeared cow dung on a statue of Ronald McDonald in protest of the corporation's alleged use of beef products in its french fries. A Hindu nationalist group, which is part of India's alliance government, called for the immediate closure of all McDonald's outlets in the country.

According to Schlosser, the genesis of the McDonald's protest movement was a libel lawsuit that McDonald's filed against Greenpeace activists in England in 1994. Since the activists couldn't afford a lawyer, a worldwide network of anti-McDonald's volunteers joined together to gather evidence and share information to be used in the trial.

Worldwide opponents of McDonald's were thus congealed into an international network. So, although the lawsuit about McDonald's beefy french fries was filed in Seattle by an Indian-American attorney on behalf of three American Hindus who didn't eat beef, it was no surprise when the allegations sparked protests in Bombay.

Worldwide protests against McDonald's have brought together disparate political groups from around the globe to form a sort of globalized anti-globalization movement -- an anti-McWorld, if you will. Is it a world culture or a world counterculture? Whatever it is, it's not what the sociologists were expecting.

Nor did anyone predict that businessmen in developing nations would have the spunk to turn the cultural tide. In Central America, India and East Asia, restaurant entrepreneurs are creating wildly successful international franchise chains based on the model of McDonald's. And now those chains are doing some globalizing of their own.

My favorite item at Hot Breads is called a chicken tikka Danish. It's a large portion of chopped chicken in a mild tomato-based curry baked in a flaky pastry shell. The filling in this unlikely Danish is a story unto itself.

While Indians were getting addicted to pizza in the last decade, the most popular dish in England became chicken tikka masala. The Anglo-Indian fusion dish is said to have originated in a British curry house when a customer asked for gravy on his dry chicken tandoori. A bemused Indian chef reportedly opened a can of Campbell's tomato soup, added a little of the ubiquitous Indian spice blend called masala, heated it up and poured it on the chicken. According to the BBC, chicken tikka masala, or CTM as it is now known, is eaten in sandwiches, on pizzas, as a frozen dinner and in any number of other permutations, including CTM-flavored potato chips. Chicken tikka masala has also become the favorite symbol of the ascendancy of world culture in political speeches and newspaper editorials. The British foreign minister proudly calls it "Britain's true national dish," while the Tories rail that the popularity of CTM represents a breakdown in traditional British values.

Does the bright orange, tomato-flavored Anglo-Indian chicken tikka masala at Hot Breads on Hillcroft symbolize McDonaldized world culture? Or is it a triumph of the anti-McWorld counterculture? I'm not really sure, but it makes a lovely filling for a flaky Danish.

"Think global, and eat local," wrote Carlo Petrini, the Italian founder of the Slow Food group, which opposes the spread of fast food. I wonder what he would make of the Hot Breads franchise on Hillcroft, where you can think and eat globally and locally -- all at the same time.