FOR 30 years, Britain's food industry has been at war. In the 1970s it was the Ice Cream Wars, when men in vans blaring out a tacky version of an Italian tune would pull up alongside each other and try to win the custom of the neighbourhood kids.

Arguments about whose patch it was would occasionally result in the combatants abandoning their vans for a full-on fist fight, leaving a youngster simply queuing for a 10p special wondering what it was all about.

In the 1980s it was the Burger Wars, when McDonalds, Wimpy and Burger King did battle, not only with each other, but against the likes of KFC.

Then, alongside a revolution that brought pizza, kebabs, curries and Chinese food to the streets of every town and city, came the High Street invasion of Subway, Starbucks and a variety of trendy cafe, coffee and wine bars.

Despite these changes, it would have been an outside bet that anyone brought up on fish and chips, steaks, pie and peas and pub grub such as chicken in a basket would, 30 years after the ice cream clash, live through the Curry Wars.

And we are not talking about price battles between the many Indian/Asian restaurants or take-away kebab houses that have sprung up since the '80s. The battleground is the great British pub - the very one that targeted the drinker with little or no interest in cuisine that originated from outside these shores. Even pizza and lasagne were once deemed exotic. Garlic bread, anyone?

We all know that pubs have risen to the challenge of a changing market by increasing their range of food, employing top chefs to help design their menus and, in many cases, taking on the restaurants at their own game. But curry?

Who will end the war is debatable, but Wetherspoons certainly started it when, four years ago, they launched their curry and a drink for less than a fiver offer.

Any misgivings as to the potential of the new Thursday night menu were quickly dispelled and now, every week, around 37,000 people flock to the chain's 640 pubs (including the Spinning Mule in Bolton's Nelson Square) for their Curry Club meal - amounting to around two million sales a year - proving that the spice was right.

However, Wetherspoons is no longer the only pub chain to swap chips for chapatti and basket-surrounded chicken for the tikka masala version, which is now, incidentally, Britain's most popular dish.

The Bolton-based Yates's group has now launched its very own Indian food night, offering a cut-price curry and a pint at its 130 pubs - also on a Thursday. In somewhat predictable fashion, the move has created a bit of argy bhaji.

The curry and a free drink for £3.79 offer is available at its Bradshawgate pub, and Yates's boss Mark Jones said: "We think there is room for two pubs selling curry in most towns on a Thursday night. We have done a few initial trials and it seems to work."

Wetherspoons, meanwhile, did not take too kindly to the competition from Yates's - which has its head office in Manchester Road - which could hit trade in its Spinning Mule pub.

A spokesman for the company said: "We are effectively the biggest Indian food chain in Britain, so they have got some nerve taking us on."

While Indian restaurants might question the authenticity of a pub curry, Wetherspoons and The Spinning Mule do go some way to proving they are serious, offering a leaflet which explains just how spicy each dish is and which part of India it originates from.

For between £4 and £4.50 you can enjoy a chicken korma, phaal, balti, jalfrezi, normal or hot tikka masala, lamb dansak or rogan josh, or vegetable tandoori masala, complete with rice, naan bread, mango chutney, poppadums and a pint, glass of wine or soft drink. An extra pound will buy you six more poppadums, three onion bhajis or two vegetable samosas. The deal at Yates is similar - except even cheaper.

Elsewhere, The Varsity has also got in on the act. The Churchgate pub is not actually tackling the other two head on as it offers its curry on a Wednesday night, but perhaps hopes that by getting in there a day earlier it will gain custom as it is unlikely people will want a similar meal on two consecutive nights. The Varsity offers a curry and a bottle of Cobra Indian beer for just £4.95.

Elsewhere, if you forego your Thursday night out because you are worried about not making an early flight the next morning, you do not have to miss out on the spice experience.

For, at Manchester Airport's terminal two departure zone, you can now enjoy an Indian tikka take-away before you take off.

Believe it or not, you can pick up a breakfast of a curry, naan, omelette and hash brown from Select Service Providers' new Tikka Tikka outlet.

SSP worked with Indian food firm Pataks to create a menu of lamb, beef and chicken curries, with rice, poppadums and salads.

It seems curry really is becoming as big a part of the British diet as bread, potatoes, meat and two veg.

FACTFILE:

Curry was recently named the British national dish in a Gallup poll

23 million portions of chicken tikka masala are sold every year in Indian restaurants and Marks & Spencer sells 18 million tonnes a week, yet the dish does not exist in traditional Indian cuisine

Curry was originally the preserve of royalty and the very rich

Chicken tikka masala and balti are actually British dishes, with the latter invented in Birmingham

The UK Indian food industry has a turnover of around £1.8 billion and employs 60,000 staff

There are 9,800 Indian restaurants in the UK and 85 per cent are actually Bangladeshi-run

The earliest known reference to a spicy meat dish is carved into tablets near Babylon and believed to date back to 170BC

In Richard II's reign (1370-99) a recipe book called The Forme of Cury was written and in 1846 William Makepeace Thackeray penned A Poem To Curry

The most commonly used spices in Indian curry are coriander, cumin, cardamon and turmeric