I’m beginning to suspect that the raison d’être of microblogging service, Twitter, is to uncover new foods from around the world at which I can become horrified yet deeply intrigued.

This week's edible freakshow: chicken tikka lasagne. Not merely the sort of accident created by combining leftovers in a boozy haze, but a real, processed and frozen meal that substitutes Indian curry for Italian Bolognese. It’s made by a British food processor named Iceland not to be confused with the volcano-ridden nation of the same name. According to Iceland’s website, a single pound of chicken tikka lasagne will set you back one pound.

I’m not the first food writer to discover it; earlier this year John Walsh in The Independent yoked the chicken tikka lasagne to the wider “fusion cuisine” movement:

The phenomenon is called fusion cuisine and it's gradually taken over the foodie world. For 35 years, the concept of mating the ethnic foods of two different countries or regions has taken hold, from Sydney to Sausalito and from Shanghai to Shropshire. Some say it's an idea that tends to flourish only in countries (like Australia, New Zealand, America, Canada) which have yet to develop their own Great Cuisine. Others say it's the fault of ambitious young chefs who want to stray beyond the conventional preparation of dishes and seasonings, to make a name for themselves by combining scallops with wasabi.

Back in the early days of fusion food – the mid 80s – it seemed revolutionary to add avocado to sushi or goat cheese to anything.  My local supermarket now stocks both of these foods. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find chicken tikka lasagne in the frozen foods aisle.

Appalled but not surprised.

This does underline the point that when we talk about fusion food, it tends to be about where food goes disastrously wrong. Now the mention of fusion is a term of disparagement rather than endearment. It’s no coincidence that it is the stuff that white people like. It is an interesting time in history when the culture of instant gratification and globalisation converge to allow me to go to a supermarket and jam together as many disparate cuisines as I could find rather than being trapped into eating whatever was local and in season.

The mistake that creators of fusion food make is that the idea behind the food is a self-conscious and immediate rupture rather than an accidental or incremental addition to a cuisine. You would not call Irish stew a fusion food because potatoes are South American, only as a result of a very slow change to food over time. National cuisines overlap and it is nigh on impossible to find cuisines that have not been under the influence of another culture; short of the few remaining hunter-gatherer tribes. These days, you've either got to very deep in the jungle or on a remote ice floe before you'll find a food that is untainted by an outside influence. This is how food develops: by fusing together neighbouring influences. Italy and India are getting closer.