Topic: Chicken Tikka Pathia - Curried Away Style

[BIR-TY]

ridiculous, ask any Banglasdeshi staff if it offends them, I dont think they give a badgers backside. I said backside because arse would get moderated  :

I'll tell you what IS ridiculous Mick, is this pretence with the new account. Bert :

Haven't you worked out yet that the majority of Asians in service just want an easy life without confrontation and that they're just humouring you?
You need to learn some Bengali to really know what they're saying behind your back. 
All the crap they have to put up with on a Saturday night says it all.

thanks for the compliment, the names Bert, take it home with ya

[George]

I was talking to the owner of a restaurant the other day. I asked him if his chef called the base sauce garabi, grabbi. he said he did, they all did, meaning his staff including the younger ones that spoke perfect English. He said that is what the sauce is known as in its own right.

I wonder if they generally use English language in the kitchen and then drop in what I assume to be a foreign word 'garabi' or whether it's the word used in the middle of conversations and banter in their Bangladeshi or Indian language.

[PaulP]

And I thought they just spat in our curry

No only in yours 

[ELW]

I was talking to the owner of a restaurant the other day. I asked him if his chef called the base sauce garabi, grabbi. he said he did, they all did, meaning his staff including the younger ones that spoke perfect English. He said that is what the sauce is known as in its own right.

I wonder if they generally use English language in the kitchen and then drop in what I assume to be a foreign word 'garabi' or whether it's the word used in the middle of conversations and banter in their Bangladeshi or Indian language.

Thats only when you appear with an invoice for them.

[Micky Tikka]

That could be the secret ingredient  ;D

[ELW]

That could be the secret ingredient  ;D

No Michael please, there was a story circulating years back about a woman taken to hospital after eating a curry...once youve heard it, you can't ever unhear it

ELW

[Micky Tikka]

Sorry ELW
I've got a terrible sense of humour 

[Malc.]

Apart from anything else, it isn't a gravy at all as it contains no meat juices. It's a base sauce or just a sauce and I wish people would stop using the garabi term.

I must admit, its become an irritation for me too, right or wrong.

[Peripatetic Phil]

But i'm getting sick and tired and pissed off with the continual use of this Racist (moderated) word!! 
Its about as funny as bernard manning and jim davidson.
I'll tell you how ridiculous it is. There are about a dozen different spellings because THERE IS NO SUCH WORD!
On top of that, the people that are pronouncing it in the videos are changing how they say it because its unnatural and odd for them to say "grey-bee", which is how an Indian would pronounce Gravy.
I had to put up with all that (moderated, read 'racist abuse')[/size] all through my school days, being bullied and constantly taunted because of the colour of my skin.
I dont expect to see it from grown men. This aint the 70's anymore.
I dont believe for one minute that anyone cooking curries on these forums are racist, but this word IS!

Sorry, DP, I can't agree.  I assume you are referring to "garabi", which is not a term I use myself but which seems to be in quite common use here and perhaps on analogous fora as well.  If (and I say "if" because I have no first-hand experience) it is close to the pronunciation used in BIR kitchens, then it certainly makes sense for a westerner to use it if he (or she) wants to ask the chef how he (or she !) makes it.  Asking "how do you make your gravy" may just produce a "pardon ?" or a look of blank incomprehension if the chef thinks of it as, and pronounces it similarly to, "garabi".  For it to be racist there would have to be an ulterior (and sinister) motive underlying its use, and I am certain that there is none when it is used here.  It is, in some ways, analogous to "BIR" : a made-up term which the cognoscenti use and understand, and which may one day enter the English language as a bona fide word in its own right.

Apropos racism, my maternal grandfather used the N-word as a matter of course when referring to people from the Caribbean : during a stay in hospital he told us he has "a lovely little n***** nurse looking after me".  He said it with affection, not with contempt, and when I repeated the story many years later to a West Indian lady, she agreed : as he used it, it was not racist at all.

** Phil.

[DalPuri]

Sorry, DP, I can't agree.  I assume you are referring to "garabi", which is not a term I use myself but which seems to be in quite common use here and perhaps on analogous fora as well.  If (and I say "if" because I have no first-hand experience) it is close to the pronunciation used in BIR kitchens, then it certainly makes sense for a westerner to use it if he (or she) wants to ask the chef how he (or she !) makes it.  Asking "how do you make your gravy" may just produce a "pardon ?" or a look of blank incomprehension if the chef thinks of it as, and pronounces it similarly to, "garabi".  For it to be racist there would have to be an ulterior motive underlying its use, and I am certain that there is none when it is used here.  It is, in some ways, analogous to "BIR" : a made-up term which the cogniscenti use and understand, and which may one day enter the English language as a bona fide word in its own right.

** Phil.

Really Phil? You were the one person that i thought would understand being married into a Chinese/Vietnamese family.
EVERY Indian in the world knows and uses the word "gravy"!
Would you really mispronounce words in a derogatory way in a Chinese kitchen so that they would understand you?