Topic: A personal history of curry

[Spottymaldoon]

"And in his den you sometimes meet
With curry fit for man to eat"
Stone Talk by Sir Richard Burton 1865


I was raised in the UK during the 1940s and 50s to know curry as a yellow concoction, done up with raw curry powder and having raisins and bits of apple added; I had my first real curry in London in 1960. It was a chicken curry, off the bone, with pilau rice and it completely blew me away. That 'Pakistani' (today we'd say Bangladeshi) restaurant has long vanished but I often wonder how I would enjoy that same meal today. The restaurant was badly ventilated and had 'the smell' - the curry definitely had a lot of oil (probably ghee back then) and I don't doubt that the cooking methods were very similar to those we discuss here. Even then, there were quite a lot of 'Indian' restaurants in London (maybe twenty in the S. Ken/Chelsea/Fulham area) - but there were virtually none at all in the provinces that I ever saw. Tandoori had not yet arrived but although restaurants had big differences, most were pretty authentic 'BIR' tasting. You could get a good square meal of meat and rice for about five shillings (25p)! That was great for students.

Of course we tried to duplicate restaurant curries at home; buying numerous recipe books and of course you can predict the results!

Since then I reckon I have had well over a thousand curries - and I have tried them in lots of places. Regional tastes reflect local preferences of course - just as you are more likely to get a 'sweet' curry in the UK provinces (yuk). Japanese love curry, but it's more the Chinese sort - quite 'yellow' and not hot - but the supposed authentic curries I tried there were very mild and, yes, a bit sweet. Murthu's in Singapore is one of the very best I have ever had, but the absolute worst was in Iasi, Romania, where a Bangladeshi fellow had put up a sign - what he made wasn't recognizable as curry. I've had some excellent curries in the USA and Canada and, maybe surprisingly, a pretty good one in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I have faith there are good curries in Australia but I haven't found one yet.

Can you tell that I suffer from a serious addiction?

Spotty

[coolinshot]

Can you tell that I suffer from a serious addiction

Well for me it started as an innocent schoolboy dare (back in the sixties) - "how many Victory Vs can you fit in your gob at one time?" The full packet as it turned out (and crunched until swallowed as part of the dare).

I tried to fight this strange desire to eat food that caused pain but when the local chippy  changed from "greasy Mary's" to Chang's Takeaway I found the transition from lumpy gravy to this yellowish sauce that became known to me as Curry quite easy to bear.

Compared to gravy that you could slice this new sauce was quite hot but not enough to quench my "burning" desire.
As all addicts do I experimented, mixing victory Vs in with the Chinese curry sauce but that just made me throw up. I still suffer from random brain-freeze attacks as a result of sucking ice cubes prior to eating a takeaway.
Then came the rumours....... I heard tell of a place that served foods never before seen in these 'ere parts (served up on shiny plates an' all).
I ventured forth into the night in search of this mythical "Bombay Palace". Pretty soon I happened upon an aroma that introduced itself to my olfactory senses with such a whallop that my nose started to bleed, and so with great trepidation, hankey to nostrils (and key down back just in case) I entered this mysterious flock-walled grotto. Not knowing what to do I stood there waiting for some guidance, it came with four short words - "table for one, sir?"

Two popadoms, One chicken madras, and a pint of lager later I was struggling to breathe. My face was red enough to stop traffic (had I been able to walk out into the street) and my mouth was on fire....."

"was everything to your satisfaction, sir?"

I had found my dealer

[Yousef]

Great background stories there guys, coolinshot i know what you mean about that first Madras, it blew my head of as well.  Just goes to show that over time you become immune to chili heat as you progress up the curry ladder.

For me it all started as a kid when my parents had dinner parties and i used to try the Nan bread and left over curry, totally addicted since then and before this site was formed and prior to the in2curry days i used to make all sorts of weird curry type things in the kitchen.

Now CR0 is here its much easier making curries at home, i cant admit to being able to do it like the restaurants, yes Ive had 1 or 2 amazing results but you only have to go out to a top curry house have one mouthfall and you know you have a long long way to go getting it right at home....

Stew