Topic: History of the forum

[Secret Santa]

This is the profile page for Yousef (Administrator) showing December 21 2004 so I assume that was the beginning. https://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?action=profile;u=1

That can't be right. Yousef never appeared here until he bought the forum (did he?). I think his name just got transposed with Stew's as the new forum owner.

[livo]

This is the profile page for Yousef (Administrator) showing December 21 2004 so I assume that was the beginning. https://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?action=profile;u=1

That can't be right. Yousef never appeared here until he bought the forum (did he?). I think his name just got transposed with Stew's as the new forum owner.

The administrator account of the owner takes on the name of the owner. The first post of Yousef was of course Stew at the time. There was a brief ownership by someone else between Stew and Yousef but the name escapes me.

[Peripatetic Phil]

Tom.

[livo]

That's interesting Phil. Tempest63 is in there as well as an early bird. I seem to recall you once had a different user name as well if I remember correctly. Chaa*** or something similar.  Was Yellow fingers, Haldi and Pete the same person?  I also think there was discussion about 2 other members being supposedly the same person, but I can't remember who they were.

When I first joined, I had actually joined 3 forums at the same time. This one, the other one  which we never name, and a third one which was a pay site. It cost me £10 to get access to the forum.  This forum is the one that gave me the best credible leads into the dish I was trying to recreate.  I'm sure there were quite a few members here who were on the other forum as well and I remember the disgust from a few here when Cory Ander began charging a little while ago.

There's a lot of information here and it's scary when the page times out / bad gateway.

[livo]

However I had another nick at the start and got banned so had to return with a different nick, i.e. secret santa.

That's a good trick. I was once banned from a different forum (fishing, not curry) following a difference of opinion with the wife of the site owner, and when I attempted the same, she was able to tell due to my IP address.

[Robbo141]

I love a curry as much as the next person but just don’t have it within me to get into an argument online with someone I’ve never met about it.

“Aaargh, vindaloo doesn’t mean potato, the origins are in the Portuguese blah blah why does no one listen blah blah”. Etc etc

“What do you mean you like a curry as much as the next person? Aaaaarrgggghhhhh!! I like curry way more than you.”

Life’s too short, and so am I.

Keep calm and cook curry.  And to those of you in the UK, think yourselves lucky that you can just pop out for takeaway whenever you like.

Robbo

PS: “what do you mean keep calm aaaaarghh….” Ok you get the idea :-)

[livo]

Apparently not that easy to buy a decent TA curry in the UK anymore Robbo.

Nostalgia took me to my rather large pile of printed recipes from over the last decade.  The pay for access website was called Real Curry Recipes and if you had your speakers turned up when you entered the site you were blasted with a heavy assault to the ears of some form of percussion / tympany type sound.  They had an attached "shop" called the RCR Shop (web url now dead: www.spices-of-asia.com).

While it is going to be hard to say anything new about "Base Gravy", I actually have printed out their version known as "The Body Base".  It also contains information (formula) about their own "Mixed Powder" which must be made using their own "Supreme Curry Powder".  If you use East End (or worse; Rajah) you will sacrifice flavour accordingly.  If anybody is interested I can scan to pdf.

I seem to recall they also had a whole section concerning a method known as "The Melting Base" but I can't find anything relating to this.

The other thing I did find, dating back to 2013, is 2 pages printed out titled The 'Original' Onion Base Gravy 3 Litre Version.  There is a url provided which still works and takes you to a very little viewed Youtube video by JV.  Only just over 1000 views in a decade.  (Most BIR enthusiasts will know who JV is before clicking this link.)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs6BEEhsVU4.  The 2 pages I have printed out are numbered 54 and 55 so I assume it's from the eBook but I have no recollection of ever having it.  Again, I can scan to pdf if anyone is interested.

[Bob-A-Job]

...And to those of you in the UK, think yourselves lucky that you can just pop out for takeaway whenever you like.

Takeaway has moved on a looooong way from what it was..
I doubt there are any BIR left to be honest, as change is the necessity (not of invention but of continued business)...
I will not say 'dumbed down' but I will say that the majority of meals seem to be for 'the masses' and depending where you live, the offerings will be those. 

/Edit: and to give those born in the last 20-30yrs, they have nothing to compare the current offerings against, so they cannot be held to blame for accepting inferior product to that we used to like, then loved and now crave.

[pap rika]

Phil, sincere thanks for the breakdown of the first members. What first struck me is how many early members still frequent the site on a regular basis given the time span, Good to see their enthusiasm has not waned. A bit of nostalgia seems to have lit a fire under Some, would encourage members old and new to delve back into the forum's early posts. Such a nostalgic wealth of information, and as Bob a job states more akin to what we crave.

Regards pap rika

[Peripatetic Phil]

Phil, sincere thanks for the breakdown of the first members.

You are very welcome.  And if anyone were really interested, I could do the same for the first 999, or 9999, or 99999 (we haven't reached more than about 1/3 of the last yet).

As to "the melting base", this was indeed claimed to be a key element (the key element ?), and I think that the term was coined on (one might almost say "patented on") Real Curry Recipes.  Certainly it dates back to 2009 or earlier, as can be seen from this video.

--
** Phil.