'Indian Curry' does not exist.

Now, I don't want to worry anyone, but the above statement is completely and totally true.

There is no such thing as an Indian curry.  Surprised?  That's a reasonable response for someone who has had the very foundations of their takeaway food experience rocked to its very... erm... foundations.

But I hear you shout "No!, I went for a curry last Saturday! It was great! There were free popadums and a pickle tray! And we drank Cobra! I spent the whole of Sunday pooping rusty dishwater!"

And I reply, "No, you didn't, you might have gone for Indian food (Although I doubt it) but you didn't go for an Indian curry."

THIS is a curry

The curry tree (Murraya koenigii)

I bet that wasn't what you had was it? Unless you're an elephant, and I'm sure that you would have let me know by now if you were.

OK, of course I'm being fatuous, it's what I do.  Although you should all know by now that I'm a great fan of people using the right words to describe things (queue thousands of readers pointing out where I've used 'Affected' instead of 'Effected' or 'Breath' where I meant 'Breathe')

Let me take you on a little jaunt through time, all the way back to 1764.  The Honourable East India Company (Whom you may have heard of as the posh, British villains from 'Pirates of the Caribbean') had opened up trading routes with India and were making insanely huge profits by exporting spices and anything that was of any actual value back to the Motherland.  In turn, they used the profits from this to expand further into the country, and by expand I obviously mean wage war with the locals until they were sufficiently decimated that agents of the company could just wander in and claim their land out from under them as I've described before. Then they'd employ local labour to grow pepper and nutmeg and things, which they'd trade for cotton and swordblades and suchlike (One of these turned out to be a huge mistake... a huge, huge mistake... See if you can guess which one it was).

Oddly enough, after almost 100 years of this kind of behaviour, there was a 'mutiny' or 'rebellion' depending whose side you were on, followed by a couple of massacres (Because we Brits do enjoy a good old massacre don't we?) and then Queen Victoria stepped in, dissolved the E.I. Company and kindly made India part of the Empire, with all the wonderful things that that entailed, like the wholesale introduction of HP Sauce, Camp Coffee and syphilis.

What this meant, for our purposes, is that for the entire hundred year period there was a fairly regular rotation of Public-school educated men called "Bunty" and similar, with double-barreled surnames, demure wives, and unfeasibly splendid moustaches going out to the Subcontinent, almost getting used to the food, and then going home after a year of so retire to a mansion in Sussex with a selection of 'unpaid house servants', because slavery was a terrible thing and had been abolished many years earlier... *cough*

Actually, here's a fact for you... For all intents and purposes, slavery of 'Foreigners' had been abolished in England by about 1780 - But, you could quite legally buy and sell people from Scotland right up until 1799.

So, where were we? - Oh yes, Bunty Tavistock-Heckmondswycke had retired to 'DunColonising' near Tunbridge Wells and realised that the food he was eating tasted a bit bland.  He rings for his faithful manservant, who informs 'Cook' who starts putting rice and something new called 'curry powder' into his smoked haddock in the morning... And thus Kedgeree was born!

Curry powder was a ground approximation of the spices that they got used to eating whilst they were out doing their bit for Queen and country in the mid-day sun.  They didn't get it completely right of course, another popular English tradition, but it was close enough for them.  They shared this new flavour with their chums via the medium of the dinner party and the rest is history.  Coffee Houses started adding 'Curry' to their menus so that the hoi palloy could give them a go.  In fact, in 1810, the 'Hindoostanee Coffee House' opened in London serving all kinds of different spicy meals.  Unfortunately it only lasted a year... Maybe people weren't ready for being so different.  Although to put that in context, England's first Fish & Chip shop didn't open 'til about 50 years later.

The Curry, as we know it is a purely English invention, it has very little to do with anything Indian apart from using some of the same spices and occasionally being served to you by Bengali people in white shirts and bow ties - If you were to wander down Chittagong high street looking for a curry house, you'd be unsuccessful.  It's much easier to get hold of something like a nice a bowl of Shukto, or some saag and kashundi.

A word of warning, the food that Indian people eat themselves is so far removed from what you buy from the takeaway that it's virtually unrecognisable.  Usually it's significantly spicier, I mean, proper 'Let's teach the loud-mouthed football hooligan who asked for a super-hot curry a lesson' hot, and that's just the stuff they give teething babies.

Our next door neighbour brought a pot around last night, she often does if she makes too much, or one of her sons goes out unexpectedly.  She was wearing welding goggles and carried it using those tongs that people who smelt steel use... We had to put it on two baking trays in case it melted through the first one.

I made the mistake of sniffing it this morning, my nostrils sealed themselves up and my eyebrows fell out.

That reminds me, I must go to Tescos and buy all of their yoghurt.

No, it's... Oh forget it!

I had a day off yesterday, trying to use up my outstanding leave before the end of the year and all that.  Being the kind and altruistic person that I am, I offered to take my dear old Father into town so that he could start 'sorting out his affairs'

The particular affair in question yesterday was a bank account, in his name, that was money that he's been putting aside for the Mini-Dandy.  He wanted it transferred into myself and Mrs. Dandy's names, so that we could administer it when he was no longer around.  So we had to go to the bank with him and sign some forms.

Upon entering the bank, he spied the (not particularly lengthy) queue and obviously thought 'Bugger that for a lark, that woman over there at that desk, surrounded by stacks of paperwork doesn't look like she's doing anything.  I'll bet she can help.'  So he wandered over and asked the poor lady whether she was free?  She looked at him, the piles of paperwork and sighed, 'Yeah, sure, why not...' And indicated that he should take a seat.

He explained the situation to her and then looked at her expectantly.

Bank Lady: 'Erm, no,  I'm afraid we can't do that.  you'd have to close the account and re-open it in joint names.'
My Dad: 'But I was told that I could just fill in some forms and...'
BL: 'Yes, it will just mean filling in...'
MD: 'But you said I had to close the account.'
BL: 'Technically, you would, but we wouldn't actually give you the money and then you'd have to give it back to us, it'd all happen in here.' She tapped the monitor.
MD: 'I don't want to close my account, why do I need to close the account?'
BL: 'You're only allowed two names on each account sir.'
MD: 'Well, that doesn't seem right...' It was at this point that he reached across the desk, grabbed the monitor, turned it towards himself and started to say thinks like, 'I'm sure it should be in one of these menus somewhere.'

Now, I'm not sure about your local branch, but it seems that this one doesn't take kindly to their customers trying to access their banking systems, so the atmosphere went decidedly frosty from then on.

BL: 'If you would like us just to put an additional name on the account, we could do that without closing it, if that would be easier.'
MD: 'Would it be?'
BL: 'Would it be what?'
MD: 'Easier?'
BL: 'Well it's just a case of filling in this form.'
MD: 'But you said closing the account and re-opening it was just filling in a form, so I fail to see how this is easier exactly?'

A vein in the side of her head started to twitch, so I stepped in and said, 'Why not just add Mrs Dandy to the account, that'll make things easier won't it? Also, try to keep your fingers away from the nice lady's computer, I don't want to spend the rest of the week in a jail cell.'

He looked at me, then looked at the nice bank lady, resplendent in the early stages of a nervous breakdown and asked 'Can we do that? It would make things a lot easier I think.'

If you've never seen anyone trying to take their own life with a stapler, drop me a line, I'll send you the video.

We decided after that, that we should probably get some food.  Now, like food-courts all over the world, there were many different kinds of food on display.  Although i tend to go for either the curry or the chinese food.  I asked my dear, dear Father what he wanted, he had a look around the different vendors and replied, 'I don't know, what have they got?'
Me: 'There's Subway, fish and chips, pasta, baked potato, KFC, Greek, Burger King, curry, chinese food or a noodle bar.'
MD: 'What's a noodle bar?'
Me: 'It's a bar... where they sell noodles...'
MD: 'So, foreign muck then?'
Me: 'I suppose so, yes.'

I should probably explain, despite my Father flying all over the world with the RAF, he still maintains that there are only two types of food:  Things that he eats every day, and foreign muck, if you were to draw a Venn Diagram of his dietary habits, it would be two circles, about a foot apart.

MD: 'So, what are you having?'
Me: 'I'm having the Chicken Saag.' And I pointed towards the curry stall
MD: 'Is that stuff spicy?'
Me: 'Are you asking me if the curry spicy?'
MD: 'Yes, is the curry spicy?'
Me: 'Yes, traditionally, curry is spicy... You wouldn't like it.'
MD: 'Do they do anything that's not spicy?'
Me: 'Not really, no... They do rice I suppose, that's not hugely spicy.'
MD: 'No, I'll just go and get myself a burger.'

So, I got curry with the wife (and her Mother, who paid, so it was, like, all gravy and shizzle.) and then went and sat down.  My Father was there, eating fish and chips.

Me: 'I thought you wanted a burger.'
MD: 'I felt like a quarter-pounder with cheese and bacon.'
Me: 'And?'
MD: 'It's a Burger King.'

I thought, for like, a microsecond about doing the whole Vincent Vega 'Royale with cheese' shtick, but I decided against it.

Me: 'Oh, right... They just call them Bacon Double Cheeseburgers there I think.'

He looked dejectedly at his fish and chips.

MD: 'Really? Oh...'
Me: 'Still, that fish looks nice!'
MD: 'It's OK.'

We sat and ate our meals in silence for a while, then he piped up again and pointed at my curry.

MD: 'So, that's spicy then?'
Me: 'My curry? Yeah, fairly spicy.'
MD: 'Why is it green?'
Me: 'It's a Chicken Saag, Saag is the name for a curry made with leaves... This is spinach.'

He made that 'Rather you than me' eyebrow raising thing and drank his coffee, then lifted up the box that his fish and chips came in.

MD: You can take this for your dog, I'm full.'
Me: 'OK, thanks.' - I had no intention af carrying fish scraps around for the rest of the day.
MD: 'You get a side-salad with your curry then?' and pointed at a small polystyrene tray of wilted lettuce.
Me: 'I guess, can't say that I've ever eaten it though.'
MD: 'It'd make a good sandwich.'
Me: 'What?'
MD: 'The salad, it'd make a good sandwich, with some ham or something.'
Me: 'Did you want my salad to take home?'
MD: 'Well, a sandwich is another meal, and you got the salad for free. You don't want to waste it.'  He turned to Mrs Dandy. 'Do you have anything I could put it in to take home?'
My Wife: 'Erm, no, not really.'
MD: 'Oh... Such a waste.' And he actually tutted.

So, a morning's shopping was completely re-arranged in its bags, a small paper bag was found and the side-salad was dumped reverentially into it.

We finished the food and I went to clear the table.  When I picked up the box of fish leftovers, it seemed very heavy - I opened it up and found that it was full of chips, and there was a single bite out of the fish.

Yeah... Leaving a tray of wilted lettuce is a real waste Dad... There are starving kids in Biafra dude!