Indian Food

[Marca]

One of the titbits I gleaned from Brian Tawn's book Dude's Dreams is that Mike likes Indian food and introduced Brian to it. As someone who needs a weekly curry fix from the local takeaway, I wondered if this was a regular habit on Mike's part before his move from the UK, and what his preference was. I bet they don't do takeaways in Texas. Personally, I'd be unable to relocate to anywhere that couldn't supply a decent curry...

[L'Etranger]

There are a couple of good Indian restaurants in Paris, and I'm sure Mike already knows several of them.

[xidrep]

My wife refuses to eat curry! She's lucky I married her, really...all she has to put up with is dead sharks and autogyro parts. I only get to buy spicy food when she's out for the evening ram-raiding or something.

[DeeCrowSeer]

A delightful snapshot of the Perdix household there!

I was probably put off curries by my Mum's attempts at the dish... she was one of these people who likes to keep it mild, and throw raisins and other random fruit in there for no logical reason. However, curry is one of the most popular meals in Britain, and was recently cited by The Sun as evidence of Britain's culinary grooviness, in response to disparaging comments by M. Chirac... or so I believe (I didn't read the article, I was just looking at the pictures and wincing at the headlines).

Personally I'm training my tastebuds for Mexican food, and I'm guessing that's a little easier to find around Texas... sأ?

[Mikey_C]

I was probably put off curries by my Mum's attempts at the dish... she was one of these people who likes to keep it mild, and throw raisins and other random fruit in there for no logical reason.

Yik! I remember that. On Mondays, containing mummified lumps of the Sunday joint. Baby's yellow: Sharwoods have a lot to answer for. I'm not sure where the dried fruit came in - seems kind of middle-eastern. Anyway, I've overcome the trauma, and with the aid of a tattered and bespattered copy of 'The Indian Housewife's Cookery Book' have become quite a dab hand myself. Three cheers for the Indian Housewife! :D

[xidrep]

Ooh! What about Sharwood's Chicken Supreme or Chicken Curry with reconstituted raisins in? Almost as bad as McCain's French Bread Pizzas...erk, this is all bringing back the seventies to me, like gastric reflux :?

[David Mosley]

My wife refuses to eat curry!

My wife used to be the same when we got married, but I kept badgering her and one day she finally relented, but enough about how our daughter was conceived ;), the good news is that once she'd actually tried proper curry rather than the stuff they serve up at school she was converted, even if to this day she'll only eat the very mildest korma you can get. In fact, she's been known to knock up her own curries at home now. :)

[L'Etranger]

I spent my childhood in Africa and am used to spicey food, but some Indian curries are so hot that you don't know what you are chewing.
What I don't like is fresh coriander which you often get in Asian, but unfortunately also in Mexican and South American dishes.
No problem with the wife, she's half-Hungarian and nearly immune to hot spices, and shares my dislike for coriander.


(There is even rumour that the ability to like or dislike coriander herb (cilantro in Spanish) is genetically caused.)

[Michael Moorcock]

Linda makes the curry in our 'ouse. Generally a lot better than even really good curry shops. I think L'Etranger will agree with me that while the French still are, as Chirac reasonably pointed out, a few streets of the Brits re. food (though Britain is a LOT better now than it once was), they can't seem to run an Indian curry house worth a sh-- um, maybe I'd better rephrase that -- worth much, in comparison to the English. Apparently the English invented Murgh Chicken Massala (take one can of Campbell's Tomato Soup, add curry...) is the MOST popular dish in Britain, which is no doubt the Sun reader equivalent of something horrible from an English can (though in posher restaurants they now use tomato paste, I gather), it has also caught on in a big way in, yes, INDIA. And did you know that the most popular ethnic food people in Bombay, when people feel like a night out, is Chinese ? Adapted, like all ethnic food, to the local taste. I've had some Chinese Indian food and I must say it's pretty good by my lights. Indian restaurants have been the most popular kind of restaurants (over all others, including local cuisine, if that's the word) in Britain for about ten years now, I think. I keep the name of my favourite Thali house secret except for really close friends, as I do the name of my favourite fish and chip shop in London. I NEVER tell even close American friends where they are. These Yanks are inclined to tell their church groups and before you know it... Bang goes the restaurant. Oh, I should point out that the very best Indian food and fish and chips I've ever had is in New York and Boston respectively... I must admit I was a bit scared when I learned that my favourite London chippy is now patronised by Madonna. That's the end of that one, then, I thought. But I have to admit, the French still lead the world, not just for good restaurant food, but for good stuff in the supermarkets, too. I'll let you know about wheelchair access in a future issue...

[Michael Moorcock]

Like Chop Suey, invented in America as I understand it. But I'm not sure it made it back to China the way Murgh Chicken Massala did. All the Indian restaurants in Austin seem to have become corrupted by the worst sort of local taste, it seems. We Brits have become very despondent there, since there were one or two good ones for a while. Now Vindaloo merely means 'hideously hot' as it's succumbed to the Texan chili-eating machismo which makes the same kind of English clientele vie with one another to see how hot they can eat something, having usually already burned up their tastebuds with cigarettes and overflavoured food. Vindaloo should remain very tasty (as Linda makes it -- even though she doesn't eat it herself) in spite of being hot. Some of us transplanted Brits have been thinking of offering a bonus to anyone who starts a reasonably good new Indian restaurant in the Austin area. As it is, of course, US Indian food isn't the cheap meal it is in the UK, which is another reason for its popularity, I'm sure. One of the very best Indian restaurants I've ever known was in the industrial town of Huddersfield, Yorkshire, which otherwise had nothing more exotic than a Pizza Hut. Maybe ex-industrial town now, if the trends were anything to go by when we used to live up there. And although we say 'Indian' we're generally meaning 'Pakistani', of course. There aren't that many South Indian restaurants around, compared to 'North Indian' (or Pakistani). The Thali house I mentioned in London is Bombay-style and a very different sort of cuisine. That said, I still can't get used to beef curries as served in Texas... Though I have had some excellent goat curry, which you rarely find in England where few goats are raised for meat. Okay, now I'm beginning to feel carnivore guilt again. The Thali house I'm talking about is entirely vegetarian.

[Michael Moorcock]

Hasn't Philadelphia got some of the most reasonable property prices in the US, these days, too ? Are you SURE you don't work for the Chamber of Commerce ? :D

[Michael Moorcock]

I wonder if it's symbolism at work. As with Washington. Seems a shame that a city with so much history and idealism should have come to that state. I certainly wouldn't MIND making that my US base, if it wasn't for the winters. I used to like it there. Newspaper used to be good, too. Friend of mine used to work on it. What's the reason for the decline ?
Outsourcing ?

[Marca]

Now Vindaloo merely means 'hideously hot' as it's succumbed to the Texan chili-eating machismo which makes the same kind of English clientele vie with one another to see how hot they can eat something, having usually already burned up their tastebuds with cigarettes and overflavoured food. Vindaloo should remain very tasty (as Linda makes it -- even though she doesn't eat it herself) in spite of being hot.

When I first met my good lady she only ever ate Chinese food. My Indian cuisine at the time was limited to the likes of Masalas, Bhunas, Jalfrezis or Biryanis. However, after I got her into Indian food, she was kept looking for hotter and hotter variants, and I followed suit. We have an arrangement with the local takeaway, who do us a Vindaloo 'extra hot', the strength of which seems to vary from week to week, but is always enjoyable and acts as a good sedative. We tried a Phal (hotter than a Vindaloo), but it had a different taste, so we reverted back to the Vindaloo.

She also does a mean curry herself, which interestingly uses Chinese curry powder, but is suitably spiced up. We alternate this every other Friday with a delicious meal that has chicken breast mixed with chillis, peppers, onions, garlic and spices served up in pitta breads. In fact we're having this tonight and the smell is wafting up from the kitchen as it sits in the fridge waiting to be cooked in the wok... :)

[Governor of Rowe Island]

What I don't like is fresh coriander which you often get in Asian, but unfortunately also in Mexican and South American dishes.
No problem with the wife, she's half-Hungarian and nearly immune to hot spices, and shares my dislike for coriander.


(There is even rumour that the ability to like or dislike coriander herb (cilantro in Spanish) is genetically caused.)

I agree! Coriander doesn't do it for me either. If I eat a dish that's got it in, it's all I can taste. (Incidentally, I'm the only person I know who doesn't like peas. Never have done, never will.) Love Indian food though, and Tex-Mex and Chinese and...

[xidrep]

Peas-in-coriander are nice. :roll: