Thread: Curry?
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Farm1[_4_] Farm1[_4_] is offline
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Default Curry?

"Timo" > wrote in message
...
On Friday, 29 March 2013 10:15:31 UTC+10, Janet wrote:
> Timo says...
> > On Friday, 29 March 2013 06:31:18 UTC+10, dsi1 wrote:
> > > On 3/27/2013 11:19 AM, Timo wrote:
> > >
> > > > Premade powder is the authentic way to make English curries,
> > > > pre-made paste block is the authentic way to make Japanese curries.
> > >
> > > What is in an English curry? Thanks.

> >
> > Usually leftover cooked meat, sauce flavoured with curry powder (any of
> > the pre-made powders with brand names like "Clive of India" are spot-on)
> > and thickened with flour), often apple and/or sultanas, and onions.
> > Often no vegetables other than onion and fruit. Sometimes peas and diced
> > carrots.
> >
> > The classic recipe from the mid 19th century (From Mrs Beeton's Book of
> > Household Management):
> >
> > INGREDIENTS. - The remains of cold roast veal, 4 onions, 2 apples
> > sliced, 1
> > tablespoonful of curry-powder, 1 dessertspoonful of flour, 1/2 pint of
> > broth or water, 1 tablespoonful of lemon-juice.

>
> I doubt very much anyone has made or eaten that in the last century.


Timo: It's the kind of thing they were teaching as "curry" in Home Ec
classes in schools here (Australia) in the '80s.
_____________________________________
Where exactly do you claim this was being taught?

"The Commonsense Cookery Book" which has been a very longstanding school
home ec. text included that sort of recipe but then that textbook was first
published in 1914 and so dates back to pre-refrigeration days in most of the
areas where home ec would have been taught.

You can see that same sort of recipe in "The Goulburn Cookery Book" which
was first published in 1899 and yet again that was msot certainly in
pre-refrigeration times. In fact msot places where that book would ahve
been used didn't even have lighting in any form other than from kerosene
lamp.

Timo: With the multiculturalisation of English and Australian food (for
Australian food, mostly '80s+, but might well have been earlier in England
due to general colonial backwardness), these trad curries declined. Common,
more common than Indian or modern Anglo-Indian curries, in institutional
food into the '90s, if not beyond.
_________________________________
In 1980 Joseph Cotta published a cookbook called "A Heritage of Indian
Cooking" in response to requests from the customers who frequented his
restaurant "The Shalimar" in Canberra. That restaurant was superb and even
today there are still mentions of Cotta's book and his cooking that can be
found online and he certainly never used 'Clive of India' curry powders
combined with cooked lamb and fruit. And I became a regular customer at
Cotta's restaurant after eating at similar places in London in the 1970s.

Claiming that in 1980 'English curry', as cooked in either Australia or the
UK consisted of cold cooked meat, curry powder and fruit is not correct.