My fiance is a great cook. I'm alright but perhaps a bit too 'experimental'.

I love West Indian food. Since moving house we have lost our connection to those Carribean and traditonal chinese super markets.

I'm down to my last 2 tubs of jerk seasoning and chicken rub. That should hopefully do me till I go home at Christmas to see my folks.

I'm also missing Nigerian Coco-Cola and Fanta. Not as sweet or fizzy as the stuff we get here.

I've not Harpo. Any good? What's the difference?

I bought my Mum a Tagine last Christmas. She's put it to good use. My weapon of choice is the Paella dish. Anyone who comes over for a meal here is likely to get a serious portion of Paella put infront of them.

Authentic Indian food is like authentic Japanese or Chinese food. Completely unlike the usual store/take away bought guff. Cooking from another planet. Wonderful.

Authenticity is hard to find with food. Especially now that there is such a wide range of stuff in supermarkets. It's like modern clothes. No real national identity, everything's an approximation of something else and homogenised for mass consumption.

Best to get to the source, find a well spring of the real stuff and tap it.

I also love egg and chips.

Harpo is spot on about the older cookery books and their colour photography.  The old Penguin paperbacks - Elizabeth David and so on - possess great charm.  They do all tend to get marked with the ingredients you're using sooner or later, though!  American cookbooks are highly recommended for recipes for fried chicken, okra etc.  Who needs Nigella?

Indian restaurants in the UK seem to be going the same way as Chinese ones did in the 70s, i.e. there's one on every corner and there's not much difference in the food wherever you go. It's as though there's a factory somewhere in the Midlands turning out tanker loads of standard curry sauce that are delivered nationwide, then individual restaurants just vary the flavour slightly according to what dish you order.

Since I got into making Indian food at home we rarely bother with Indian restaurants unless we feel like pushing the boat out and going over to Southall for some of the good stuff.

The smell of cumin seeds and onions frying is amazing, but dont wear your vintage clothing while you're doing it!

Last edited by woofboxer (2011-11-19 14:56:59)

Homemade BBQ sauce is something I've always found really rewarding. On ribs is best. Good shout Heikki, you're making me hungry...

^Aye, the last time I went back to my home town, the first time for several years, along with all the pubs being closed there was an over abundance of Indian restaurants.

I'm not into cooking myself, I enjoy the whole event of going to a good restaurant, would go every or almost everynight if it was up to me. Of course, having kids and living in an expensive town puts the kybosh on this.

We had a Bangladeshi open up just around the corner.  Great fanfare, write-ups in the local papers.  Open Giant vibrator, free food while you waited.  Then the owner decided to expand and it began going slowly down the pan.  Here we are in Derbyshire and these guys are travelling from around Birmingham.  Result: you'd get there and it'd be closed, or the guy behind the counter didn't speak enough English to be able to take the order.  It's still open, but we never go there - or for the local Cantonese.  There used to be a great one, owned by a lady who used to bring me apple pie, made from the fruit that had fallen in her garden.  Fenugreek, BTW, might give you a hot bottom.

I love cooking especialy Indian food. I was given an Idian cookbook for my birthday last year called 50 great curries of India by Camellia Panjab, which is apparantly the worlds best selling curry book. Ican't recomend it highly enough, completely authentic, everything made from scratch. Today I'm making roast beef with all the trimmings. Damn it this threads making me hungry.

Jimmy, of course, eats PITA for breakfast.

Jimmy, I think I just heard a small but ominous rumbling from the direction of the Giant vibrator...

Last edited by Harpo (2011-11-20 03:53:10)