Due to a childhood in the Middle East, I was practically brought up on curry. My first memories of it are eating curried goat in the fire station of Dubai airport in about 1962. My dad was the airport manager and the Chief Fire Officer and his family were our good friends and neighbours. The firemen cooked for our two families – fiery hot curry for the adults and a much milder version for us kids. Some of the men were of Arabic origins and some of Indian so I think the resulting meal was something of a mixture.
I remember we were offered chairs and cutlery but we preferred to sit on the floor and in the traditional manner, ate only with our right hands. This posed something of a problem for my mother as she was left-handed – she avoided making inexcusable gaffes by sitting on her left hand until the meal was over.
We learnt to roll rice into balls and with the aid of chapattis (wheat flour flatbreads), scooped up the curry and popped it into our mouths without making too much mess. I dont think I ate curry again in that way until many years later when I visited Goa and, at a spice plantation, was once again faced with banana leaf plates and...