Imagine the light in this kitchen without the flash – the light from the fire, and from that tiny, simple oil lamp – no better than a small candle.
A gorgeous chicken curry in the making – and a big pot of rice.
There is a popular and derogatory myth about curry, that the spices are there to cover the flavour of gone off meat. It’s absolute codswallop. I’ve never had gone off meat in India. Meat never goes off in rural India. (I can’t speak for the towns, maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t, I simply don't know.) In rural India, when an animal is killed, it’s butchered and cooked immediately – if it’s a big animal, it’ll be shared with other families, who’ll return the favour when they kill one of theirs.
In fact, from the perspective of a rural Indian, meat in countries like Britain is always off by the time it gets to the kitchen. To a rural Indian, that’s what an English butcher’s shop smells of – meat that’s gone off. And indeed once you’re used to really fresh meat, you can’t help but sympathize with that viewpoint.
And of course the vast majority of curries in India are vegetable curries anyway.
©Clive K Semmens 1990