Curry houses

In the 1970s/80s, going out for a meal in the evening became very popular and ‘going for an Indian’ meant that you were going to a curry house. As most curry houses (restaurants) opened until quite late, it was the destination of choice for any group of people finishing off a night on the town, rather drunk and competing with each other to consume the spiciest curry on the menu!

The British who lived in India from the eighteenth century onwards developed a taste for the cuisine and wanted to reproduce it on their return home. Not all of the spices were available in Britain and the first published curry recipe, in 1747, only included pepper corns and coriander seeds. Author Hannah Glasse later added more spices to her instructions ~ “To make a Currey, the India Way” ~ in her best-selling book, ‘The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy’.

The first curry houses appeared at the beginning of the 1800s, but it was a century later that their number multiplied, firstly in London and then in other areas where immigrants from South Asia settled. The oldest curry house still in business today is the Veeraswamy in London, which opened in 1926.

(Top image: Chan Walrus at pexels.com)