View Full Version : Battle to 'save great British curry'
Thousands of protesters in London's Trafalgar Square insisted they were on a mission - to save the great British curry.
And among the crowd were warnings for the government to take notice, or pay the price at the ballot box.
Link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7357435.stm)
Shut the lot down for all I care. Or at least make it law that there can't be two take-aways/restraunts within half a mile of each other. Talk about Tesco popping up everywhere! There's more take-aways along just one road near me, than there are Tescos' in Manchester. I mean, you don't see a road full of newsagents, post offices', chemists', funeral directors (maybe that's to come? ), the list go on and on.
Junk food is the new crack, and we can't seem to get enough of it, what happened to self-control?. The NHS is snowed under with patients who have serious diseases a lot of the time caused by addiction to crap food.
And no joke, if I get another piece of junk mail advertising junk food, like pizza, curry, chicken burgers, pasta and chow main, I'm going to lose it in a bad way!!
No wonder the ozone is in such a state! :afire: :fit:
Food is the new crack???? I'll have some of what you're smoking...
MovedGoalPosts
21-04-2008, 00:44
Sorry, but I can't see that there is any problem with immigration rules affecting the ability of these outlets to find staff. This year so far my postcode area has seen one new Indian Restaurant open. Last year we had a KFC, and another Indian Takeaway.
So in my area we now have:
3 Indian Restaurants
1 Chinese Restaurant
3 Pizza takeaway
4 Indian Takeway (plus the restaraunts)
4 Chinese takeway (plus the restuarant)
3 burger / kebab takeaway
2 fried chicken takeaway
3 fish & chips
Nearby areas still send their menus through our front door, so we can't have reached saturation yet?
Oh and yes we have a big Tesco, but with all those other places I'm amazed that reportedly, for it's size it was supposedly one of the highest customer footfalls in the country.
Oh dear, another race row brewing, it's not about the curry, curry houses or the amount of curry houses, it's about who cooks the curry.
The demonstrators - under the banner of the Ethnic Catering Alliance - say a new points-based system for non-EU immigrants has led to a severe shortage of kitchen staff.
Under the scheme, migrants can only work in the UK if they meet criteria including the ability to speak proficient English.
"It's crazy," said Salim Chowdhury Miah, a restaurateur and local councillor from Derby. "My chef can't speak any English, but he doesn't need to. He's there to make curry.
Don't get me started, when I emigrated, I at least made the effort to learn some of the lingo's 3 out of 11 official, now I never, never thought I would do / say this, but to quote Arthurgre@ I'm not a racist but........................ this is getting daft.......er :shrug:
---------- Post added at 00:50 ---------- Previous post was at 00:48 ----------
Oh and yes we have a big Tesco,
Bigger Tesco's :D :angel:
Food is the new crack???? I'll have some of what you're smoking...I don't smoke, my body is a temple. :D I should have said "junk food is the new crack."
I don't smoke, my body is a temple. :D I should have said "junk food is the new crack."
Ah, fair enough. A good curry is a gift of the Gods though :)
frogstamper
21-04-2008, 01:03
What about the workers from eastern Europe, as said above, I don't believe for one minuet this is about finding ethnic staff for restaurants, if I has to hazard a guess Id say its more to do with non Europeans finding it harder to get members of their family into the UK.
What about the workers from eastern Europe, as said above, I don't believe for one minuet this is about finding ethnic staff for restaurants, if I has to hazard a guess Id say its more to do with non Europeans finding it harder to get members of their family into the UK.
No, you think so :shrug: :D I think you may have it :tu: Now I'm all in favour of world travel, but :dozey:
It baffles me how some of them manage to stay in business due to the amount of competition? Just look at the curry mile in Rusholme.
It baffles me how some of them manage to stay in business due to the amount of competition? Just look at the curry mile in Rusholme.
It's called demand.
If there was no demand, they'd go out of business.
People seem to have forgotten that.
I'm going to add something to what Rob has said about the amount of Takeaways in one area. In Sutton in Ashfield there is a street called Outram Street, it's not one mile long in fact it's not even half a mile long. From one end to the other there are 21 takeaways these include a KFC, MacDonalds, pizza / kebab shops, Chinese takeaways / restaurants, Indian restaurants, Italian restaurants. With all these takeaways you'd think we'd have a town full of nightclubs and pubs?? There's not one nightclub in this town, there's one pub which makes a profit. How can all these takeaways make money when there's that many in one small area???
Outram Street in Sutton in Ashfield is now called China Town by the locals.
Oh and by the way Sutton in Ashfield has a high rate of adult / child obesity.
Graham M
21-04-2008, 07:44
Oh and by the way Sutton in Ashfield has a high rate of adult / child obesity.
OK, fair enough, but that's no excuse!
PeteTheMusicGuy
21-04-2008, 09:22
I thought curry was an indian and not a british dish ;)
Graham M
21-04-2008, 09:24
I thought curry was an indian and not a british dish ;)
The roots were, I have some Bangladeshi friends and what they eat is so different to what you get in the restaraunts/takeaways UNLESS YOU ASK FOR IT as the dishes are all different, normally sweeter to meet our Western expectations
MovedGoalPosts
21-04-2008, 09:44
I thought curry was an indian and not a british dish ;)
And if you read the original bbc article it's origins are agreed, but the debate that the indian, and chinese, foods have now become so absorbed into our culture that they are part of the British way of life.
Well frankly what comes out of most Indian take aways these days is totally awful..I'd rather make my own and really cook the flavour into the meat/protein rather than eat something that is basically a warmed up curry sauce with precooked chicken/meat thrown into it.Half the time the lamb/beef curry's are inedible because the lamb/beef hasn't been cooked long enough to become tender.:rolleyes:
Curry IS NOT a FAST food.Only Tandoori can claim to be fast food.
As for the added sugar for western tastes I've always had to ask them NOT to add sugar..can't bear it.Yuk
Out of curiosity, how does a beef curry work?
I've always wondered this because, if you take curry as being traditionally Indian, the cow is a sacred animal in India, so it wouldn't be used for food?
MovedGoalPosts
21-04-2008, 11:56
You might get beef curry from English catering type places, your local supermarket or wherever, but I've never seen one on offer in an Indian Takeway / Restaurant.
You might get beef curry from English catering type places, your local supermarket or wherever, but I've never seen one on offer in an Indian Takeway / Restaurant.
In fairness, neither have I, but it just seems to fly in the face of conventional wisdom.
Mind you, so does someone eating a Phal after 15 pints, but there you go...
I thought most chefs in curry houses are from Bangladesh (which is a muslim country where cows are not considered holy) anyway?
Edit: Also, according to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry) the term 'curry' is a bit of a catch-all that includes the cuisine of Malaysia/Indonesia and Thailand.
There's a Thai dish called Mussaman (Muslim) curry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massaman_curry) that has beef, and one of the signature dishes of Malaysia/Indonesia is Beef Rendang (http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/beefrendang_78767.shtml) which arguably is a curry as well. (Rendang, beef cooked in coconut milk is a firm favourite in our house where it's eaten just about every other week. :) )
I thought most chefs in curry houses are from Bangladesh (which is a muslim country where cows are not considered holy) anyway?
Exactly :)
I am amused by how people are confused/suprised how so many takeaways can remain in business in one area.
As I said before it's down to the demand.
You also have to consider the variety.
One may do a great chicken chow mein, another may do a fabulous prawn korma, a third may be the place to get a yummy lamb bhalti.
So they all share pretty much the same customer base, just one night some customers visit the Tandori Palace, while others visit the Oriental Express, and they don't have the same thing every time they have a take away, consiquently they don't go to the same shop.
It's not rocket science.
A neighbour's mother has just had to pay a small fortune in legal fees and fines because she had brought illegals into this country from Pakistan and set them to work in her 3 restaurants. She is also being done for having 2 of her houses full of the same illegals (and more).
All said they could not speak English at all... and she said they didn't need to as they were "only here to cook". The very long hours they put in for illegal wages, minus "bed and board" of course, meant that they were either in the kitchen or in bed!
Many "English" second, third and fourth generation immigrants from the Indian sub-continent would love to work in these restaurants and takeaways I'm sure, but they could not survive on the rates of pay (below minimum wage) that the bosses insist on paying. My mate's mother used to fire staff regularly if they got "lazy", but they would just drift off to yet another curry house undercutting the present staff for both wages and working hours.
How many other restaurants in the UK could get away with only employing on such a very racist basis?
Out of curiosity, how does a beef curry work?
I've always wondered this because, if you take curry as being traditionally Indian, the cow is a sacred animal in India, so it wouldn't be used for food?
Cows are only sacred to Hindus,everyone else in India will quite willingly eat beef curry provided they can get their hands on beef.Quite a number of Indians are also Buddhist and therefore are vegetarian.However they don't hurry curry either.They take their time to cook it properly.
Cows are only sacred to Hindus,everyone else in India will quite willingly eat beef curry provided they can get their hands on beef.Quite a number of Indians are also Buddhist and therefore are vegetarian.However they don't hurry curry either.They take their time to cook it properly.
Not all Buddhists are vegetarian (but some are). Hop into your nearest Thai restaurant. There's lots of meat/fish dishes on the menu. Also, the most 'interesting' menu I've seen was in a restaurant in Vietnam, a predominantly Buddhist country. They had a rather liberal approach to what animals are considered edible.
Not all Buddhists are vegetarian (but some are). Hop into your nearest Thai restaurant. There's lots of meat/fish dishes on the menu. Also, the most 'interesting' menu I've seen was in a restaurant in Vietnam, a predominantly Buddhist country. They had a rather liberal approach to what animals are considered edible.
I hate Thai food. Chinese and Indian meet and marry..a marriage made in hell with the worst bits of both.Yuk!
vBulletin® v3.8.11, Copyright ©2000-2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.