This little recollection is all aboot foreign food or as a friend of mine's Mother puts it " Foreign Muck " . It comes from around the early 1960's .

My Dad , being a seaman at one time , was keen on his curries . The trouble was Curry powder was hard to find , not like today . I seem to vaguely remember there was a Herbalists shop near South Shields Station who sometimes sold it . A more reliable source was Readheads Shipyard where he worked . As soon as a ship was docked for repair he made a bee line for the ships galley and usually for a packet of fags , he would end up with a jar full of curry powder from the cook . The cooks were usually Indian or Chinese , so it was the real stuff . The trouble was it was of unknown strength or potency . Matters got worse in using it if some sort of guidelines were given by the cook because my Father had a life long philosophy based on the theory that if you used twice as much as recommended it would taste twice as good or in the case of medicine ,it would do you twice as much good . This got him into some serious problems once or twice , but that's another story . Niver mind , back to the curry - cooking it amounted to Culinary "Russian Roulette " , the outcome was totally unpredictable . If a curry was in the offing , then it was always done on a Saturday as it gave him time to prepare and cook it and generally "mess aboot with it " , much to the annoyance of my Mam . Nor were things done on a small scale as it was always done in the Pressure Cooker perched on a Baby Belling cooker and usually lasted a week when cooked . The grand moment would arrive at Saturday teatime . At this time I was only an Apprentice Curry eater and had visions of graduating eventually in time to Black belt status Vindaloo, but it was not to be . I was always wary of his Curries . Saturday tea was attended by my Mother , Father and me . Mother had her scones , butter and Jam , I had two Dickinson,s pasties and Dad had "the Curry" . He would make a start on it and after a while I would cast sly glances in his direction to see how he was getting on . "How's the curry Dad" , I would say " Grand , just the job " he would reply - he had to say that as Mother was in the vicinity , but it still did not instil any confidence in me . I only saw him beaten once by a curry and the whole lot was chucked oot , but it did not put him off . He would try anything , my Brother in Law , a sea going Engineer , once brought him a jar of Oysters and a tin of octopus from Australia . The oysters looked awful but got eaten anyway , but the octopus got the better of him . " Its like eating bloody bits of car tyre" he said . Aye - happy times that you can't get back .

Doug