Curry What is now the most characteristic English food? Bacon and eggs for breakfast? Roast beef for Sunday lunch? Fish and chips? No: it is curry. While most people over 40 avoid 'foreign muck', most under 40 see their ideal evening out as a few beers at the pub followed by a 'Ruby'. (Cockney rhyming slang: Ruby Murray [1950s singer] = 'curry'.) The world-famous French Michelin restaurant guide proves that curry restaurants must be an English institution. If they were Indian, it would insult them; but because they are English, the guide ignores them totally. Indian restaurants in Europe or America are few, and frequented mostly by connoisseurs. In England, there are almost 10,000, and they are frequented mostly by people with four pints of lager inside them. (In the evening, that is. At lunchtime, a salubrious curry house is a perfectly accepted place to have a business meal. And it has an advantage: even if your negotiating skills can't make the other guy sweat, you can achieve the same effect by ordering him a very spicy curry.) The oldest English curry house is said to be Veeraswamy in Regent St, London. It started in 1924, though the big growth in curry culture came with post-war waves of immigration from Asia, gaining popularity with the English in the affluent 1970s. In Brick Lane or Drummond St in London, curry lovers can choose from dozens of restaurants. But even in the smallest, remotest towns, you can find a good curry. (Sometimes on a pavement. If so, it's probably a restaurant to avoid.) Though everyone calls them 'Indian', most of the restaurants are run by Bangladeshis, many of them born over here. The food is a wide range of styles from all over India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, adapted for English tastes. Muslims are forbidden pork and alcohol; Hindus cannot eat beef; South Indians often avoid meat altogether. But they happily serve all of these things in their restaurants. Subcontinentals are famous for their pragmatism - they have their own values, but do not force them on others. Especially if it makes money. So we have a strange situation: you might be in South Wales, in a restaurant called the 'Sri Lanka', drinking Indian lager, eating Pakistani ingredients, cooked with pork to an English recipe, served by a Bangladeshi Muslim. This shows how multi-cultural Britain is today. So which language to use? The universal language - that spoken by drunks. Here is your guide to Curry Concepts. Before the curry Ideally, a couple of hours in a pub with a few friends or colleagues. That 'quick drink after work' becomes three or four, and someone suggests the inevitable. Curries taste best after about 9pm. Choosing the restaurant Something of a pointless exercise, as curry restaurants in any one town are pretty much the same. The same always happens: after much discussion of merits, examination of the menus displayed in the window which are mostly obscured by condensation on the glass, and a half-hour tour to all the restaurants within walking distance, the group returns to the first one. Inside the restaurant For the genuine experience the decor should be purple flock wallpaper, with pictures of Indian deities. Indian film-soundtrack music plays on a cassette whose stretched worn tape causes the music to wobble and swoop. Drinks Vital. Scientific research proves that alcohol can minimise the irritation of chili on the stomach - well, it's a good excuse. The waiter will be very surprised if you do not order a pint of lager each, perhaps two, as soon as you sit down. It is customary to order a poppadum each (like a giant prawn cracker but without the prawn) as a starter. Balti A popular cheap curry served in the metal dish ('balti') it was cooked in. Though supposedly from an area called 'Baltistan', it was devised in a suburb of Birmingham. Understanding the menu The curry you eat - specifically, its strength, and how much chili it contains - determines your sex and personality. Here are the main types of curry and the assumptions we would make about you if you order them: Korma very mild, with nuts and cream. For children, old people, and those of a nervous disposition. Bhoona mild and dry. If you order this people will think you are a woman, whatever your appearance. Dhansak medium, with lentils and aubergine. If a woman, we would assume you are not pregnant. Do-Piaza medium, sweetish, with cooked and raw onions. Usual limit of all but the most adventurous women. Jal frezi spicy, with peppers, made slightly differently in every restaurant. Connoisseurs can taste the difference between one with cardamom and one without. Curiously, it is never spelt the same way twice either. Connoisseurs can taste the difference between one with an H in 'jhal' and one without. For men, the weakest curry orderable without being considered extremely effeminate. Madras strong, with tomato puree and almonds. Safe choice for men - strong enough not to appear a weakling, but anatomical damage the next day minimal. Vindaloo very hot; taste of meat swamped by spices. Traditional challenge for lager-fuelled groups of lads. When you get home, put the toilet roll in the fridge - it will make things a little easier on you tomorrow morning. Tindaloo/ Bindaloo/ Bangalore extremely hot. May be excluded from some insurance policies. Sign of reckless individual. Phal most explosive material encountered outside acts of terrorism. Extreme discomfort next day: not recommended for anyone who has to sit down at work. Sign of lunacy, spectacular drunken misjudgement, or (most hilariously for the rest of the group) someone who ordered by mistake. On the way home The group stumbles its way to the taxi rank, making ribald jokes about farting and the painful exit the curries will make tomorrow morning. The curry expedition is almost always a good-humoured affair, with plenty of light-hearted banter. It can, very occasionally, attract drunken racists, whose insults are generally tolerated with great patience by the restaurant staff. In South Wales last year, however, one man fought back. A thug with a baseball bat approached a curry house waiter and threatened him. The waiter threw curry powder at his attacker's face, temporarily blinding him. The attacker staggered to a police station to plead for hospital treatment, which he got - only to be arrested immediately afterwards. Rest assured that the curry expedition is a totally English experience: you will not get anything like it anywhere else in the world. Especially not India.

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