Curry - one of God's great inventions

[Jon]

I do love curry! Is it not surprise, considering the number on meal in the UK is curry. It used to be fish 'n' chips, but we are oh so multicultural nowadays.

Tonight, I have this street food Patak's curry sauce thing, with chicken breast and red onion. It is baking in the oven as we speak. It has 3 chillies on the packet, meaning hot! So, I expect to be sweating a bit later, as my insides try to digest the indigestible.

I prefer a good naan bread to pilau rice. Just saying. And I love some mango chutney to go with it all.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I enjoy a multi-cultural diet. Chinese, Vietnamese, Italian, cowboy, Cajun, Mexican, ... you name it and we have probably tried that ethnicity if it could be had in New Orleans. However, one of my greatest surprises when my wife and I played tourist in Washington D.C. was across the river in Crystal City. I believe it was 29th street just off the Washington Thruway. Within two blocks, we found nearly a dozen restaurants of different cuisines and sampled as many as we could.

The Chinese restaurants were good but we found a great Vietnamese restaurant at the far end of the 2nd block that was NOT devoted only to soups and wraps. The Indian establishment had a good selection of various chicken and beef including the "clay pot" cooking styles. The formal Italian place in the middle of the block was so good that we knew at the first bite that we were going to finish off our entire (generous) entrees and regret it later. (Both of which we did!)

The most interesting place was an Italian-Ethiopian mom-n-pop type restaurant. My dear Linda stayed on the Italian side and got a paneed breaded chicken that she said might have been the best she had ever eaten of that variety. I got the Ethiopian curry sampler, eight dollops of stuff with varying degrees of sweet or spicy (or both) curry. They had lamb, chicken, and beef curries - but also five vegetable curries. As I recall, the lamb and yam curries were in the "blow your lips off" category while the other samplings were milder. But I didn't get formal utensils. Instead they gave me a type of bread that Linda and I called "octopus" bread. It was a gray grain and had been lightly boiled before being baked. When you opened it up, the boiled outer rind didn't leak but the inner baked portion absorbed the sauces. You used the bread to pick up the rest of the food.

At the end of the meal, we called out the chef. He came out scared but we told him we had NEVER had food so good as that, and we were from New Orleans where good food is known and appreciated. We thanked him and left a nice tip. Then waddled out of there, having blown our diets yet again. In case you were wondering about an Ethiopian-Italian joint and how THAT combination came to be, look up World War II and find out which country invaded Ethiopia.

 

[Jon]

I've never had Ethiopian food. But I do love trying new cuisines.

Incidentally, my curry last night was excessively hot - like a vindaloo. However, for some very odd reason, the morning after was absolutely fine! Maybe I will suffer later on today with a delayed reaction, who knows!

 

[The_Doc_Man]

With my liver and gall bladder issues, it turns out that spicy doesn't "hit" me - but "fatty" or "oily" will set me off every time.

 

[Jon]

I have considered doing one of those food allergy tests but I am not sure how scientifically valid they are.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

If they are done by a certified specialist, they should be reasonably good.

 

[Jon]

I think in the US you have more of those sorts of services. The UK lags somewhat. I saw one, but then ended up reading articles that suggested it might be pseudoscience. I just need to know who to believe!

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I think you can believe that the science is real. However, you are correct in wondering whom to believe. If the person is certified, it should not be an insult to look for official certification. Nutrition science and allergen science are quite legit - but the world is full of quacks out to make money by preying on the unsuspecting or the excessively trusting souls of this world.

 

[Bee]

I've only ever met 2 people with serious food allergies. One couldn't eat eggs - would vomit and come out in hives within 10 minutes of ingesting them. The other can't eat peanuts - goes into anaphylaxsis. But the number of people I know who claim to be glucose, lactose, other-tose intolerant is vast. I'm inclined to think it's more about bad science and mis-information than genuine food allergies. That doesn't mean to say some foods don't have a negative impact - as you know, I try to limit my carbs because of the effect on my blood glucose - and I feel crap after eating bread etc. But I'm not allergic.

 

[Jon]

That is the word Doc...quacks! The charlatans who promise the earth based on flimsy science and a dose of placebo.

Apparently, cats are lactose intolerant, or most of them are. You can get specialist milk for their little tummies.

 

[Bee]

I make a really, really good beef curry. Just sayin'

 

[The_Doc_Man]

For my dear wife, strawberries are her downfall. I've seen it only once but it was enough. When she eats strawberries, she breaks out in hive. Yes, singular. Not hives. One BIG hive that starts at about armpit level and goes down to about kneecap level. One continuous raised, red, angry-looking hive. Took less than 10 minutes from start to finish to get that way. And SHE gets angry-looking too, because it itches. You know that 1-10 pain scale that doctors use? They missed one. There should be a 1-10 ITCHING scale in parallel - and my sweetie would have been a 10. When I had the worst of my liver symptoms, I was certain that I was above 8 on the itch scale.

When I took her to the emergency room with "the hive," the doctor raised his eyebrows in surprise and said he had never before seen quite so intense a reaction and had never seen such uniform coverage. Which is why he didn't doubt her itch symptoms. He gave her an antihistamine injection AND prescribed a specific lotion. About two hours later, it had calmed down enough to let her get some sleep, but the hive faded into more ordinary hives that faded about 12 hours after she woke up.

And before anyone asks, she knew about the allergy but didn't realize that strawberries had been anywhere near whatever it was that she ate. We suspect it was cross-contamination by failing to fully clean a mixing bowl before starting the next recipe at a party. Or some other form of touch transfer. Might have just been a drop of the juice hitting something else.

 

[Jon]

I would have thought the simple strawb would have been harmless. Just goes to show we all need the allergy tests!

 

[The_Doc_Man]

As to lactose intolerance, the guy who was the best man at my wedding is lactose intolerant, which is a form of mild allergy. Since (a) he actually has the condition and (b) is a trained trauma nurse, he has enough training and personal experience to know more about it than most. He says it is a real condition and he has it. Which is why he can't eat ordinary ice cream.

He said that some digestive issues are like partial allergies but centered in the intestines. Irritable Bowel Syndrome could be at least something like that.

 

[Jon]

There is much talk that the microbiome of an individual is critical to our immune system and overall health. It is a recent discovery and they are learning more all the time. We have trillions of these little bugs in our body. No wonder I get itchy on the inside.