Homemade curries in the 70s.

[Johnnyxgen]

Hi. I am trying to recreate the curry my mum made in the 70s for my now old and daft m&d.. I'm struggling with what she served as accompaniment..
So far I've got. Crisps. Sliced banana with dessicated coconut, major grey mango chutney and sliced tomato&onion and sliced cucumber. Did you put vinegar on the cucumber? Was raita even heard of in 70s Britain? Have I missed anything. Any help gratefully achieved. Jc.

I don't think I had curry until the 80's, but in our house it always featured diced apple and raisins in the curry sauce - not a clue why!

It was the only thing my father ever made. He always served Bananas and raisins on it too.

Yes, raisins in the curry. It was always a curious yellowish brown colour - don’t think we added tomatoes. Sprinkled with sliced almonds and chopped parsley if people were coming over.

Chopped tinned pineapple, and sometimes (bizarrely) tinned mandarin oranges on the side. Chopped red pepper. A small bowl of plain yogurt.

Sultanas
Badly waterlogged rice.

Peanuts! Along with most of the above. My mums curry was amazing . I managed to replicate it only once .

My mum put sultanas, apple and celery in hers, along with the badly waterlogged rice mentioned by a PP!

As far as I can remember we used Vencat curry powder with Basmatti rice. Accompanied by mango chutney, onion salad, finely sliced and diced cucumber and we also had raisins in the curry sauce.

Vesta curry was the first one I ate.

I wish I could find my copy of "Nanny Ogg's Cookbook" featuring "Mrs Colon's Gen-yoo-ine Klatchian Curry" which is the archetypal 1970s made-by-Brits curry (but nicer).
That mentions cubes of swede I think; sultanas are a definite necessity.
We used to have the bananas and desiccated coconut separately.

I absolutely loved Vesta curries! Remember going youth hostelling and taking a rucksack full of them. Would probably find them inedible these days!

Ah yes. Forgot about the desiccated coconut!

My mum would finely chop white onion and cucumber , soaked in vinegar with salt and pepper as the accompaniment. Plus very dry and hard poppadoms !

we used to have curried egg in primary school in the 1970s
my first thought was raisins though

it was in a sort of green sauce

Side dish of sliced hard boiled egg too.

I forgot the hard boiled eggs!

I have Marguerite Patten's Perfect Cooking which my mum bought me for my 15th birthday in 1973.

The recipy inncides curry paste, curry powder, apple desiccated coconut, sultanas, chutney, sugar and lemon juice among the basic ingredients.

Acccompaniments inlcude:
chutney
sliced peppers and tomatoes
Poppadums
Bombay duck
Nuts
Raisins
Grated coconut
sliced bananas
Sliced raw onions

Aww Marguerite Patten, lovely lady, met her many times, she used to live around the corner from us.

My Gt Uncle loved curry, Gt Aunt wouldn’t have eaten curry, so when lunch was stew, my Gt Uncle would have the left over stew with a heap of curry powder added to it the next day for his lunch. He enjoyed it.

Sultanas and desiccated coconut were always served with curry at our house. Along with mango chutney and banana.

DM was quite an adventurous cook for the times & made curry quite often. It had large slices of cooking apple in it & of course sultanas!
I don't remember any accompaniments whatsoever just white rice which I guess was the only sort readily available.

This is bringing back memories of my mother's Terrible Dahl...

She would put red lentils, tinned tomatoes, curry powder, dessicated coconut, and marmite in the pressure cooker and cook to mush.

Served with rice (the rice was always cooked to perfection, because she had unbelievably spent time living in the Middle East in the 70s so fuck knows why the dahl was so awful) and a platter of neatly arranged sliced banana, cucumber, tomato, and raisins. A dollop of plain yoghurt for my younger siblings.

We used to have the sliced banana with curry in the 80s what was that about?! Also chopped onion with tomato ketchup 🙈

My mum's curry consisted of mince with curry powder and raisins thrown in. It was vile. I didn't think it was possible to make curry at home until I went to a friend's and they had made a selection of 'authentic' dishes. I bought a copy of Madhur Jaffrey:s Indian Cookery and never looked back but that was about 1982.

Yes, apple! I’d forgotten. My ex (chef) in the early 90s used to make delicious curry with apple slices.

Sultanas, peanuts, banana and desiccated coconut.