With National Curry Week starting on Sunday 22 October and running through to 28th it may be worth noting a few factual and even frivolous items about Britain?s favourite food.
* The most unlikely of all aphrodisiacs must be garlic and onions, whose properties are said to 'inflame the baser passions'. This is one of the reasons that Hindu Brahmin and Jain sects ban them from their diet. This theory was also put forward by Andrew Boorde in the 16th century. In his 'A Dyetary of Helth' he said that 'Onions doth promote a man to veneryous acts'. Obviously the man had no sense of smell
*Fenugreek has been claimed as a cure for impotence and as an aphrodisiac throughout history and the chemicals within it act in a similar way to the body?s own sex hormones
*One company in Chennai India claim to sell 2 million papads(poppadums) to Britons per day. This means their annual sales, if placed end to end, would cover the 24,859 mile circumference of the Earth 2.8 times.
*Poppadums were called ?popper-cake? in Bombay in the nineteenth century. The word is an abbreviation of ?paruppu-adam?(lentil cake).
*Chef Abdul Salam from Lichfield claimed the World?s Biggest Curry record in 2000 with a bubbling 3 tonnes of the spicy mix. Not content with this he followed up in 2005 by having a special stainless steel vat built and brewed up a whopping ten tonnes of curry to set a new record
*Honey Top Foods hold the record for the World?s Biggest Naan which was over 7 feet long and needed four strapping members of the Army Catering Corps to display it...
*The Army Catering Corps set the record for the number of Indian meals cooked and served from scratch setting up a feast for 652 hungry racegoers at Kempton Park Racecourse.
*If the number of poppadoms consumed in the UK each year were stacked on top of each other they would make a tower 156 times the height of Mount Everest.
*In AD 408, Alaric the Goth demanded 3,000lb (1,360kg) of black pepper as part of his ransom for Rome. The Romans paid over the pepper, which Alaric more than thankfully accepted before sacking the city anyway in AD410!
*A study funded by the Scottish Executive has found that salicylic acid, the active ingredient in aspirin, occurs naturally in Indian food and that curry could help treat migraines and prevent colon cancers. Spices such as cumin, turmeric and paprika, all of which are used in curries, are particularly rich sources of salicylic acid, the study said. Curry (actually the turmeric in it) is also said to have a beneficial effect on colon cancer and Alzheimer?s Disease.