Serving the perfect curry

A scientist at Warwick University, England, has come up with a recipe for the perfect curry, not in terms of its ingredients or method of cooking, but determined by the rules of mathematics.

Apparently the ancient Greeks had the right idea, although their connection with curry is one that would not strike many people. However, they did know all about proportions and devised what is known as the “golden ratio”. When applied to curry eating this means that you should load your fork with exactly the same quantities of meat (or vegetables), sauce and rice. This, says the scientist, one Dr Mark Hadley of the university’s Department of Physics, produces not only the tastiest mouthful but it looks good too.

Dr Hadley goes further by stipulating exactly how the perfect curry should be arranged on the plate. The circle of rice, for example, must be 61% wider than the mound of curry placed on top.

If you use a plate that is 27 centimetres in diameter, the bed of rice must be 22.5 centimetres wide and no more than five millimetres thick. The mound of curry must be 14 centimetres in diameter and 2.4 centimetres thick at its highest point.

So now you know! Next time you serve a curry, make sure that you use a ruler as one of your cooking utensils. Your curry won’t be perfect unless you do!

Incidentally, isn’t it good to know that our university research departments aren’t wasting their time with anything trivial?

© John Welford

Disliked foods

A survey was conducted a few years ago by Birds Eye (and reported in the London Times) on the foods that British people most dislike to find on their plate. It was based on answers given by 1,000 people, all being adult men and women.

Here is the list, in reverse order, with my personal reactions – with which you may or may not agree!

10^th place

Mushrooms. What? Mushrooms? Unbelievable! 15% said that they would not want to eat them, but that would not have been my reply – I can never get enough, raw or cooked! Maybe the 15% fear the reputation of fungi as being poisonous but, as Terry Pratchett said, all fungi are edible.

(OK – he did go on to say that some of them are not edible more than once!)

9^th place

Salami – 20%. I can’t really comment on salami, because I can’t remember ever having eaten it. However, it is made from meat, and I don’t eat meat, so it’s unlikely that I’ll ever be tempted.

8^th place

(It’s actually 7^th equal) Brussels sprouts – 24%. This is surprising, because they are something that many children dislike but adults acquire a taste for later in life. Perhaps the 24% didn’t bother trying. Anyway, it’s certainly one of my favourite vegetables and one that I would choose in preference to many others.

7^th place

Avocados – 24%. They don’t come my way very often, and I can’t say that they delight me when they do. On the other hand they don’t disgust me either – they don’t taste strongly enough to be either loved or hated, in my opinion.

6^th place

Goats cheese – 27%. I do sometimes choose goats cheese in restaurants because it offers an interesting change from more conventional cheeses. It certainly wouldn’t be on my list of dislikes.

5^th place

Blue cheese – 38%. I can understand why this is on the list, because some blue cheeses are not very pleasant – Danish blue comes to mind. However, my favourite cheese of all time is Stilton, which is always a delight to me. OK – it’s local to where I live in Leicestershire, but then so are Melton Mowbray pork pies and I wouldn’t give them house room!

4^th place

(Or 3^rd equal to be precise) Black pudding – 39%. I wonder how many people dislike it before they know that it is made from pig’s blood and how many do so afterwards? It’s not something I would eat – for the same reason that I wouldn’t eat salami.

3^rd place

Olives – 39%. I can’t agree with these being so high on the list – I absolutely love olives, especially black ones. When choosing a pizza I will always go for one that has olives on it, or I’ll ask for them to be added. A pizza without olives just isn’t a pizza in my opinion!

2^nd place

Chicken liver – 41%. I am really surprised that this is nearly at the top of the list, because I wouldn’t have thought that all that many people would have had the opportunity to eat it. It’s not a dislike for me because I’ve never eaten it and almost certainly never will.

1^st place

Anchovies – 44%. Oh yes – these get my vote every time! I’m very fond of fish (I’m that kind of vegetarian!) but anchovies are just nasty little lumps of salt masquerading as fish, and I’ve always hated the taste of salt.

Some other findings

So what do you do when your dinner party host presents you with a plate containing one or more of the offending foods? Apparently 21% of people will surreptitiously feed pieces to the waiting dog, and 9% of women admitted to slipping unwanted items into their handbag when the host wasn’t looking!

© John Welford