Vindaloo

A little known but tremendously cool fact is that Vindaloo - a curry originally from Goa on the West coast of India - derives from the Portuguese vin d'alho a wine and garlic sauce. (I got some genuine vin d'alho when I was in Portugal a few years ago and it was absolutely disgusting, but then again I might not have understood how to cook with it properly.)

As I was knocking up a Vindaloo from my handy jar of Patak's paste the other night I noticed that Tamarind and Chilli are the two main featured ingredients. That got me to thinking.

Tamarind is native to Africa and was almost certainly introduced to India by Arab traders while Chilli is native to America and was introduced to India by Europeans.

That makes vindaloo Euro-Afro-Arab-Ameri-Asian which doesn't really leave many people out.

So next time you are tucking into one on a Saturday night raise your lager and drink a toast to the world's pre eminent, globalised, multicultural dish. (It is also a good response to the bores who insist that chicken tikka massala is somehow not authentic because it was dreamed up in Birmingham.)

In the words of Fat Les:

Me and me Mum and me Dad and me Gran
And a bucket of Vindaloo
Bucket!
Vindaloo
Vindaloo
Vindaloo
Vindaloo
Vindaloo Nah Nah
Vindaloo
Vindaloo
Vindaloo
Vindaloo Nah Nah
Vindaloo
Vindaloo
And we all like Vindaloo