The Curry Club was founded by

Pat Chapman Patrick Lawrence Chapman (20 December 1940 – 22 July 2022) was an English food writer, broadcaster and author, best known for founding The Curry Club. Early days Chapman was born in London during the Blitz. His grandfather had achieved seni ...

in 1982, to further the understanding and appreciation of the cuisines of the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

. In 2007 it became known as Pat Chapman's Curry Club.

Overview

Based in Haslemere, Surrey,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, The Curry Club was best known for its publications, particularly its range of

cookbooks A cookbook or cookery book is a kitchen reference containing recipes. Cookbooks may be general, or may specialize in a particular cuisine or category of food. Recipes in cookbooks are organized in various ways: by course (appetizer, first cours ...

, DVDs, a regular magazine and the

Good Curry Guide The ''Good Curry Guide ''was a regularly published guidebook providing information about the UK's top curry restaurants. The ''Good Curry Guide'' was first published in 1984, by Pat Chapman, founder of The Curry Club. From 1991 through to the las ...

a regularly published guidebook, which identifies the UK's top

curry restaurants A curry is a dish with a sauce seasoned with spices, mainly associated with South Asian cuisine. In southern India, leaves from the curry tree may be included. There are many varieties of curry. The choice of spices for each dish in tradi ...

. In addition the Curry Club carried out cookery courses, demonstrations, trips to Indian restaurants and tours to India. Curry Club members formed the national network of reporters, which led to the selection of restaurants in the ''

'' and achievement awards to the top restaurants. Until 2006, members paid a nominal subscription to receive a quarterly publication, the Curry Club Magazine with contributions from members and professionals, including features on curry and the curry lands. Regularly updated information was sent by email. Regular content included recipes, cooking features and tips, restaurant reviews, biographies on relevant people chefs and restaurateurs, wine pairings, travel and tourism information, and historical pieces. Its remit was to cover Asian cuisine i.e. South Asian cuisine (including Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani, Nepalese and Sri Lankan cuisines). It also included occasional input on other exotic and spicy cuisines. The magazine was later replaced by the Curry Magazine. The Club held hands-on private and group cooking tutorials at its Haslemere

cooking school A cooking school is an institution devoted to education in the art and science of cooking and food preparation. There are many different types of cooking schools around the world, some devoted to training professional chefs, others aimed at amate ...

, and on the social side organised

gourmet Gourmet (, ) is a cultural idea associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine, which is characterized by refined, even elaborate preparations and presentations of aesthetically balanced meals of several contrasting, of ...

nights at selected restaurants and venues. Between 1983 and 2009, the Club organised sixteen gourmet trips to India and other countries, where a small group of enthusiasts engaged in sightseeing as well as sampling the food of each region.

History

Chapman founded the Curry Club as a hobby business in January 1982Driscoll-Woodford, Heather
"'Curry King' shares the Indian Emperor's final stew"
BBC Surrey, 2010 at a time in which little information had been published on the subject of curry and many of the published recipes were complicated and contained hard-to-get ingredients.

References

External links

Pat Chapman's official homepage
Gastronomical societies Curry Indian cuisine in the United Kingdom 1982 establishments in the United Kingdom Haslemere {{India-cuisine-stub