UK's largest curry pot at 40,000 pounds
by Mike Lockey

        London: It's that time of the year again in Britain - the silly season - when people do daft things and the newspapers write about them. Take for example this headline from the Eastern Eye: "Oh my Ghosht", followed by the sub-heading: "Curry on cooking". And the story? Well, a hundred people have recently spent 24 hours trying to make the world's largest curry pot. And why did they do this? Simply to set a new world record. By now you will be just longing to know if they succeeded. Well yes they did. Hurrah, hurrah. The enormous dish weighed in at around ten tons and cost a mind boggling 40,000 pounds to create. Mind, it did feed some 50.000 people at the Lichfield International Arts Festival, and garnered a whole heap of publicity for its begetter, Abdul Salam, who just happens to own a restaurant in the Staffordshire town - and that's called The Eastern Eye as well! Strange little world isn't it?

       But Mr. Salam was thrilled to bits by the success of his venture, even though it was hard work to bring to fruition. As he said: "In the last few days I feel I have aged a hundred years. I will not be trying to break this record again as trying to arrange it all was a nightmare". It would be wouldn't it - with the curry pot itself the size of a small swimming pool at 4ft. deep, 6ft. wide and no less than 36ft. long! Imagine falling into that when it was full of all the ingredients... Anyway, the swimming pool, sorry vat, had to be purpose built by a local steel company (well you are hardly likely to find a ready-made one down the local hardware shop are you?) and took 53 gas burners to heat up and cook the ingredients of the curry that fed the 50,000 and a few more besides. Abdul Salam has had his restaurant in Lichfield for 20 years now, has won a hatful of awards for his cooking and was even approached by the House of Commons to prepare the curries for the MPs there. He's also written a book called "Abdul's Secret Curry Book". So, in the, end why did he decide to cook the curry to end all curries? After all, it's not as if he really did need the publicity. Simple really: for charity. To be precise, to help raise money to cover the costs of running a hospital in Bangladesh. In the end then, not so daft a thing to do and not so silly season a story after all.
-Jan 11, 2006