The Curry Museum At Yokohama Japan

By Phiroze Khareghat A Museum for Curry! That was interesting news during my last year's (2007) visit to the Japanese city of Yokohama.

India, the land of the curry does not have one.nor Britain, home to more than ten thousand Indian restaurants! But the lads from Nippon have done it! Checking with my Japanese friends, I found that Japan had been introduced to curry, when British ships docked at Yokohama with Indian sailors, during the Meiji era (1869 - 1913).

It was a time when India was under the British and hence curry in Japan was categorised as a western dish instead of an Asian delicacy.

But it took almost a century, before Japanese caught on to the curry, that is the 1970's, when they found that it is much easier to make curry based menu than any other type of Japanese foods, namely from a ready-made curry sauce mix / block, in under an hour! Today the Japanese curry is commonly served in three main forms: curry rice, kar‡ udon (thick noodles) and kar‡-pan (bread).

It is usually thicker, sweeter and milder than its Indian equivalent.

Most Japanese households make curry using processed curry cubes, an industry which sells today more than 100000 (yes one hundred thousand tons) of instant curry preparations, worth 700 million US dollars or 2800 crores of rupees! The All Japan Curry Manufacturers Association has more in its budget, than that of the Indian Curry Powder Exporters, who exported only 10400 tonnes world wide in 2007 valued at a meager rupees 120 crores! In fact in 2006 one Japanese entrepreneur wanted to patent curry world wise! In 2001 the Ramen Noodles Company of Japan decided to make a food theme group of museums in the port city of Yokohama and the Yokahama Curry Museum was created as a result.

This Curry Museum is located on Isezaki-cho mall in Kannai, within the Entertainment PIA building, and admission into the museum is free.

The museum itself is a recreation of the late 19th century Yokohama port, with exhibits lining the walls.

Part of the two-floor central area is built in the form of a ship at port, with a stairway leading up to the eighth floor.

There is even a cabin on the eighth floor, complete with Morse code radio instruments that visitors are allowed to fiddle with, and sirens and sounds.

One is greeted by a sari-uniformed Japanese lady receptionist in a darkly panelled and the dimly lit lobby decorated with cartoon elephants carved in stone.

Commercials on video screens as well as packaging for instant curry and regular curry are on display, offering an interesting look into lifestyles of days gone by.

The exhibits showcase the history of curry, the various types that are enjoyed around the world as well as showing the different ingredients that are often used in curry.

An exhibit of "curry's partners" include our Indian dosa (pronounced dohsay), yellow saffron rice; and wheat-based chapati and nan.

A fun exhibit a little further down has 18 different spice jars set up in a glass cupboard.

The idea is that spices are combined according to color, flavor and aroma.

Visitors try to guess which spices are used in different recipes or purposes by pressing a corresponding button.

If they are right, the jars light up.

If they are wrong, a buzzer sounds.

A little further is a projection room where visitors can watch old TV ads for curry.

An eighth-floor exhibit shows how curry differs from country to country.

In Pakistan, people eat lamb or beef curry soup with chapati or rice, while in North India, spice, nuts, butter and cream are used as ingredients in a curry eaten with wheat flour bread.

In Sri Lanka, herbs and coconut milk serve as a base with red chili (red curry) or coffee (black curry), while herbs and coconut milk are used to make green curry.

The curry offered on this floor ranges from such dishes as Grilled style, soup curry, French style and of course Indian and Pakistani.

The museum's seven restaurants, in the lower level of the musuem is set up like a food court, each serving a regional variation on the same theme, are more than enough to satisfy their craving.

Three of them, Spice-no-Hikkyoh, Hanaman and Echiopiah are Indian.

Topka serves Indian and European curry.

Meyawa is a Thai curry restaurant.

Pak Mori offers Japanese curry while Guru Man makes a American version curry recipe.

What is even more mind boggling is that the Museum managers claim to have offered over 800 different types of instant curries throughout the years, Any lover of curry rice will appreciate the new level of flavors discovered within these hundreds of combinations..

One curry dish is a combination of regular curry sauce as well as dry.

The somewhat sweet dry curry is placed on top of the rice in the shape of a round patty, with the spicier curry sauce poured on top.

Then there is the.

curry chocolate, a Yokohama Curry Museum original, that sells particularly well.

"At first it seems like regular chocolate," says a museum official, "but its subtle spicy gives it an exquisite flavor." Created with the cooperation of confectionery manufacturer Meiji Seika, the curry chocolate is made with a blend of various spices.

Cost .1200 Japanese yen or 500 Indian rupees.

The meal ticket vending machines are one of the customs in Japan that makes our life much easier.

Rather than announce your order to the person behind the counter, you simply deposit your money in the machine, push the button with the picture of the dish you want, and it spits out a ticket.

You hand the ticket over and soon you're feasting on a plate of hot food.

The whole transaction occurs without ever having to speak a word.

The Curry Museum Gift Shop is also found on the lower level.

Aside from offering different spices for making curry from scratch, and the usual gift shop trinkets, this shop also boasts 200 varieties of instant curry packs.

The museum has nearly fourteen lakhs of visitors every year..that is at the average rate of five thousand per day! -(Maharaja Features) Kalakshetra Saris-The Best Of Conjeevaram Tradition By Dhanvanti Keshavrao Conjeevaram silks hold a special place in the many splendoured world of Indian brocades and the Kalashetra sari reigns supreme among the Conjeevarams, with its special sophistication and understated elegance.

As its original votary, the famous danseuse/social reformer/ reviver of Indian crafts Shreemati Rukmini Devi Arundale ( 1904-1986) puts it, "Kalakshetra saris have absorbed and incorporated all that is best and beautiful in the Indian weaving tradition".

It was a Kalakshetra sari that Indira Gandhi wore to attend the banquet given in her honour by the French President Francois Mitterand in Paris.

Pupil Jayakar, the handicraft Czarina of India in the 1980s, frequently wore Kalakshetra saris, in her role of India's cultural ambassador to variou parts of the world.

In the 1930's the spirit of nationalism, led by Mahatma Gandhi, gave a fillip to our handloom industry.

At this juncture, the pioneer in the resurrection of Indian weaving, Rukmini Devi Arundale, started the Kalakshetra weaving Centre that used only vegetable dyes, Indian fabrics and Indian designs.

Many old antique sarees and masterpieces in other Indian fabrics were collected, so that the future generations would not forget their heritage.

But it was no easy task for her to start the Kalakshetra tradition.

Recounting later, the circumstances that impelled her to set up her own looms Rukmini Devi described how our traditional handloom culture was being gradually eroded by outlandish ideas and designs in the 1930's..

She was shocked to see designs like the Union Jack and once even the gramophone company HMV's logo being woven as sari borders.

As such she planned a Craft Research and Education Centre which would provide a wing for weaving.

The Kalakshetra Weaving Centre was inaugurated on September 19, 1937 by Sri V.

V.Giri, the then minister for industries in the Madras presidency.

The weavers were brought from Conjeevaram and the yarn from Bangalore which was twisted to the three ply silk, which contributes to the heavy texture of the silk.The first sari created at the Weaving Centre was a stunning magenta pink with dotted line checks and maroon pallav, featuring Kalakshetra's innovative parrots.

It was an aesthetic statement, a resurgence of a shackled heritage and a reassertion of Indian artistry.

At Kalakshetra the weaver's skill was harnessed to the recovery of forgotten traditional motifs along with some experimentation in keeping with the norms of tradition.

The broad borders returned, memories were tapped for old designs, old available material was collected, and a record book maintained.

Today the main designs of these famous saris are traditional 'Vazhaipoo' (banana flower) stripes set off to perfection with red and deep violet checks,.

vivid red and yellow 'puliankottai' (tamarind seeds) body saris, a beautiful 'mubbagam' (in which the sari is divided into three equal parts, the upper and the lower parts forming the borders) in purple and green, and Rukmini Devi's favourite, a deep golden orange sari with an elaborate zari pallav featuring a horse and rider motif.

Six looms were installed by the end of the second year(1938).

Very soon Kalashetra saris became popular and a byword for traditional silks not only in India but even outside.

Its quality, durability and beauty made the sari a cherished and coveted possession.

During the World War II, when zari gold thread production came to a standsill, yellow silk thread was substituted and saris were woven fully in silk without zari.

With the dawn of Freedom, Kalakshetra sarees became the vogue among the new elite.

A design committee was formed in 1964 to advise the Weaving centre to resurrect the ancient designs.

Over the years, however, the Kalakshetra sari itself became increasingly rare.

The reason for this again is the uncomprising attitude of Kalashetra Weaving Ceantre to fundamentals.

The type of weaving that this craft demands is laborious and time consuming.

Wholly hand crafted, it needs a minimum of two weavers to each loom.

Wheras, many other handloom centres have gone in for weaving of saris on the jacquard loom where, with the aid of punched design cards, one weaver is enough.

Shakuntala Ramani the present head of the Weaving Centres says that owing to various reasons, the unit could not produce more than two saris a month.

Finally, in November 2000, the Department of Handlooms and Textiles, Government of Tamil Nadu, stepped in to increase the production.

The Department took up nearly 50 Kalakshetra designs and distributed them among select weaver societies.

As such if you go to the Loomworld shop of the Government of Tamilnadu at Chennai, you can select from as many as 400 different designs of the Kalakshetra saris.

In fact if you want to design your own sari, the Weaving centre will help you! The only requirement is that you should choose the border, pallu and the body (not colour) out of the 130- odd designs the Kalakshetra weaving centred has - based on the famous antique sarees collected by its founder..

The designs, which you can see in the design book and silk facsimiles maintained by the Centre, range from a deep green shimmering silk with mango border to a red sari with check designs coupled with rudraksha border.

If you so desire, you can combine these two and have a deep green saree, with red check design with rudraksha alternating with the mangoes in the border.

The Weaving Centre uses only the best of silk and natural dyes and the price of "your" designed saree of six yards is about Rs 12000 or 300 US dollars on wards .

Depending on the intricacy of the design and your position in the queue, the orders take from six months to one year to complete.

But then you have the satisfaction/pride of having designed your own Kalakshetra sari.

-(Maharaja Features)