Turmeric tribute

The British have done something right. Most importantly it's the tradition of eating a curry at least once a week thereby joining their Asian brothers and sisters in keeping a whole list of diseases at bay.

Curry anyway is delicious if prepared right and it does not really matter whether it's Indian, British, Thai, Indonesian or Japanese. What's really important is whether or not it contains turmeric – that versatile orange-yellow rhizome of the ginger family which acts as a condiment and healing remedy.

Turmeric has been used as a powerful anti-inflammatory agent in both Chinese and Indian Ayurvedic medicine since 1900 BC for a wide variety of conditions which include arthritis, cystic fibrosis, heart disease, colon cancer prevention, improving liver function, lowering cholesterol and very importantly, the prevention of Alzheimer's disease, especially in the aged.

Murali Doraiswamy, a researcher at Duke University in the US however is now saying that a good diet and regular curry eating will help prevent dementia. (See page 13)

Turmeric and I have been great friends ever since my mother regularly put a tiny teaspoonful in my morning glass of hot milk. I was five then and the turmeric was to prevent me from catching a cold from my classmates at school.

It worked and fortunately it became a panacea for all my ills.

Every time my siblings and I suffered a cut or graze, turmeric came to the rescue. It staunched the bleeding, acted as a great antiseptic and healed the wound.

As a teenager I mixed tiny amounts of turmeric with a tablespoon of sandalwood powder and a few drops of rose water to get rid of pimples.

Mixed with a few drops of very hot olive oil, it also made an excellent poultice for painful boils that do not have a head.

As a young adult I used it to wash out the gamey smell of lamb, beef and chicken and the smell of fish before I actually cooked them.

The yellow powder alone unfortunately tastes bitter and can smell funny, but mix it up with pepper, tomatoes and a few other spices and the result can be a deliciously heady sauce that one can eat with rice, bread or pasta. It's probably not your favourite dish. It's an acquired taste just like oysters and caviar, but when it promises to keep you delightfully sane, why argue?