Charmaine and Rueben Solomon
I have to admit that I approached my first scheduled meeting with Charmaine and Reuben Solomon in Sydney last year a bit skeptically. Bottled curry sauces aren't really something we do a whole lot here at Zingerman's, and there are more than enough of them already available in the US, so I figured I'd go to the appointment more as a courtesy than anything else. Man, was I wrong. These are really excellent Australian products made by great people with a great story, and I'm really excited to have them here in Ann Arbor. Charmaine and Reuben Solomon are probably in their early 70s. They're very intelligent, entertaining, totally down to earth, funny, fine, welcoming, creative people. Although I'd never heard of her before the meeting, it turns out that Charmaine is actually extremely well known for her books and teaching work — she's spent about three decades writing and teaching about Asian food, and she's done over 30 books on the subject. As I started mentioning her name to other key folks in the food world, it turns out most everyone I talked to knew her work well. She's really one of the best teachers on the subject anywhere.

The bottled curries came out of her teaching — people loved the classes, loved the dishes they'd made in them, wanted a quick way to get the same flavors. Charmaine finally relented and started to bottle them (the sauces, not the people who took the classes). To quote Charmaine,

"For over 25 years I've been writing cookbooks, the books have been selling, and I frequently meet people who assure me that they use my recipes all the time. I fondly imagined that this meant they use all of the information I have so carefully put together for readers. Call me naive — you'd be correct. After one of my demonstration classes, when the recipes I prepared had been tasted, pupils demanded to know why my food was so much better than theirs. I assured them that if they were using my recipes, the flavours should be exactly the same. "Tell me what you do," I asked. Well, then the truth came out. Of course, they were using my recipes. But this wasn't the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Because the basic spice pastes took time and trouble to make, they were purchasing mass-produced pastes and missing out that very important first step, which is using fresh herbs and spices to make the spice blends which are the foundation of a good meal. For a brief time I was devastated to think that my recipes were being used in part. Then I realized that many people just don't have the time. I appreciate they're impatient to start tasting authentic Asian food, and don't realize that properly made curry pastes are the key to the whole thing. At the same time, I couldn't bear the thought that people were trying to make my recipes with inferior products. (I tried to cook with some of the better known brands, and found them utterly unlike the results I got using my own recipes.) There was only one solution. I researched for more than a year to get a shelf-stable product. I insist it is made in small batches so the quality doesn't suffer. Now the Solomon range of Asian spice pastes is a reality. For those who have the time and inclination to make their own spice pastes, the recipes are printed in my books; but for busy people who want results without spending hours in the kitchen, the solution is now only as far away as the sauces."

Backing up a bit... turns out that Reuben Solomon is a Burmese Jew which, having been out in the world a bit, I can't say I meet a lot of (though I do know of one other woman here in Ann Arbor who comes from similar origins). His family is of Sephardic origins, going from Baghdad to Burma in the 19th century. When we met up in Sydney, Reuben shared the story of how he and his brothers literally walked across Burma early in World War II to escape the Japanese. Not exactly the sort of thing you hear every day and certainly a testament to the man's determination. The fact that he's laughing, affable, upbeat and enthusiastic, and not in the least victim-like after that sort of an experience is a testament to who he is. Charmaine grew up on the island of Sri Lanka and her family left there to escape the political upheaval and violence on the island. The couple met after each arrived in Australia and have been together ever since.

Curries and countries of origin aside, Reuben has been a professional clarinet and saxophone playing jazz musician for over sixty years. I have a CD of some of the family's jazz; one of the cuts is a Duke Ellington tune called "Caravan" that was recorded by Reuben and his brother in 1942 in an aircraft hangar in Calcutta. As Charmaine said, "During the Second World War, one couldn't be choosy about sound quality, but it still came out pretty well, didn't it?"

You can see why I got more and more intrigued talking to them. But that still left the heart of the matter, which is the product. I'm NOT a curry expert, but since everything I was learning about the people told me their sauces were at least worth considering, I asked them to send some over for us to taste. Six weeks later the samples arrived. I tasted and was impressed anew; full flavors, complex, nice finishes, all in balance, easy to use, no additives or weird preservatives. Like I said, curry can not be called my area of expertise so Gauri Thergaonkar, long time manager of the retail area at the Deli, who for obvious reasons of origin (she's from India) served as our in-house curry connoisseur.

Given her excellent palate and her having grown up on homemade curries I gave her the samples to test and she gave them a huge endorsement. "I always tell people how my initial skepticism about curry pastes in a jar was instantaneously transformed when I first cooked with yours," she wrote to Charmaine. "And I tell them how my husband walked into the house as I was making dinner with one of your pastes and said that it smelled like home."

We've got six or seven of Charmaine's sauces in house for this first run. There are recipe ideas with each bottle, on Charmaine's website, and in her books as well. Across the board they're great examples of why fast food doesn't have to be a bad thing.