Flavour of the East

Until I met Ko Ko Lay I had not tasted anything more oriental than a rice pudding. Our friendship lasted for eleven weeks and took place, for the most part, above the clouds in Richmond, Yorkshire.
We were both students on an Army signals course held in a dreary collection of wartime huts called Gallowgate Camp, alongside the Green Howard's depot. The inhabitants of Richmond rarely see the sun in November and December. We had a slight advantage over them and were able to look down on the ancient town, usually covered in mist, like a huge feather duvet. The disadvantage was that we were kept in a permanent state of refrigeration.
Ko Ko Lay had spent all his life in Burma until he was sent to the other end of the world to learn how wireless sets worked. The shock of living in Yorkshire in the winter caused him to pile on everything he could wear and this, he claimed, affected his comprehension of all things electronic. The other thing that slowed him down was British food. In his own country he was used to hot and spicy stuff but nothing that came from the kitchen in the officers' mess excited him.
Half way through the course, we had a long weekend break; Ko Ko used the vacation to visit friends in London. When he returned, he brought with him a collection of cooking utensils which included two small paraffin cookers.
A few days later, he asked me if I would help him make a curry. In those days (1948) there were few Asian restaurants outside London and I knew nothing about those wonderful eastern flavours that we now take for granted. I was anxious to learn though and I accepted his offer.
Ko Ko made a plan and he put this into operation when the afternoon training session came to an end the following day. He led me across some fields to a farm he had discovered about half a mile away. Chickens were running about the yard when we arrived and he pointed to the one that had taken his fancy. I knocked on the door of the farmhouse which was opened by the farmer's wife; a large lady with her hair in a bun. I explained that my Burmese friend would like to buy the white cockerel, if it was for sale. The plump lady looked at us suspiciously and asked. why he wanted to buy the bird. "To eat," said Ko Ko. "You can buy one in the town ready for the oven," she replied. "Don't want a dead one," said Ko Ko, "I want that one over there." It was obvious that the farmer's wife did not like the look of the lanky six foot three inch white man and the five foot three inch brown man, so she called her husband. The farmer obeyed his wife's shrill command and came to the door. Ko Ko fortified his request by thrusting two florins into the farmer's hand who, recognising a good bargain, went off and deprived the hens of their lord and master.
When we returned to camp, Ko Ko invited me into his room and gave me some small packages to smell. That was the starting point of my interest in, and love of, oriental food which still gathers strength half a century later. He went through the now familiar routine of grinding and mixing spices while my nostrils quivered at this new sensation. The bit I was not looking forward to happened without me knowing; a quick twist of Ko Ko's wrist broke the bird's neck and the carcass was handed to me for entrail and feather removal.
Ko Ko's expertise with the paraffin burners and an assortment of saucepans was something I have never forgotten. Not only did he cook the cockerel to perfection, but he also produced a number of piquant side dishes and a bowl of fluffy rice. Never have I experienced anything so delightful as my first curry cooked on the floor of an Army hut on a cold winter's night in Yorkshire.
A month later Ko Ko went back to Burma, which had just received its independence and I never saw him again. The country did not get off to a good start and its fortunes spiralled into anarchy. In 1962, Burma closed its doors to the outside world and its people were locked into a police state which lasts to the present day (2001). If Ko Ko Lay survived, of one thing I'm sure - he never went short of a good curry.