父のポテサラ未満カレー My father’s Curry (but almost Potato Salad)

English translation as follows.

もうすぐ車に高齢者マークをつける年齢になる父は、日頃からサブリミナル的に母から家事のレッスンを受けている。
農家の長男である父は、一度も一人暮らしをしたこともなく、家事育児は全部母や祖母に丸投げしていい世代だった。（その代わり、週末は農業という休日ゼロの働き方だったので、致し方ないけれど）

それでも、母が介護で慌ただしくなった頃から、「できれば自分でもいろいろやれるようになってね」というくらいのペースで、お風呂掃除から炊飯の準備、洗濯干しなど・・・その精度はさておき、母から少しずつ伝授されながらスキルアップしてきた（と思われる）。

ただ料理だけはいまだに苦手らしく、作れる品数も片手で数えるくらい。
それでも母は根気よく、父の大好物メニューばかりを教えてきた。
父は「胃袋だけは永遠の17歳」で、７０歳を超えたいまでも昼・夜はどんぶりでご飯を食べる。マクドナルドもミスドも大好き。そして、カレーとなると普段の１.５倍くらいのご飯をよそってくる。（それなのに一向に太らないという、うらやましい体質）

だから当然、どんな具材を入れても、とりあえず美味しく仕上がるすばらしい発明品『カレーのルー』を使い、母は幾度となく日本式カレーを作り、その作り方も父に見せてきた。（はずだった）
「箱の裏の説明書きを見れば、絶対失敗しないから」
「読むのが面倒でも、絵があるから！絵をみればいいから」
と何度も繰り返し、材料も揃えて家を出たらしい。

でも帰ると、冷蔵庫には豚小間肉が使われずそのまま残り、鍋には山盛りのポテサラ（カレー味）のようなものが出来上がっていたらしい。
父曰く「じゃがいもを入れすぎた」
（父は「芋兄さん」という別のあだ名があるくらい、大の芋好き）

カレールーの箱の裏には、プロが考えた完璧なレシピが載っている。最初に具材を炒めましょう。そのあと水を入れて、煮立ったら２０分間煮込みましょう。いったん火をとめルーを入れ、溶けたら５分くらい煮込みましょう。

実際の箱を見なくても、だいたいこんな感じというくらい、普段から料理をする人ならば見なくても作れる王道レシピのはず。
料理初心者なのに父は、老眼鏡をかけてそれを読むのすら面倒くさがり、またしても「俺のこの感じ」で独自の道を進んでしまった。

冬、実家では昔ながらの石油ストーブを使っていて、母は毎日その上で調理する。
もちろんカレーも、ストーブの上で何時間もぐつぐつ煮込まれる。おそらく、父はその段階しか見ていない。最初の「具材を炒めましょう」を、認識していない。

ジャガイモもニンジンも、この最初の炒める工程がないと、煮込んでいる最中に形が煮崩れを起こす。玉ねぎだって最初に炒めるから、甘みが出る。
でも父は、５個くらいの切ったジャガイモをいきなり水（もしくはお湯）で煮始め、ストーブの上で１時間はほっといたのではないかと思う。

戻ってみたら、あら不思議。できたのは、ポテサラのようなもの。粘度が高すぎて、お肉なんて入れられない。うーむ、とりあえずルーは入れてみるか。そしたらカレーになるから。
おや？入れたはいいが、ただの「カレー味のポテサラのようなもの」が出来上がったぞ？うーむ、どうしよう。とりあえず、妻の帰りを待つか・・・

こんな感じだったのだと思う。

それを見た母は、いったん絶望は置いておいて、お湯を追加し、残りのルーを入れ、とりあえず通常のカレーの粘度にしたらしい。つまり、最終的に10人前のカレーが出来上がった。６５歳と、７２歳の2人暮らしに、10人前。ジャガイモとたぶん、玉ねぎは入っている（だけの）カレー。

私が実家に帰った時、カレーは4人前くらいにはなっていた。
「食べる？」と聞かれたが、その工程を全部聞かされた上で、そのカレーには食指が伸びなかった。
「ただね、冷蔵庫に豚小間が残っちゃったのよ」
と母が言うので、私が盛大に全部生姜焼きにしてしまった。

豚小間が残ったのは父のおかげ（？）なので、父用の別皿に多めに盛ってあげた。
賞味のタイミングを少々逃したせいで、ちょっと残念な風味はしたけれど
鼻の通りがあまりよくない父には関係ないらしく、そしていつも通り、美味しいなんて一言も発さずに、ばくばくご飯と一緒に平らげていた。

ちなみに私が家に戻るとき、カレーは冷蔵庫でまだ父を待っていた。だから次のカレーが食卓に登場するのは、ずっと先のことになるはず。

My father, who almost become a user of over 75 years old driver’s sign, has been trained households from my mother subliminally.

He was born as the oldest son in a farmer’s family, had not experienced living alone and allowed not to do any households nor childcare. (This was a common at his generation. But at the same time, he needed to do farm work at weekends, working as an office worker during weekdays.)

However, after my mother became busy for take-caring her mother (early 90’s), he needed to be more skillful from cleaning bathroom to preparing meals. Of course, we did not expect him to do everything perfectly. It was just, “well, it is nice if he could do much more than now.” Also, we do not expect its quality so much, but he has been slowly improved his skills.

Cooking is still his weakest point of whole households. Only several menus are available from his repertoires. My mother only chose his favorites meals for lessons and teach him with her great patience.

Even if he is over 70’s, his stomach capacity is still 17 years old.
He eats a big bowl of rice in every lunch and dinner. Both McDonal’s and Mister-Doughnuts (Japanese Doughnuts franchise store) are his favorite. Moreover, he eats 1.5 times more rice when the main meal is Japanese Curry. (Surprisingly, he stays fit but not sure this is good thing for him or not.)

I think, Japanese curry paste is one of the best food inventions of all time. It welcomes most of the food left in a refrigerator and helps to create a nice curry which all generation welcome to eat. I barely find someone who hates it. Moreover, it is easy to cook therefore, my mother has been cooking Japanese Curry for countless times and I am sure, my father has been watching its procedure.

“You will never make mistakes if you follow the instruction, printed on the backside of the paste’s package. It explains everything!”
“If you bother to read it, just see the illustration and follow!”
One day, my mother repeats above advice and left home.

BUT… when she came back, she found diced pork meat left in a fridge. In the pot, there was a pot-full of potato salad like something (but surely, curry taste).
My father confessed, “I used too many potatoes.”
He loves potatoes so much, so one of his other names (we just call him) is “Potato-Bro”.

Generally, on the back side of the curry paste, it says,
1.      Stir-fry the ingredients first, (1 onion, 1 big potato, 1/2 carrots, 200g of meat)
2.      Pour water(700ml) and wait till boiled and leave 20 minutes.
3.      Turn the gas off and add curry paste. (half of the box, for 5 dishes)
4.      Once the paste dissolved, turn the heat on and stir at least 5 minutes.

If you are get used to cooking Japanese curry, you do not need to read the instruction anymore. It is so easy and simple to remember.

My father, who still takes cooking lessons, was bothered to read it (because he needs reading-glasses?) and again, follow “his senses” without any grounds.

While wintertime, my parents use stove for the heating but also cooking as well. So “stew” is one of the best meals for them to save the energy cost. My father may be remembered while my mother stew the curry on the stove and may NOT be recognized “stir” part at all.

Both potatoes and carrots will be dissolved while cooking if you pass this stir part. If you stir Onions well in the beginning, flavor gets stronger and nicer.
But I guess, he cuts about 5 potatoes and start to boil them straight away and left it for at least,1 hour on the stove.

I am sure he was surprised when he tried to add some meat. All potatoes lost its shape and became “potato salad like something”. Surely, there was not enough moisture for the meat to be cooked in the pot.
Somehow, he had enough encouragement to add the curry paste, to finish HIS cooking. But still, the difference is just a Potato Salad with curry flavor. He stopped at this stage and wait his wife’s magic.

When my mother looked at this result, she leaved all her thoughts and comments, but add boiling water and extra curry paste to make them proper CURRY.
In the end, my father cooked curry for 10 dishes, for only 2 members of the family, with aged 65 and 72 years old.

When I came back to my parent’s house, the curry was left for about 4 dishes. My mother asked me, whether I want to try this but, I modestly refused to eat.
She said, “because he did not use any meat, there was plenty of pork meat left in the fridge.”
So, I used all of them to cook “Ginger Pork”.

Ginger pork is also my father’s favorite meal, so I served them a lot for him on the separate dish. He ate curry for every day, and I guess, fade up with it.

Pork meat was passed its expiry day, so the Ginger Pork had a certain disappointing flavor, but he has a stuffy nose in general, so did not notice it at all. He ate most of them with a big bowl of rice, without any comment about it.

When I left my parents’ home, the curry was still waiting my father in the fridge.
So, the ne