A gift to the young people from the Masons

When the elementary school burned last fall, Ernest Carver, of the Hillcrest Lodge in New Germany, proposed to the district body that a donation be made to be put toward the rebuilding of the elementary school. Last week, on behalf of the elementary students, student council president Jennie Uhlman, Grade 12, accepted a cheque for $6,000 at a ceremony at the school.

There are nine Masonic lodges on the South Shore, in Caledonia, New Germany, Liverpool, Milton, Bridgewater, Lunenburg, Chester, Mahone Bay, and New Ross. When the proposal was made, it went to the annual council of the Grand Lodge of Nova Scotia and was approved, the provincial body having a program where it will add additional funds of two-thirds more to an amount given by a district.

The cheque was presented at the school by the provincial grand master, Daniel G. Campbell, Upper Tantallon, a former elementary school principal. Among those in attendance was the top person at the Caledonia lodge, Eugene Penney, whose title is worshipful master.

Mr. Penney told me the intention of the Masonic Lodges was that the money be used for the benefit of the elementary school, in the rebuilding of the school. The oldest lodge on the South Shore is Unity Lodge, in Lunenburg, formed in 1821. The Mechanics Lodge in Caledonia, which was formed in 1887, has 37 members.

Masonic lodges were first formed in Nova Scotia in 1738, at Annapolis Royal. Basic to the purpose of the lodges is charity, which is often directed towards education and towards communities that have experienced natural disasters such as fires.

I believe you will be excited to learn that one of the most important weeks of the year, National Curry Week, has come upon us.

Many people, myself included, wait with anticipation for this important week. It comes just as news reports have indicated that eating spicy foods is good for you, as the hot pepper works to keep people mentally alert, while destroying cancer cells in the bargain.

Not only that, but turmeric, one of the main spices in curry, is being studied because one of its active ingredients appears to protect the brain from a variety of degenerative diseases.

The week seems to be celebrated more heartily in the United Kingdom than in Canada. I scanned the Advance but could find little mention of events or parades in Liverpool or Caledonia. In consequence, I am currently doing my own celebrating with a chicken curry bubbling away on the stove. After all, it is a part of my heritage, as my grandfather was a dentist in India and my mother was born there.

In the UK, there are something like 9,000 Indian restaurants serving 200-million curry meals a year. Research has determined that the average person in Britain spends over 100,000 Canadian dollars on curry in a lifetime, that a third of all people in the UK admit to physical cravings for curry, that 20 per cent are cranky if deprived of curry, and that 20 per cent believe that curry is good for their sex lives.

When surveys of favourite foods are carried out in Britain, a surprising 36 per cent list chicken curry as their number one choice. Spaghetti is second with 15 per cent, pizza third with nine per cent, the traditional Sunday roast and chili tied for fourth with eight per cent, and fish and chips sixth with five per cent.

Indian meals are also popular in Canada and the United States, where one of the best meals I've had came from an Indian buffet restaurant we stumbled upon while walking in Boston. The restaurant featured huge iron pots containing a variety of simmering curries, the curry fanatic taking a large ladle and dipping as much as is wanted onto a plate. A lamb curry was especially toothsome.

I can't decide what kind of curry I've just made, as there are hundreds of variations in the world of curries. This has chicken, onions, garlic, ginger, coconut milk, various spices, mushrooms, green peppers and tomatoes. Each one is always different from the one before. I'd best go and taste it.

- Tom Sheppard can be reached at twsheppard@gmail.com