In the ABC Delicious Magazine, July 2002, we are reviewed in the section on the Yarra Valley—See page 40 under St Andrews Alternative Market. “ Every Saturday, with local legend the Vegie Curry Man as the major culinary attraction

With 29 years of creative experimenting in the industry delivers mouth watering curries , vegan, gluten free cakes and his own brand of roasted mueseli to various universities, David Jones, cafes and restaurants. Those who have known Hal Tropp from the days of Muchdoh Bakery, the first dairy-free, canesugar-free wholefood bakery in Melbourne, will be pleased to know that they can continue their love affair with his food.

Hal is a qualified gold and silversmith who moved into the food industry when the price of gold deregulated, so design parameters relating to taste, appearance and wearability (in the stomach) are important. His first experience with vegetarian curries came in his early twenties when he made a friend who was a Sikh. Now he brings brings the principles of wholefood cooking to curries and cakes.

During his travels (physical and spiritual), he found a preference for a type of regional, peasant food rather than new vogue cuisine or rich creamy sauces. This applied to cooking curries meant creating meals that were not overcooked, leaving vegetables whole and vital, with individual flavor discernible and not overpowered by a particular spice.

Food experiences started with his Aunt Ellie, an Austrian expatriate living next door who made traditional Austrian tortes that his mother drooled over. When his father, born in Poland and raised in Austria met his mother, born in Newcastle NSW and who couldn’t cook, the stage was set. Hal learnt about sending food failures to the rubbish bin. The coming of age for his mother, he explains, was her first success at a flourless, real European chocolate nut torte. “As a chld I wouldn’t eat vegetables that were overcooked,” he says. Grey beans or floppy carrots were not tasty or healthy he was pleased to find later. He was the child with the raw vegetables on the side of his plate.

What would he be doing if he was not in the food industry? He is an artist, he says promptly, and his medium is food. As an artist what is important is the creative process and the final product is based on the questions asked and on the design parameters. Though it is exciting to be creating something new, whether it is food or a piece of fine art or a creative educational program or some seminar (and he has done all of these), process has greater value for him.

This leads to a conversation about what he does when he is not cooking.He rolls his eyes and mentions the daily routines of taking children to school, cooking meals, cleaning and family stuff. Then he becomes serious and mentions the balance between lifestyle and work. An issue that is important for a lot of people, as it becomes obvious that in this day and age, families cannot survive without two incomes. There needs to be money to care of the family’s needs but time has also to be spent on emotional, spiritual and physical wellbeing. The year 2000 was the year he decided to recreate himself as an artist, working with pastels, semi abstract, inspired by nature, working on formats from 1200 by 1200 to 1300 by 24000mm.
He reads widely and the book that he has been most influenced by recently would be Conversations with God, Book 1. And this leads to his most current sayings “ Every moment is a creative expression of who you are and who you want to be”, and “Have a heart of gratitude”.

Favourite dishes, he says are usually created on the spur of the moment, inspired by an empty fridge and fresh vegies hand picked from the garden. ( He is passionate about his organic garden. ) Tonight’s dinner was young zucchini with flowers, dwarf beans, snow peas blanched with fresh basil and baby spinach, lightly dressed with organic olive oil, organic apple cider vinegar, a pinch of celtic salt and a squeeze of organic lemon juice on a bed of Australian jasmine white rice , served with vegetable dahl. But the fridge did produce a slice of his rich , moist, vegan gluten free, choc fudge cake using organic ingrediants and Belgium chocolate that he served with chai tea made with rice milk and sweeteed with palm sugar.

Range of foods:

Vegetable dhal
Chickpea curry with coconut milk
Potato and eggplant curry with roast sesame seeds
Curry pumpkin with fresh coriander
Goan bean curry with paneer
Vindaloo tofu curry
Kashmir style fruit curry
Roast beetroot with tamarind
Seasonal vegetable curry with rice noodles
Sweet potato curry
Pumpkin pakodas
Roti Wraps
Stuffed Naans
Vegie curry pizza (up to 4 varieties)
Rice Pudding
Vegan, gluten free cakes eg, Belgian chocolate fudge
Lassis

Note

Curries and cakes produced for wholesale orders can be found on the wholesale customer page. Currently, our gluten-free muesli can only be ordered through our wholesale section.

The Experiment

We all love curry at Vegie Curry Man, we are usually experimenting with new ideas or alternative theories on matters of taste, composition and goodness. We mix an match cultures--sometimes we can't get these ideas, such as gnocchi vindaloo to work in a market situation but they are sitting in the sidelines waiting for someone to figure out the how-to operation.

Chutney

Our chutney is made here at the Vegie Curry Man commercial kitchen and depending on the season is either plum or apple/pear/pineapple. Customers are still waiting for us to bottle our chutney so they can take it home. Rice and curry meals are served with green salad and chutney. Roti Wraps can have either a curry or pakodas (roast pumpkin delicacies) inside them with a serve of chutney and salad.

Vegetarian

All food is vegetarian and in some cases, vegan. Gluten-free options are easily available since rotis are an extra for the rice and curry meals. Those who wish to be dairy-free have a variety of choice--only the Goan bean curry has feta cheese. There is no onion or garlic but customers will need to ask specifically for these dishes because, sometimes, there is an occasional dish that has the alliacea family.

Equipment

Cooked in stainless steel containers since aluminium ware has been linked to Alzheimers disease--one only has to look at the result of cooking tomatoes or any other acidic fruit in the cheaper cooking utensils--the food is full of chunky goodness. We are also waste wise in the use of biodegradable plates.

Food and Love are linked!

Vegie Curry Man is not only about physical nourishment, it is about emotional and spiritual nourishment.

Food is cooked with utmost care to hygiene and risk of contamination. Recent lab tests revealed that the condition of the food was well above the government regulatory standards. We are also environmentally conscious;looking for ways to improve our systems; for our food to be economically viable to make, and non-intrusive to our environment.

All cooking is done in stainless steel pots and pans. When we can, we will provide a link to information regarding the hazards of using aluminium in cookware. For our cleaning, we use Tri-Nature, an Australian company that has environmentally safe products of a high standard.

People are important to us. One of the reasons for developing the website was that we could let people know about changes in our menu. When we found that customers were sometimes travelling over an hour to buy vegie curry pizza and were being disappointed, we thought the website could provide a checkpoint.

Use the Calendar to work out where to find us and what is on the menu. Note that we are at the St Andrews Market every Saturday.