Chicken Curry YLT. It's a well-worn turn of phrase that's been uttered in Edinburgh innumerable times over the decades - but what does it even mean?
If you're from Leith and reading this, you'll be well-versed and maybe even know the answer. Newcomers, tourists, students, and residents of Morningside and Stockbridge, meanwhile, are scratching their heads in complete bemusement.
The question came up recently on the I Love Leith page on Facebook, where one perplexed local posted anonymously (wise) to ask why folk were walking around the Leith Gala last weekend with 'Chicken Curry YLT' emblazoned on their T-shirts.
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Leith locals, being the notoriously helpful (and sarky) bunch that they are, all manner of answers were not long in coming - and one or two were adamant they knew the origins.
YLT, for those whose roof is the underside of a rock, stands for Young Leith Team, the long-standing collective name for the district's young hoodlums, a kind of diluted, non-Uzi-clutching version of the LA Crips.
As for chicken curry, aside from being pretty much the greatest food creation of all time, well, that was something that came about in the 1970s, according to locals.
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Legend has it the 'chicken curry' saying was coined by a couple of Leithers who started it in the '70s as a kind of in-joke after a visit to the local takeaway. In time, the slogan gradually worked its way by way of osmosis into the Leith vernacular.
Lynn Gourlay explained: "It's a 70s thing started off by Alan Laidlaw and Gary Miller. [it was] a joke when we used to go to the Chinese after Copperfields. [They] should have copyrighted it."
In agreement with Lynn's version of events, Susan Dougal added: "You are 100% correct Lynn. It's a Leith saying that has been passed down through families."
Another local, Lee Cameron, posted to say that she had been the one behind the gala day T-shirts, and that "if you know, you know".
Lee, who sells the T-shirts along with other Leith designs via her Love From Leith Personalised page, wrote: "It just is because it is.. it’s myself that made the chicken curry YLT T-shirts for the gala along with my friend and daughter. I was raised in Links View flats in the 80s and we all said chicken curry YLT."
A slightly different version, albeit along the same lines, has it that the chicken curry thing simply evolved out of old Leith rhyming slang relating to the "mental" YLT.
Jamie Duffy posted: "Gonna go chicken oriental = mental!! YLT!"
So, there you have it - the 1970s Leith origins of 'Chicken Curry YLT'. We hope you are feeling as enlightened as we are having written this.
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