• An Introduction to Curry

Spices, also known as pre-curries.The food of India, much like its population, is so diverse that it is difficult to make any meaningful generalizations about it. But while flavors,  ingredients, preparation techniques, and dietary restrictions of subcontinental cuisine vary—sometimes widely—by region, religion, and class, there is at least one common element that connects virtually all Indian localities to each other, and to cultures all over the world. This element is curry, which can be generally defined as a blend of spices, herbs, and chilies, often cooked in oil and made into a sauce, gravy, or stew base. The Indian diet is highly stratified, with various dietary rules placed on different groups (i.e., beef is forbidden in the Brahmin diet, and pork is not eaten by Muslims), but most Indian communities freely enjoy spice blends of some sort (Khare, Srikanth).

 

Thus, curry can be considered a truly popular culture in India.

 

It should be noted, however, that the term “curry” is not recognized as widely in India as it is in other countries where Indian food has become popular (namely, the United Kingdom, the United States, Trinidad, and Japan.) “ There is the North Indian yoghurt-based preparation called ‘Kahri’ and there is the fragrant herb called ‘curry leaf’ – a favorite in South Indian cuisine,” but there is no word quite as all-encompassing as the English "curry" (Basu x). The word has no real counterpart in India’s many languages, and so its etymology is disputed by historians (Grove 2004).

 

Likely theories on the origins of "curry" :

1)  It is derived from kari, a word from the Tamil language of southern India and Sri Lanka, which means “a sauce or relish accompanied by rice,” which was referenced by Dutch explorers as carriel and Portuguese gourmands as caril in the late-16th and 17th centuries.

2)  It is derived from the Hindi karai, a wok-shaped saucepan used for preparing spicy gravies and sauces.

3)  It is not derived from any subcontinental root, but from the Old English word cury, meaning “cookery,” a derivative of the French cuire, meaning “to cook.”

Regardless of its origins, it can be said fairly decisively that since there is no word in any Indian language that denotes the whole range of spice blends used in the subcontinent, the word “curry” is a British invention, possibly a misappropriation of a preexisting Indian word used to describe something more specific (Yule 281-283).

 

            While it may seem Eurocentric and Orientalist to apply a word of Western origin to a cultural product of Indian origin, the word “curry” can be useful in understanding Indian cuisine, since it provides a heading for a general category of food eaten more or less all-inclusively throughout India. While specific recipes vary greatly, fiery spice blends are an essential part of the Indian gastronomy, and they have come to represent Indian culture abroad in the colonial, postcolonial, and global eras. Therefore, it is also interesting to consider the extent to which the word “curry” is still associated with India in countries such as Britain and Japan, and the extent to which it has been assimilated into those countries’ own culinary culture.