Commentary - Let's Talk Curry

I have read numerous books, worked in several Indian restaurants, searched all over the internet, and grown up around authentic Indian cooks. I have seen so many variations in curries it could make anyone’s head spin! Just try typing curry into Google or any other search engine and see what comes up.

To begin, lets talk about the origins of curry. Many of us in the West think of curry as being the powder that we can buy in our local supermarkets, yet when we dine out we are exposed to Chinese curries, Korean curries, Malaysian curries, Filipino curries, not to mention the red, green and yellow curries of Thailand, and that is just the tip of the iceberg!

When people ask me if I cook with curry or if there is curry in a dish I have made, I usually reply that curry or curries contain a combination of spices. There is much speculation over the origin of the word curry; in fact it is that of legends. However, most scholars have settled on the root being from the Tamil word ‘Kari’ meaning spice or spiced sauce. Alan Davidson, in his book “The Oxford Companion to Food” supports the Tamil theory.

It has been accepted that during the time of the British Raj the word became synonymous with Indian cookery. However, there is evidence to support the fact that during the reign of Richard I (1189 – 1199) in Britain there was a revolution in cooking. The British being very active in the spice trade began incorporating spices into their cuisine such as ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, coriander, cumin, cardamom and aniseed, resulting in highly spiced cooking.

During the reign of Richard II (1377-1399) the first real English Cook book was written in 1390 called ‘The Forme of Cury’. ‘Cury’ was the Old English word for cooking derived from the French ‘cuire’ - to cook, boil, grill - hence cuisine. If this is the case, then when the English merchants first arrived in India in 1608 the word ‘cury’ had been part of the English language for well over two hundred years.

Whatever the true origin of the word, it can be said that curry has become a term synonymous with spice and flavor and we westerners enjoy our curries; in Britain curry is now the National Dish (determined by Gallup Poll) even surpassing fish and chips! The many colors and variations of curries keep the chef’s of the world busy creating, and the connoisseurs coming back for more.