The Oriental Curry

by Sarasvati Dias, Bandra, Mumbai [email protected] So much has been written about the eastern curry in recent times. It is believed that the curry has been tantalizing our palates for more than 2500 years. It is said that the ancient Indians, the first people to use spices, locked them in chests. Most of the writers and lexicons define the curry as a sauce and hold the view that the word curry comes from the Tamil word Kari. Some of the opinions expressed are really amusing. Below are listed some of the opinions expressed by leading writers on the origin of the Indian curry. 1Curry comes from the Tamil word kari meaning a sauce. 2- The Curry is a stew aromatized with herbs and spices and cooked with water- Saroj Hadley. 3- Curry is a dish, originally made of sour milk with spices, turmeric, and other spices and eaten with rice and pulses and now prepared by the AngloIndian with meat and vegetables- Cobham Brewer in 'The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable'. 4- Curry is an item of Eastern and Far Easter cookery from India, Burma, Malaya. Indonesia and today has become international in character and replaced by the Salan of the North. 5- The origin of the word curry is the Tamil nursery rhyme which goes like this- Kai veeshoo Amma Kai Veeshoo, Kadai ku Pogalaam, Kai veeshoo which means -Lets go to the bazaar, young lady, swing your arms Surgeon General E. Balfour, in Vol. I ( 3rd edition 1885) of his Encyclopedia of India, Eastern and Southern Asia. 6- Curry is the corruption of the Malayalam Kari or the Kanarese or Gujarati kadi meaning pungent Dictionary of Phrase and Fable by Cobham Brewer. 7- The origin of the word curry is the Hindustani word Turcarri. In the colloquial it is shortened to turry and in the Anglo-Saxon it becomes curry. -Helen Lawson in How to make Good Curries. 1

8- The word curry comes from the karhi or the deep frying pan or the wok-like vessel used for frying or braising- Cuisines of India. 9- Curries or Turrkaris, as they are called, are merely dishes made aromatic with spice powder- Jenifer Brenman in Cuisines of India 10- Curry comes from the Tamil word Kari word meaning sauce. - Rupert Croft Crooke in Cooking for Pleasure. 11- Mrs Lee expresses the same opinion in Nonya Cookery Book. 12- Curry is the eighteenth century British invention which seems to have had its origins in the Tamil word karhi which means sauce. - Asian Cookbook by Bruce de Mustchine. 13- The origin of the word curry seems to be a meat or vegetable dish to be eaten with rice which is considered to be the main dish of the meal-C. Punjabi 14- Curry to the Europeans covers any hot spicy Indian stew, but in India, there are hundreds of dishes that would qualify under this definition. - Tom Stobart in Cooks Encyclopedia. 15- Curry or currie is a kind of condiment introduced from India containing turmeric which gives it a yellow colour, curry leaves, garlic, pepper, ginger and other spices. 16- Another definition- Curry is spiced sauce or curried sauce in which meat, fish etc. are cooked. The purpose of turmeric gives a peculiar odour and bright colour to the curry and the Kashmiri chillies or Degi Mirch instead of pepper gives a very yellowish red colour, yellow from the turmeric and bright red from the chillies. - Impressions of an Englishman who sojourned in the Raj India. 17- The traditional curry was cooked with a single egg-plant or a couple of onions or a handful of lentils in a little ghee or oil, flavoured with cardamoms, coriander, cumin and turmeric for a mild blend while pepper and mustard for a hot one diluted with spices freshly ground, individually blended, their flavours amalgamated and smoothened out by the addition of coconut milk or curds and it was possible to produce a very wide range of sauces on the basic grain foods of India. The true curry of India bears very little resemblance to the parodies of it, frequently served in the West today. 18- Curry is a peppery sauce made from a mixture of spices and turmeric popular seasoning in India World Book Dictionary Vol I by Clarence L. Barnhart and Robert K. Barnhart. 2

19- Curry is a sauce much used in India containing red pepper and other strong spices-Twentieth Century Dictionary by Nona Webster. 20- Curry as the word is used today in India, simply means gravy - 50 Great Curries of India by Camellia Punjabi. 21- Curry is an Indian stew or hash flavoured with the leaves of Murraya, the curry-leaf tree and other ingredients- The Indispensable Competition Dictionary compiled by the Illustrated Weekly of India. 22- The Anglicized curry can be described as spiced sauce or onion sauce in which meat, fish, poultry etc are cooked. The presence of turmeric gives a particular odour and bright colour to the curry. 23- Curry or currie is a kind of Condiment introduced from India containing turmeric, which gives it a yellow colour, curry leaves, garlic, ginger, pepper and other spices 24- Curry is a stew-like dish of eggs, fish, meat or vegetables seasoned with a blend of spices -The World Book Encyclopeadia -Vol IV. 25- Curry means kadhi -Brihad Hindi Kosh. 26- Curry' means containing yoghurt and spiced and made fragrantCooking for the Maharajas. 27- Curry is the blissful blending of exotic spices and depending on the blend, it has a million different tastes. The flavor and taste depends on how the spices are permeated and balanced and on the amount used. S0 we can have curries, delectable spicy curries as hot as Hades and as subtle as Socrates and as mild as May 28- The word curry originally denoted a particular kind of seasoning or dish in certain parts of the country. It is certainly different from what it has come to mean. Used in this sense, the Indian curries are as diverse as its people. 29- The Dutch term for curry is Kerri or Kerrie and curry powder figures in Dutch cooking. 30- Curry is derived from the Tamil word Kari meaning kari patta or leaf an essential item of the curry. 31- The Anglo-Indian Curry is derived from the Tamil word Kari a term used for the black pepper K. T. Acharya in A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food. 32- The Dutch traveler of the 16th century remarked - A sour tasting brothy fish with rice was served. It was called carrieil. 3

33- Curry Powders denoting a commercially prepared mixture of spices, is largely a Western notion, dating in the 18th century prepared by Indian merchants for sale to members of the British colonial government and army returning to Britain. 34- Curry is pepper flavoured sauce and is the corruption of the Tamil word Kari. 35- Some are of the opinion that the Tamil word Kari denotes meat, others state it is vegetables cooked, yet some others feel kari refers to a spice and so on and so forth Also there is a view that the Malayalis make a gravy called kari. Having listed so many opinions given by several writers, we shall now move ahead and find out what really is the origin of the word curry. From the above views we have listed, one point becomes ver obvious and that is even in determining the meaning of the Tamil word Kari, writers are at variance. Really speaking, this term curry has become very prevalent only in recent years after Independence with India s attempt to boost up tourism and hoteliering. The local people never use the word curry and every region has its own terminology for it and have never heard the word curry.. The general term used by the natives of India is Kadhi. In Tamil, the word for sauce is kuzambu and lentil sauce is called Sambhar as named after the nephew of the erstwhile Maratha ruler of Tanjore- Sambaji Rao.. Prior to his rule, Tamil Nadu had only tamarind and yoghurt based sauces which were called kuzumbu but the Deshastha Brahmins and the ruler started mixing this tamarind sauce with cooked lentils or tur dal and started naming it Sambar to honour the rulers nephew. The Maratha kitchen had become empty of cocum, which was the souring agent used by them and when the problem came to the attention of the ruler, Sambaaji Rao, the young nephew of the ruler happened to be there and suggested tamarind could be used instead like the people of South India and so the new variety of tamarind sauce with tur dal was named after the nephew. Tamarind sauce is Pulli Kuzambu while yoghurt sauce is Mor kuzumbu. Even upto the times of my late grandparents in the Tanjore District in the 1900s, the word Vyanjana was used in our household for the kuzumbu and other items of the menu.. In Telegu the term used is koora and lentil sauce is Pulusu. In Maharashtra the term used is Aamti. The Muslims call it the Salan, Quorma and Do Piaza. The Persians call it Nan-khurush. Iban Batata, the Arabian writer, who visited Sri Lanka or the old Ceylon, wrote that the natives ate curry but he used the term Cochan and the modern Arabian term for the curry is Idaan. Hindus in Mangalore call it Gushi. 4

One of the Air-India pamphlets gives the following view of the curry. It took 4000 years to evolve the Indian system of cooking and this view is also shared by Rupert Crofte Crooke in his Cooking for Pleasure. However, since it is believed that India has more than fifteen traditional cuisines, it is not very clear as to which cuisine this reference is made to. One fact becomes very clear when going through the many definitions of the term curry and that is- that the curry is simply not one particular dish. The definitions appear to be the descriptions of the observations made by those foreigners who visited the Orient and sojourned in India during the Raj in different areas of the country. So varied are the Eastern regional curries. India has been called the land of curries or the bewildering world of curries. For thousands of years, India has been the home of the vegetarian food and the Hindus have been responsible for developing one of the worlds greatest using of the world using cereals, pulse, rice etc. with great imagination and skill to produce a vast variety of meatless curries. The non-vegetarian Hindus have also likewise developed a distinct cuisine based on the chicken and the dishes, based on the lamb, came in later on with the coming of the Muslims. As early as the 2nd century A. D, the Rajavalli, an article on diet, mentions that the curry was in use. The Arthashastra of Kautilya gives the recipes for the curry to accompany the rice. Recipe 1- 27 ozs of meat plus 27 ozs of spices are to be mixed with insignificant quantities of fat, salt, sugar and a mere 10 ozs of curds. Recipe 2- 20 palas of flesh and kudcha of oil qnd 1 pala salt plus 2 dharanas pungent spices and prastha of curds. Yet another recipe was with the Rohit fish, a meat soup was prepared and eaten with Sali rice ( acc to Jain literature). There are also several references to the seasoned meat broth in the Buddhist and Jain works. -The Brahmins were feasted on boiled or Sali rice, pulses from which the black specks had been sought and removed and flavoured with meat sauces, and curries or Vyanjanas of various kinds. ( Digh- I p88 and H-I -5). Kautilya holds the view that the quantity of spices used in meat should be equal to it and half the quantity for pot herbs.. For cooking any vegetables, pepper should be double the quantity. He added that black pepper is agreeable to the palate while white pepper is less pungent.

The Manasollasa - an article on diet of the 12th century describes the early curry as made of sour gruel and well churned curds with spices such as rock salt, ginger, coriander, cumin and black pepper and cooked to a thick consistency. However, the term curry never seems to have been used. Vyanjana, the Pralehaka, Kaai-Kari, Puligari, Povikkaari, etc were used. In our own home, my late grandparents who belonged to the Brahmin priestly class of South India used the terms Vyanjana and Kaai Kari etc. as late as the 19th century. Vyanjana was the liquid preparation made with the water used to wash the rice and tamarind, buttermilk, crystal, cardamoms, pepper, ginger juice and asafetida fumigation. The Pralehaka was made with curds and juices of fruits like the tamarind and the pomegranate, myrobalams, citron or amlavesta along with spices like coriander, asafetida, cumin, turmeric, ginger, pepper and salt. The fruit juices were mixed in the spiced curds and cooked on sow fire with some oil. Yet another dish was the Surana, made with some ginger, buttermilk, and oil and some gruel was added at the end after fumigation of asafetida. We get an insight in the vegetarian preparations of South India from the Ambasamudra Inscriptions of Varaguna Pandya of the post period. These preparations were Kaai-Kari, Puligari, Povikkaari. While Kaai-Kari was prepared with vegetables and spices like mustard and pepper and salt. Puligari was horse gram and raw plantain fruit cooked together in spiced tamarind pulp. Puli in Tamil means tamarind as well as sour taste. Today the general term for vegetables is Kaai-Kari. Pulikari was boiled curry or stew while Povikkarri was fried curry. Today the terms used are Porial and Porrichchakaari for fried curry. A preparation in which vegetables are cooked with Bengal gram or beans was generally eaten in the South. Today this preparation is called a kootooor a mixture. Two clear features that we can note in these early preparation are36- Pepper was earlier used in the dishes to give pungency, and it is a tradition which is strictly adhered to even today, in the dishes prepared on the occasion of a death anniversary rituals or Shradddam in Brahmin households. Both chillies and asafoetida are banned on this day as they are considered to be of foreign origin.

However, Mr Ajay Merchant, owner of Laljee Goodhoo Asafoetida firmly states that chillies were known to India since earlier centuries and he had based his inference on a painting he had observed at the British Museum In London in which an Indian woman is seen holding a plate with 3-4 chillies. The painting is more than 1000 years old. Hence he refutes the version of Portuguese having brought red chillies into India. 37- The curries of old had a curd base or were yoghurt sauces. Curd was used to impart sourness. 38- Kautilayas recipes seem to be really very pungent. 39- The earlier curries were different from the curries of today. There is no evidence of any foreign influence from the west or Islam or Moglai influence in the earlier curries. In his book Meat for the meatless, Ivan Baker writes- We are not indebted to the Orient for curries. A roll of recipes titled Forme of Currie written by Henry Fond and other master cooks of Richard II in 1390A. D. were preserved and published in 1579 A. D. It is stated that 200 cooks and some philosophers were summoned by King Richard II to produce the Forme of Currie and it contained 190 recipes but there were nowhere like the Indian curries. These were not the typical curries of the east, but, like them were strongly sauts and ragouts enriched and flavoured with onions and pepper. Earlier in the west, curry was spelt as curie and later on curie and later on currie and now it is spelt curry. This is very debatable, but it is quite possible that the early European travelers who came to India and to the Far East came to learn of the eastern spices and tasted the early yoghurt sauce or curry and went back with the spices and tried to incorporate these spices into their own broths and sauces which later on became ragouts. It is quite possible that the word curry was known to the West even before the 14th century and made it a 14th century dish. It is also argued that curry or cury already existed in the English lexicons long before the English appeared in India in the 17th century and the term cury was used to mean a stew. Also there is no logic or basis in claiming that the word Kadhi is the origin of the word curry. The yoghurt sauce did not find favour with the Muslims and the western powers who built their empires in the Orient. Onions and tomatoes replaced the yoghurt and gruels of the old sauces and became favorite items of the Raj era. In the South India, since the Vedic times, the basis of sauces was either tamarind pulp or beaten yoghurt. Coconut milk was never used. When the 7

Jewish community settled in Cochin, Kerala, they fused their cuisine with that of the locals. The Jews incorporated all those spices which they traded in, in their cuisine-like black pepper, pippali pepper or long pepper, cardamoms, cinnamon, coriander along with those which the locals used in their cuisine like the curry leaf or kari patha, turmeric, mustard seeds and oil and tamarind. Also Jewish laws forbade the mixing of milk with meat and so the Jews started the custom of using coconut milk to make their sauces for their preparations and when the Portuguese introduced red chili peppers into India, they started incorporating this ingredient as well in their dishes and combined the pungency of black pepper, fresh green chilli pepper and dried ground red chilli peppers in their recipes.. And it is from these Jewish dishes that the English developed their version of the Indian curry using coconut milk. Some writer on food has asserted that the South Indian version of the Indian curry is far superior to those of North India not using coconut milk. The English converted their stews and ragouts into the Indian curries using coconut milk, and used tomatoes and sour lime juice as the souring agents. South India does not have the technique of frying onions and curry paste or curry powder etc and then adding meat or vegetables etc to make the sauce but the spices and meat or vegetables are directly put into the tamarind or yoghurt sauce and cooked and at end point the dish is seasoned with spices fried in a ladle of hot oil. Here, a few words have to be said about the erroneous views held about the use of curry leaves in the curries. Curry leaves are and never were an essential condiment of the Indian dishes. They are merely used for flavor at end point. While they are used for the sambar, coriander leaves are used for the rasam. It is not possible to understand how curries are made only with curry leaves as the main ingredient. It would then become curry leaves chutney. Foreigners have many erroneous notions about the Indian cuisine. Chutneys can be made with curry leaves, coriander leaves or mint leaves or other herbs but the curry leaf is definitely not an essential ingredient of the curry nor is the onion or garlic. Vegetarians in Rajasthan and Benaras make tasty mouth-watering dish without the use of garlic or onions. They are essential in fish meat dishes to conceal bad odours. Also there is adulteration in the supply of curry leaves. The plant called curry is really not an edible plant at all according to Arthur. B Tucker and Thomas DeBaggie in their Big Book of Herbs. Helichrysum / Helichrysum Austifolium is the herb commonly sold as the curry plant at the garden centres by well-meaning nurseries. Though it has a warm curry-like fragrance yet it is bitter in taste and this plant is prone to fungal problems, webworms and other pests. So one has to be very careful in using the curry leaf.

It is very confounding how lexicons and writers have emphatically stated that the origin of the curry is the Tamil curry. The Tamil dictionary gives the following meanings for the Tamil word Kari. Kari means1- Vegetables fit to chew and eat. 2- Flesh-meat and vegetables. 3- Pepper here emphasis is on the pungency of the pepper. 4- Kaari also means charcoal To the Brahmins of Tamil Nadu, kari means raw vegetables and in general kari is kaai- kari for raw fresh vegetables in general. Kaai Kari would mean Vegetables. Kari also means stirred fried spiced vegetables used as side dishes to be eaten along with rice and sambar or rasam.. Coming to the meat eating communities of South India, Kari is the general colloquial term for flesh. We frequently hear the lower community of servants and cooks remarking -I am going to the bazaar to buy Kari which can mean the lamb, chicken or pork or beef. It is a general term. They also remark- I cooked karri today or made Kari kuzumbu. This now makes it clear that the term curry is born out of the misunderstanding that arose between the local cooks of South India and their English memsahibs. because of their inability to understand each others languages. This is very similar to the dialogue between the King and the messenger in Alice in Wonderland where the king asks the messenger Did anybody on the road run faster than you? To this the messenger answers Nobody ran faster than me, your Highness. . To this the king shouts and orders Cut off his head since Nobody could run faster than him! This is a fallacy created because the term Nobody is used to mean more than one thing at a time. -This in Logic is called a fallacy due to the change in the Universe of Discourse of a term. . In a dialogue, a term must have the same Universe of Discourse or mean the same thing at a time.. This is the same that has transpired between the foreign mistresses and cooks. The English memsahib took kari to mean the cooked spices, sauce or ragout as is very evident from the definition given by Surgeon General Balfour on the origin of the word curry as the nursery rhyme Kai veesoo paappaa Kaiveesoo, Kadai ku pogalaam, Kaiveesoo- Which means Let us go to the bazaar, little one, swing your arms, let us go to the market to buy Kaari, swing your arms. There cannot be any other explanation for the origin of the word Curry. Some earlier traveller and writer gave his view that the tamil word kari is the origin of the word curry out of ignorance of the Tamil language and 9

Indian writers and some lexicons blindly followed suit and gave the same views and others followed the earlier views blindly. The English took up the term curry which became the standard dish served in the Military messes and all Railway stations. This term travelled all over the Far East and today has become a global term and yet the term is unheard of in India and the locals do not use it. It was Hobson-Jobson who made the observation in his lexicon that curry is derived from the Tamil word kari but later on also added it is possible that the kind of curry eaten by the European and Mohammedans, is not of pure Indian origin but has come down from the spiced cookery of medieval Europe and Western Asia. Hobson erroneously derived the origin of the curry as the Tamil kari from an erroneous translation of a passage from the Mahavanso dated 171 A. D. The translation by Turnour from the original Pali language read he partook of rice dressed with its full accompaniment of curries- but in fact the Pali language in which it was written never even used the word curry but the term supa. But the error stuck on and subsequent writers and lexicons simply quote the same view and it only today that some educated Tamil Indian foodies have started protesting against this view. Somebody has stated that the origin of the Curry is the stuff of legends. The British term curry has come to mean almost any dish while most people from the sub-continent would state emphatically that curry is not a word which they use, but if they did use it then it would mean a meat, fish or vegetable with spicy sauce and rice or bread. Curry is the greatest contribution to mankind said Norman Douglas, a British Novelist. Critics view the curry as insipid yellow powder that is turned into a floury, yellow creamy sauce!. This is one of the most intriguing theories about the ancestry of the Curry according to Capt. Basil Hall a traveler to India, Ceylon and Borneo in 1930. It comes as a surprise to most people old Indians including, to learn that the dish which is called curry is not in India, nor is indeed of Asiatic origin at all. Some felt that the Portuguese had introduced it into India since it is believed generally that they introduced red chili pepper into India. Curry like spice mixtures date back to at least 4, 000B. C. ( excavation of ancient cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro ). Grinding Stones were found in the sites containing traces of mustard, cumin, fennel, saffron, tamarind ( all these spices are used in curries. ) So we assume that the Indus Valley people were cooking with curry spices 6000 years back ! So this finding makes it appear that the Indus Valley people are to be considered as the first gourmets and creative cooks in history and their spices and seasonings have continued to 10

be used by all those who came after them. Dishes of highly spiced meat unearthed from the Indus Valley-2600 B. C. also have been recorded. Dishes using fennel, mustard, cumin and tamarind were used in the Vedic period 1700-500 B. C Athenaens, a Greek miscellanist of A. D. 200 wrote in his Deiponoshistai The Gastronomes, a fascinating survey of classified food and habits quotes Megasthenes the 3rd century author of Indica- Among the Indians at a banquet, a table is set before each individual and on the table is placed a golden dish, in which is first placed boiled rice and then they add many sorts of meat dressed after the Indian fashion. . According to Athenaens, the Indian fashion has sparked off most of the curry controversies because some writers and cooks believe the Indian fashion of curry has been stolen and ruined by the rest of the world, especially the English. Some also feel that the notion is stupid as cooking continues to evolve as the world shrinks. Though the Portuguese, Dutch and the French were in India yet only the English adopted the curry may be because England had a tradition of the curry all along. It is interesting to note that the earliest known for the recipe for meat in spicy sauce with bread appeared on Tablets found near Babylon in Mesopotamia, in cuneiform text discovered by Sumerians dated 1700 B. C. probably as an offering to God Marduk. By 3, 500 B. C. turmeric, cardamoms, pepper and mustard were harvested in India. -Code of Manu In the Food History -1973 by R, Tannhill- the recipe is mentioned from the Code of Manu25 ozs. of meat and spices to be mixed with insignificant quantities of fat, salt, sugar and a mere 10 and ozs of curds. In 1000 B. C. the Ramayana gives the recipe for a sauce redolent with cardamoms, cumin, cloves, black pepper and salt spread over rice. A Dutch traveler in the 16th century mentions that some tasty brothy fish is served with fish. It is called carriel. All these findings have led to these multitudianous definitions and beliefs about the origin and character of the curry and no two writers ever agree. In the long run the 20th century the curry manifestation, meat and vegetable stews flavoured with curry powders is essentially a British curry. However, in Modern India, curry powders have come to stay because of the problems caused by urbanization. Restaurants all over today make nothing but only curries, and spice traders grow richer in making their regional and private brands of curry, 11

Till the 16th century A. D. the traditional curry used no chillies but only pepper. The availability of cayenne and chili powder from Tropical America turned to be the milestone in the evolution of the curry, These are the searing ingredients that give character to hot curries. The Muslims who traded in spices used them in all these dishes in their cooking and developed new techniques of cooking which became the hall-mark of Persian haute-cuisine. Later on when they invaded India, they brought along with them all the new techniques and new spices and developed the Moghlai cuisine which helped later on in the creation of the rich Anglo-Indian cuisine. The employees of the Coy were very influenced by the splendor of the Moghlai court and incorporated these techniques to develop the East India Coy cuisine. Curries of the North are thick in consistency as they are eaten with breads but the curries of the South are thin and watery as they are eaten with rice. In the earlier days, the foreigners made all sorts of statements about Indians and their habits out of sheer ignorance of the local culture. One Englishman who sojourned in the Orient stated that turmeric is a cult in the East. Eating turmeric as an ingredient in curries and applying turmeric to the forehead are entirely two different matters. Turmeric is applied to the forehead by married Hindu women on good occasions because it is purely a Sattvic product and has healing properties. Turmeric paste is applied at the threshold of the entrance in the village homes as it has the property of repelling snakes and reptiles. It heals skin diseases. And applied on the forehead on the chakra spot it protects women from being obsessed by bad negative entities. But it is definitely not a cult as stated. Diehards firmly believe that a true curry must be ground on the old grinding stone. The electrical blenders and mixers have brought about a revolution and working women find this a great boon today and saving of time and labour. Good curries can be made with electric blenders. With the availability of ready- made spice blends which flood the markets, housewives no longer prepare spice powders for the whole year in large amounts. It is not known how common, genuine curry stones were in the English kitchens in late 19th century but the general interest in curries and instructions in the above recipe, suggest that they were not unknown. Daniel Santiagoe, a general servant in his book The Curry Cooks Assistant or Curries-How to make them in England, goes on to add that cookery books of the time catered to the great interest in curries and one in particular makes much of the use of curry stones to grind ones own curry powder. Dr. Kitchner in his book The Cooks Oracle, thrillingly subtitled a collection of receipts for plain cooking, the most economical plan for private families and 12

a complete system of cooking for Catholic families. However, his curries were nowhere near the Indian curries. Richard Sainthill the author of All Olla Podrita once had a discussion on Kitchner and the real Indian curry with Mme Soyers, wife of Alex Soyers. She remarked Both as a eater and maker of curries, I affirm that in my nine years residence in India, never have I tasted or saw a curry like Dr. Kitchners Curry. Every chef makes his own recipe for the curry and probably they are so concocted as to be suitable for being imported to London. These curries are too turmeric heavy suiting English tastes but not of use in India. Dr Kitchner has missed the main important ingredient of the curry and that is garlic which when incorporated makes it the authentic recipe. In this connection it should be mentioned that the first curry powder was taken to England by army officers and civil servants and curry powder was then a cottage industry in India. By 1830 A D. Indians started going to England as students, maids, cooks, nurses etc and influenced the food there. In 1741, one Hannah Glasse wrote The Art of Cookery-How to make curry the India way. In this book she gave the recipe for a supposed typical Indian curry. This was the first documented recipe for the curry and it became very popular and started general interest in the curry. However, her recipe has been criticized and her interpretation of the curry seems to be more like a gentle aromatic stew and was nothing like the real Indian curry It was a stew of fowls or rabbit using whole coriander seeds and black pepper but later on in her 4th edition she added ginger and turmeric in her recipe. A recipe for the curry by Stephen Malcolm Chicken Topperfield plus Curry-powder; was more reflective of the Indian curry. Cury is an old English word used to describe English cuisine and has nothing to do with Indian curries. Currey is rather the precursor to Curry used to describe Indian curries. The word Curry evolved from the old English words Cury and Currey.. An explanation of the word goes back to the 13th century with the invasion of Timur the Lame. This was responsible for the Muslim influence in the cooking techniques of Indian cuisine. The introduction of butter, sauces, cream meats and such delicacies with nuts and dates led to the modern dishes like the Korma, Butter-chicken, Dumpkt styles of cooking. Some Anglo-Indian dishes are derived from the British cuisine-Roast Beef was Indianised by the addition of Indian style spices like cloves and red chillies. Fish and meat curries were given form by the addition of Indian vegetables and the use of coconut, yoghurt, almonds. Roasts and curries, rice dishes and bread all have a distinctive flavor in the opinion of an Anglo-Indian writer Janile Gavin.

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In 1612, some English merchants attended a state dinner party given by Emperor Jehangir in which they were served with Dumpkt fowl stew made with butter, spices, almonds and raisins etc and this dish was very similar to the English pie described by one Gevase Markham. titled The English Hus-wife. Many for the items used in the Dumpkt fowl stew were in use in England for centuries before King Richard I. Cooks in better-off kitchen used ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, galingal, cubebs, coriander seed, cumin seeds, cardamoms and aniseeds. They even formulated their own brands of curry powders as Powder Fort ( strong spices). Powder Douce ( sweet spices ) and Powder Blanche(white powder) and this is why the English merchants mistook the Dumpkt fowl stew for the Indian curry. Curry powder recipes of Mrs Beeton, including that by Dr Kitchner were bland stews Beetonised by adding curry powder in 1861. The British version of the Indian curry was their English ragouts converted into spices sauces with the addition of the Indian spices by Indian cooks. In the preparation of the curry, the British did not like to cook the curry in tamarind sauce or yoghurt as was done by the locals in South India. Here we find an interesting factor that influences the British curry. The Jews who had migrated and settles on Kerala faced a problem in making their curries with spices.. The were influenced by the local cuisine and tried to adapt to local conditions, but they found it difficult to use milk or yoghurt in their dishes as their Kosher laws banned mixing of milk and meat and so they hit upon the idea of making coconut milk the base of their dishes and the British in Kerala followed suit and soon the British curries of South India were cooked in coconut milk. In recent years much work has been done on spices and their effects on the human body. Research in several countries has given startling results which emphasise the fact that food should not be eaten without spices. Since W. W. II spices have gained popularity in the U. S. Highly spiced food from Asia, Latin America, and Mediterranean countries are getting popular because of the demand fostered by servicemen and tourists. Recent research work done on spices have been undertaken in countries like Germany, Russia, and India. Earlier, the Gita, only stressed on the flavours and palatability of spices, but today the stress is on nutrition and scientists hold the view that spices provide all that the human body needs to be healthy. Even up to the 19th century, fierce debates were on about the wholesomeness of the curry. In the 18th and 19th centuries, flavourants like the cinnamon, bay leaves, nutmeg, vanilla pods were favoured by the West while pungent spices like chillies were prohibited as it was believed they gave rise to gastro-intestinal problems. Yet one Captain W. White, pioneer of Selim curry 14

paste, hyped on the medicinal values of spices as highly digestive, antispasmodic, anti-flatulent, soothing and invigorating to the stomach and bowels but he criticized the British heavy-handedness with chilli pepper and cayenne, and observed that since the 18th century curries have been getting hotter and hotter with chillies predominating In order to have a scientific opinion on the subject of spices on the human body and health, systematic studies were commenced after 1955 by Schneider Deluce and Grey. They concluded that spices when ingested with food were harmless. The Russian Institute of Gerontology or the Science of Decadence as a result of its research came to the conclusion that diets should not be without spices lest there should be a lack of production of digestive juices in the body. The latest innovations of the Spice Board of India is spice essences coriander essence, cumin essence etc. but this concept has not yet taken roots. A few drops of the essence is added to the sauce and the curry is ready! This innovation will take a long time, if at all, to replace the traditional use of spices in making curries as it is next to impossible to break a traditional centuries old. May be other countries in the West may respond favorably to the idea of using spices in essence form but India is rather very traditional about her recipes. !

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