This Food in History #18 Curry — Uncultured Palate

Dec 29

Dec 29 This Food in History #18 Curry

Hello and welcome to today’s episode of This Food in History! Today we are looking at what I thought was just a sauce but turns out is a lesson in colonialism; Curry! I have spent most of my life being aware of curry. I knew there was Japanese curry, Indian curry, Thai curry and probably a lot more than I hadn’t paid attention to. I actually am quite fond of a Thai place near me because of the curry and noodle entree they serve. I haven’t found many other dishes labeled with curry that I enjoy. So I wanted to look into curry a bit more and it definitely did not go the way I planned. First, I think it’s important to establish curry as a sauce (or gravy) that is used in various meal options.

So let’s jump into things. Let’s start with the most important thing. Mainstream curry powders were a bastard version of what India offered while being colonized all up and down by Europe. They created a standard expectation of spices that ignores vital variations needed to account for dish properties.

Chef Chintan Pandya is a partner for several Indian restaurants in New York City and he told Food and Wine a few things about the origins and history around curry. “"First and foremost, I think it's a British term. We use the word kari in different ways and forms. But the [Western] perception of curry is anything with a liquid curry gravy. They will call it a 'butter chicken curry.' It's not; it's just butter chicken. As a kid growing up, you hear the word 'curry,' but it was not a common term. I grew up in Mumbai in a vegetarian household — we never had anything called 'curry.’ But my neighbors, who ate meat, would say 'OK, today we are making chicken curry.' And in Southern India, it's kari. There was nothing wrong with that.”

This alone is at the crux of what we will get to. In India their food is vast, varied, and tells a story where dishes are influenced by a matrix of regionalism, religion, and caste. The same dish can be built differently based on any of those influences. Curry was made into a catch all word for Indian spices instead of keeping the unique names and unique properties of the dishes.

Modern day generic ideas of curry take us down this path focused on India. I’ll try to jump back as far as I can to paint this picture. One stop we need to make is on the idea of spice as a flavor. India leverages spices in so many ways to create these dish varieties. One such spice that seems important to note is called asafetida. Asafetida is the dried resin taken from the root of the Ferula herb and the author noted it can be compared to an onion or garlic when fried. It is used all over the country.

The Sanskrit Mānasollāsa is one of the earliest written texts from South Asia to include non medicinal recipes. Written in 1129 CE by Someshvara III, king of the Western Chalukya Empire in the western Deccan and South India, it is basically an account of his daily life. Note the intersection of royals and access to spices that is common in many ancient societies. It seems a chapter on food is rife with mentions of Asafetida. Other spices commonly used are mustard, cumin seeds, turmeric, and coriander. Cooking meals with combinations of these spices are the dishes that are the backbone of what will become “curry” today.

The term ‘curry’ might have roots in the Tamil word “kari” which means sauce or relish. It seems the accepted oldest mentions will take us to the Indus Valley Civilization in the Northwest of Asia between 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE. Archaeologists uncovered evidence of mortar and pestles used to blend spices including cumin, fennel, tamarind pods for food. In 2000 BCE black pepper was also introduced. Colleen Taylor tells us in her book, Feasts and Fasts : A History of Food: “ cooks in the Indus Valley were using turmeric, ginger and garlic as flavourings – the ingredients for a 4,000-year-old north Indian curry.” This places it as older than Indo-European migrations and we seem to not see any changes to the history until the Portuguese land in Goa and the Colombian Exchange. Though I did catch a mention of the Mughal Empire from the early 15th century having an influence on certain types of curry in the north.

In 1510, Portugal established a trading center in Goa. They introduced chili peppers from America and vinegar. This led to the creation of vindaloo. The original recipe used twenty types of peppers with pork and black pepper in tamarind water. With exports of black pepper out of India the recipe was adapted to use red chiles instead as it was more affordable. The Dutch and the French also moved into India in 1605, and 1664 respectively and the meals and dishes were adjusted to suit their tastes as well.

John Watts and George White under Queen Elizabeth in December 1600 founded the East India Trading Company to block expansion of Portuguese and Dutch companies. This would alter the history of many countries along its trade routes. One such thing was British army occupation in India which by the 1800s had around 250,000 members residing in India. In 1857, the Indian people rebelled against the British occupation and afterwards we saw many British bureaucrats move to India. There they took part in local dishes that were altered to fit their tastes. They grew a love for the spiced dishes and worked their way to creating a formal version of spice blends they called curry powders so they could try to recreate the local cuisines. It is said to have homogenized 20 to 30 dishes into a “curry cuisine” and we now have a wide variety of dishes reduced to sauces or gravy that use the curry powder for flavor and our modern curry based dishes emerge. A thickened gravy or sauce is poured on things like rice, chicken or other meats to enhance flavors. Instead of dishes that have specific needs for spice combinations and some that might not even have sauces but just unique spices, we now have Dish Name __ curry.

Queen Victoria was given a servant after her coronation in 1838, and was said to influence a love for curry and in an effort to capture this and imitate the queen, “Indian” dishes spread across Britain with the first Indian restaurant opening called Hindustani Coffee House. This would serve those that returned to Britain from India. It also leads to Hannah Glasse being credited with the first recipes in print in an English cookbook ”The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy” which was as such an anglicised version of the dishes. We see street vendors in the 1840s selling curry as something good for your health and that it aided digestion, increased blood circulation, and improved concentration. We also see curry as a way to use old meat as the strong spices overpower any hinky things in the meat.

While this is happening in Britain, we do have other important things happening elsewhere. Indian workers and indentured servants are being moved from India to places like the Caribbean, South East Asia and Africa. In 1838, Indian laborers signed work contracts and were sent to islands like Demerara, Mauritius, Trinidad, Guyana, Jamaica, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, parts of Africa, and Fiji. With them came their dishes, knowledge of spice and also the anglicized curry powder. The Portuguese also assisted in spreading curry through colonization with colonies in modern Angola, Madagascar, Mozambique, Zanzibar, and Equatorial Guinea. The British and Portuguese bring versions to Japan as well.

This helps with forming roots in the many variations of curry we have today, as well as the spread of spices and combinations of spices you can find in these cultures and cuisines.

Japanese curry is actually the national dish of Japan. Sonoko Sakai, author of Japanese Home Cooking states that “People in Japan eat curry about one and a half times a week.” Their history with curry starts around the Meiji Restoration which started in 1868. Portuguese traders, Anglo- Indian officers and missionaries all entered the country during this period of growth in Japan. Japan had closed borders before this time and was isolated from foreign influences. Dr. Merry White, an anthropology professor, tells us the British Navy first introduced their version of curry to Japan. This version was a slightly sweet sauce with a brown-orange hue and of course Indian influences from the curry powder.

The idea of curry had now entered the country. I have found multiple versions of this story. One is a legend that a shipwrecked crew brought it ashore in their rations. Another says in 1863, an envoy sent by the shogunate to Europe boarded a French ship and an Indian passenger was eating curry and rice. Hidekiyo Miyake wrote a journal about this encounter and sharing the food. “I put some fine chili peppers and a kind of potato sludge on the rice, stirred it around with my hands, and ate it with my hands.”

The date of this conflicts with an account I found saying Seigaku-do’s Western Cooking Guide published in 1860, describes how to make curry as pouring soup over rice, spreading the meal to many Japanese people. This account calls it very influential as it led to pork, potatoes, and carrots being used more regularly in the Japanese palate.

We also have local variations of curry dishes popping up based on local ingredients and seasonal produce. They all seem to be a similar construct though. For example, you can probably expect meat, (chicken or beef) to be simmered with carrots, onions, potatoes and a curry roux or powder. You might get tonkatsu, and a side of pickled vegetables, rice, or udon. I have found complimenting accounts that Japanese curry is made as a thickened roux which differs it from sauces in India. Like the British versions, it is sweeter as well. They do share a similar notion with Indian versions, when it comes to blending spices and using more combinations for taste and aroma.

It was considered an upper class food and very sophisticated according to Sakai. The military and schools started serving it as it was easy to make in large batches and by the mid 20th century ready made curry roux was being sold. Near the end of the Meiji era, Jiyuken was opened as Osaka’s first Western restaurant and served curry. They also helped the spread to Korea as in the 1960s Koreans, Taiwanese, and Chinese inhabitants were pressured by the government to leave. Thousands of Koreans moved back to Korea and the family that remained was known to ship ready made versions to their loved ones. In winter, these pre-packaged foods that lasted a long time were invaluable. I found an account that it became used to trade for local products like kimchi, rice, and meat and as bribes for the Korean Workers’ Party. There were even black market curry and noodle stalls in some peoples apartments.

Unlike Korea, Britain, Japan, and many of the other countries I have named, I found that Thailand actually evolved their curry dishes separately from this Indian diaspora. Arab traders controlled the spice routes until the 15th century when others were established to combat high prices and control and colonization. So during the fourth century Indian traders and Buddhist missionaries shared spices and herbs with the Kingdom of Siam (now Kingdom of Thailand) Things like tamarind, cumin, shallots, and lemongrass were brought in. Jumping to the thirteenth century, we see nam prik emerge which are thick pastes of varying ingredients. This is a universal sauce for so many Thai dishes including ones that will one day be known as Thai curries. From the fourteenth to eighteenth century, shrimp paste was added as well, and in the sixteenth century the Portuguese swung by to bring hot chilies that are a staple in Thai curries that make them famous today.

The first known Thai dictionary from 1873 is the best we have for the coining of these. Kaeng was defined as “a watery dish with shrimp paste, onions, shallots, garlic, and chillies. “ and after the Vietnam War, westerners started calling these types of kaeng “Thai curry.”

It has manifested today as a versatile dish, born from trade. Thai curry is easily customized for heat, salt, sour, and sweetness for the consumer and has a plethora of spices, proteins, vegetables and more at its disposal to accomplish this. We have them categorized in 3 main variants as described by Food and Wine:

Red curry includes red bell pepper, coriander, lemongrass, ginger, cumin, and the red chilies that offer its iconic heat. It can be customized according to spice preferences, making it one of the most versatile curry pastes.

The bright, earthy color of yellow curry is a result of turmeric, which also gives it a savory, earthy flavor. Typically, it also contains galangal, ginger, cumin, garlic, and lemongrass. Compared to other Thai curries, this one is typically sweeter.

The vibrant, fresh, green color of green curry comes from cilantro, makrut lime leaves, and Thai basil. It is among the most popular curries in Thailand, with lemongrass, garlic, and shallots combined with the herbs to give this dish an earthy, sour taste.

There are of course other types but they call these the building blocks.

Curry may be a sauce or soup that comes in many varieties but it has a long history of being influenced, assimilated, and sometimes just naturally growing. We can find many countries with their own version and expectations around the serving of curry and just as many interpretations of the spices used in curry. Most people will have their preferences and favorites and luckily every dish can be cooked to your personal favorites.

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