a term adopted into the English language from India, has changed its meaning in migrating and has become ubiquitous as a menu word. It now denotes various kinds of dish in numerous different parts of the world; but all are savoury, and all spiced.
The Tamil word kari is the starting point. It means a spiced sauce, one of the sorts of dressing taken in S. India with rice, and soupy in consistency. Different words in Tamil refer to stewlike dressings (meat, fish, poultry, vegetables, in small quantities) and to ‘dry’ dressings. Europeans, however, fastened on the word kari and took it to mean any of these dressings. Hobson-Jobson (1903; Yule and Burnell, 1979), who gives the fullest (and most entertaining, but in some respects confused) account of the term's history up to the beginning of the 20th century, observes that the Portuguese took over the word in this manner, and cites evidence that a recipe for karil appeared in a 17th-century Portguese cookery book, probably reflecting a practice which had begun in the 16th century.
The earliest apparent mention in print in the English language occurs in a translation (1598) of a Dutch traveller's account of voyages in the E. and W. Indies. Referring to Indians, this text states that: ‘Most of their fish is eaten with rice, which they seeth in broth, which they put upon the rice, and is somewhat sour but it tasteth well and is called Carriel, which is their daily meat.’
This account was reasonably correct. However, the first curry recipe in English, ‘To Make a Currey the India Way’, was provided by Hannah Glasse (1747), and her instructions plainly lead to the making of a stew of fowls or rabbits, with but a spoonful of rice and several spices. This recipe, echoed by many later ones, exemplifies the transposition which had taken place. What had been an Indian sauce to go with rice has become an English stew with a little rice in it. Meanwhile, however, kari itself had been changed by the introduction to Asia from the New World of capsicum plants, and the hot red pepper made from them. From that time on kari included this pepper, whereas previously it had contained nothing more pungent than black pepper.
The traditional S. Indian kari does not have a fixed set of ingredients, but a typical mixture was and remains the following, all roasted and ground to a powder: kari patta (curry leaf); coriander, cumin, and mustard seeds; red and black pepper; fenugreek; turmeric; and less certainly cinnamon, cloves, cardamom.
Such a mixture is always freshly prepared in India. The British, becoming accustomed to it and wishing to have it available in Britain, created commercial ready-mixed curry powder, which reflects the above mixture with more or less accuracy (often less—some terrible tales are told of what has been found in them, and they were often made with spices of inferior quality and stretched with sago flour).
Use of the word ‘curry’ in English spread to Malaysia, and was matched in the Dutch E. Indies by the Dutch word karie. Many Indians were in SE Asia, and dishes based on either their practice or European transmogrifications of it exist throughout the region, and also in E. Africa. Indeed, they are now a worldwide phenomenon.
See also Anglo-Indian cookery; Asian restaurants; India.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
Basu, Shrabani (2003), Curry, Stroud: Sutton.
Chapman, Pat (2004), The New Curry Bible, London: Metro.
Collingham, Lizzie (2005), Curry: A Biography, London: Chatto & Windus.
Jaffrey, Madhur (2003), Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible, London: Ebury Press.
Monroe, Jo (2005), Star of India: The Spicy Adventures of Curry, Chichester: John Wiley.
Yule, Col. Henry, and Burnell, A. C. (1979), Hobson-Jobson, ed William Crooke (1st edn pub John Murray, London, 1903), New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.
