I’ve read the book “Curry,” which argues that the term is a British invention popularized by Bangladeshis living in London, and is often shorthand for dishes like chicken tikka masala. If that’s the case, it makes sense that many people casually (and inaccurately) use “curry” to describe all Indian dishes. I’m not entirely sure how much of this is directly tied to colonialism versus just cultural misunderstanding and ignorance, but it’s clearly a simplification of a very diverse cuisine.
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Genius.
There’s also Japanese and Chinese/HK curry, introduced by British imperialists in the 1800s, as well as the Caribbean. Conversely Thai curry evolved via the India connection. Japanese curry is very sweet, while HK version is very Cantonese based. International trade, aka colonialism (British in particular), is responsible for much of the spread. Thai curry….way more complex history, less colonial influence .
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I used to race against a guy with a rather unusual name. And in the first moto of every other race there would be an announcer who would try, gallantly but usually hopelessly, to pronounce it correctly.
When an announcer knew him they pronounced his name correctly with a certain amount of pride.
Actually, it doesn’t at all. Especially since you mentioned Thai curries as well, which seem to distinguish themselves by color alone, at least when it comes to marketing the pastes.
Of course, the ingredients are also different for massaman, green or red curry.
That is some valid information right there. I see those “golden curry” packs every time I’m at our Asian grocer, and have heard people love on it, but if it’s on the sweet side I don’t think it would be for me.
Seems like the same thing, TBH, just a stylistic difference.
Wow. I’ve never seen beef (or pork, for that matter) on an Indian restaurant menu around here!
It is odd.
But beef is a foundation for Montanan foods. Menus adapt to regional preferences.
I do not know if the owners of India Grill eat beef. Probably not (?), but they know their clientele.
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I figured it was because of Montana beef.
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But these golden curry packs are not unlike tomato sauces/ragus you buy in glass jars for pasta - they tend to be made for mass market and for the lowest common denominator and thereby tend to be sweeter than they normally should to be (most of these tomato sauces also tend to include sugar quite high on the ingredient list even though you would hardly get any sweet tomato sauces in a decent Italian restaurant). Similarly with Japanese curries, if you go to a small Mom-and-Pop Japanese restaurant who make their own curries, those are not sweet but quite flavorful
Yes, I posted the mea culpa because I didn’t want to repost all of the ways he would slag off on Indian cuisine (which we did a lot more than in his single column). I also don’t hold with hiding behind “It’s a joke”-- not when that joke causes full communities to catch strays.
I wonder if people are too hung up on the literal: No not everyone uses Indian cuisine and curry interchangeably. As @medgirl points out, one would be hard pressed to call a biryani a curry. BUT:
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People will refer to going for curry (regardless of what they’ll order) and also “curry” as pointed out by many, flattens the variety and the fact that each dish has a name to signal the variety.
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Indian cuisine tends to be characterised by the cuisine of a particular region (although again, as @medgirl points out, the offerings of the UK have improved. On my road alone I can rely on my Sri Lankan/South Indian place and further down a place for chaat, pain puri, and vada pav (lots of pavs), etc.
The ways in which food is treated over the years will create associations that can be tacit and which can feel limiting and I think that even if the connections are not always literal or direct, they inhabit the ways people do and think about things. That’s why people speak of decolonising. Can we spot what has shaped the way we think about X and what can we do to undo that?
(I wonder if HOs, as people who love food and eat lots of it feel insulted by such pieces and then approach them with defence? I mean, ok, you don’t do this, but then where do we see it if we think about it?)
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Not so odd. If the restauranteur is Muslim or Malayali Christian, then offering beef on the menu would not be unusual at all. From the menu you posted - the ‘any protein with any sauce’ approach and the some of the specific preparations offered suggests Bangladeshi ownership. But the spelling of biryani as ‘briyani’ is something I’ve seen in Malayali owned restaurants. I was tickled by the not uncommon misspelling of ‘gosht’ as ‘ghost’!
Just from reading that menu, my impression is very little of it would be ‘authentic’ but the ‘house curry’ might ironically be the real deal as it’s likely to be based on something the owners eat at home.
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Almost without doubt. My understanding of the etymology of “curry” is that it’s an Anglicisation of the Tamil word “kari”. Wikipedia suggests there may also have been further adaptations from Portuguese and/or Dutch words (which makes sense as those countries were involved in India before the British).
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i’ll gonna start sayin’ - “who wants to go for an English” - if for no other reason than to see the reactions. i don’t eat out much, so it won’t get too much use.
*People in the UK. As has been mentioned multiple times, that shorthand/expression is not a common one in the US — or Germany, for that matter. We go for X >insert national/regional cuisine here<.
And then of course watch that video. It’s all I’ll be thinking about now.
Still have to hop over on youtube to watch the full skit. Thx for the reminder!
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It will also be good because you need to understand what a legend Sanjeev Bhaskar is for watching Taskmaster S20.
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