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Curry is a dish with a sauce or gravy seasoned with spices, mainly derived from the interchange of Indian cuisine with European taste in food, starting with the Portuguese, followed by the Dutch and British, and then thoroughly internationalised. Many dishes that would be described as curries in English are found in the native cuisines of countries in Southeast Asia and East Asia. The English word is derived indirectly from some combination of Dravidian words.
A first step in the creation of curry was the arrival in India of spicy hot , along with other ingredients such as tomatoes and potatoes, part of the Columbian exchange of plants between the Old World and the New World. During the British Raj, Anglo-Indian cuisine developed, leading to Hannah Glasse's 18th century recipe for "currey the India way" in England. Curry was then spread in the 19th century by indentured Indian sugar workers to the Caribbean, and by British traders to Japan. Further exchanges around the world made curry a fully international dish.
Many types of curry exist in different countries. In Southeast Asia, curry often contains a spice paste and coconut milk. In India, the spices are fried in oil or ghee to create a paste; this may be combined with a water-based broth, or sometimes with milk or coconut milk. In China and Korea, curries are based on a commercial curry powder. Curry restaurants outside their native countries often adapt their cuisine to suit local tastes; for instance, Thai restaurants in the West sell red, yellow, and green curries with chili peppers of those colours, often combined with additional spices of the same colours. In Britain, curry has become a national dish, with some types adopted from India, others modified or wholly invented, as with chicken tikka masala, created by British Bangladeshi restaurants in the 20th century.
Kaṟi is described in a 17th-century Portuguese cookbook, based on trade with Tamil merchants along the Coromandel Coast of southeast India, becoming known as a "spice blend ... called kari podi or curry powder". The first appearance in its Anglicisation form (spelt currey) was in Hannah Glasse's 1747 book The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy.
The term "curry" is not derived from the name of the curry tree, although some curries do include curry leaves among many other spices. The cookery writer Pat Chapman noted the similarity of the words Karahi or Kadai, an Indian cooking dish shaped like a wok, without giving evidence. "Curry" is not related to the word cury in The Forme of Cury, a 1390s English cookbook;" that term comes from the Middle French word , meaning 'to cook'.
Indian cooks in the 19th century prepared curries for their British masters simplified and adjusted to Anglo-Indian taste. For instance, a quarama from Lucknow contained (among other ingredients) ghee, yoghurt, cream, crushed almonds, cloves, cardamom, and saffron; whereas an 1869 Anglo-Indian quorema or korma, "different in substance as well as name", had no cream, almonds, or saffron, but it added the then-standard British curry spices, namely coriander, ginger, and black peppercorns. Curry, initially understood as "an unfamiliar set of Indian stews and ragouts", had become "a dish in its own right, created for the British in India". Collingham describes the resulting Anglo-Indian cuisine as "eclectic", "pan-Indian", "lacking sophistication", embodying a "passion for garnishes", and forming a "coherent repertoire"; but it was eaten only by the British. Collingham writes that "The idea of a curry is, in fact, a concept that the Europeans imposed on India's food culture. Indians referred to their different dishes by specific names... But the British lumped all these together under the heading of curry.
Elsewhere in the 19th century, curry was carried to the Caribbean by Indian workers in the British sugar industry.
In India, spices are always freshly prepared for use in sauces. Derived from such mixtures (but not containing curry leaves), curry powder is a ready-prepared spice blend first sold by Indian merchants to European colonial traders. This was commercially available from the late 18th century, with brands such as Crosse & Blackwell and Sharwood's persisting to the present. British traders introduced the powder to Meiji-era Japan, in the mid-19th century, where it became known as Japanese curry.
Dry curries are cooked using small amounts of liquid, which is allowed to evaporate, leaving the other ingredients coated with the spice mixture. Wet curries contain significant amounts of sauce or gravy based on broth, coconut cream or coconut milk, dairy cream or yogurt, or legume purée, sautéed crushed onion, or tomato purée.
Curry powder, a commercially prepared mixture of spices marketed in the West, was first exported to Britain in the 18th century when Indian merchants sold a concoction of spices, similar to garam masala, to the British East India Company returning to Britain. Other commercial mixes include and Japanese-style curry roux (in block or powder form).
Curries in Britain are derived partly from India and partly from invention in local Indian restaurants. They vary from mildly-spiced to extremely hot, with names that are to an extent standardised across the country, but are often unknown in India.
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Curry spread to other regions of Asia. Curry powder is added to some dishes in the southern part of China. The curry powder sold in Chinese grocery stores is similar to Madras curry powder, but with the addition of Illicium verum and cinnamon. The former Portuguese colony of Macau has its Macanese cuisine and curry dishes, including Galinha à portuguesa ("Portuguese-style chicken") and curry crab. Portuguese sauce is a sauce flavoured with curry and thickened with coconut milk.
Curry was popularized in Korean cuisine when Ottogi entered the Korean food industry with an imported curry powder in 1969. Korean curry powder contains spices including cardamom, chili, cinnamon, and turmeric.
Curry tteokbokki is made of tteok (rice cakes), eomuk (fish cakes), eggs, vegetables, and gochujang, fermented red chili paste. As in India, chilis were brought to Korea by European traders. Spicy chili sauce then replaced the soy sauce formerly used in tteokbokki.
Thai curry are called gaeng, and usually consist of meat, fish or vegetables in a sauce based on a paste made from chilies, onions or shallots, garlic, and shrimp paste. A few stir-fried Thai dishes use phong kari, an Indian style curry powder. In the West, Thai curries are often colour-coded green, yellow, and red, with green usually the mildest, red the hottest. Green curry is flavoured with green chili, coriander, kaffir lime, and basil; yellow, with yellow chili and turmeric; and red, with red chili.
Malaysian Indian cuisine adapted curries (such as gulai, with coconut milk) via the region's Indian population, but it has become a staple among the Malay and Chinese populations there. Malaysian curries have many varieties, but are often flavoured with cumin, cinnamon, turmeric, coconut milk, shallots, chili peppers, and garlic.
Indian Indonesian cuisine consists of adaptations of authentic dishes from India, as well as original creations inspired by the diverse food culture of Indonesia. Curry in Indonesian is kari and in Javanese, kare. In Indonesian cuisine especially in Bandung, there is a dish called nasi kari, a combined of lontong and beef yellow curry soup. In Javanese cuisine, kare rajungan, blue swimmer crab curry has become a delicacy of Tuban Regency, East Java.
In Vietnamese cuisine, influenced by both Thai and Indian cooking, curry is known as cà ri. It is made with coconut milk, Madras curry powder with plenty of turmeric, and a variety of fresh ingredients such as coriander, lemongrass, and ginger.
In the Philippines, a dish that may have been directly inspired by Indian curries is the oxtail stew kare-kare, possibly influenced by Sepoy expatriates during the brief British occupation of Manila (1762–1764), or indirectly via Southeast Asian spicy dishes. Ginataan are native dishes using coconut milk, which as in the case of Filipino chicken curry can be called 'curries' when curry powder is added.
+ Ways curries can vary
By region
United Kingdom
Curry is very popular in the United Kingdom, with a curry house in nearly every town. Such is its popularity that it has frequently been called its "adopted national dish". It was estimated that in 2016 there were 12,000 curry houses, employing 100,000 people and with annual combined sales of approximately £4.2 billion. The food offered is cooked to British taste, but with increasing demand for authentic Indian styles. In 2001, chicken tikka masala was described by the British foreign secretary Robin Cook as "a true British national dish, not only because it is the most popular, but because it is a perfect illustration of the way Britain absorbs and adapts external influences." Its origin is not certain, but many sources attribute it to ; some cite Glasgow as the city of origin. It may derive from butter chicken, popular in the north of India.
+ Range of strengths of British curries
South Asia
Many Indian cuisine are spicy and diverse by region. The spices chosen for a dish are freshly ground and then fried in hot oil or ghee to create a paste.
The content of the dish and style of preparation vary by region. The sauces are made with spices including black pepper, cardamom, chili peppers, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cumin, fennel seed, mustard seed, and turmeric. As many as 15 spices may be used for a meat curry. The spices are sometimes fried whole, sometimes roasted, sometimes ground and mixed into a paste. The sauces are eaten with steamed rice or idli rice cakes in south India, and breads such as , roti, and naan in the north.
The popular rogan josh, for example, from Kashmiri cuisine, is a wet dish of lamb with a red gravy coloured by Kashmiri chillies and an extract of the red flowers of the Celosia ( mawal)."Rogan Josh". In Khan Mohammed Sharief Waza, Khan Mohammed Shafi Waza, and Khan Mohammed Rafiq Waza (2007). Wazwaan: Traditional Kashmiri Cuisine. New Delhi: Roli & Janssen. p. 34. Rice and curry is the staple dish of Sri Lanka.
East Asia
Japanese curry is usually eaten as karē raisu – curry, rice, and often pickled vegetables, served on the same plate and eaten with a spoon, a common lunchtime canteen dish. It is less spicy and seasoned than Indian and Southeast Asian curries, being more of a thick stew than a curry. British people brought curry from the British Raj back to Britain and introduced it to Japan during the Meiji period (1868 to 1912), after Japan ended its policy of national self-isolation (sakoku), and curry in Japan was categorised as a Western dish. Its spread across the country is attributed to its use in the Japanese Army and Navy which adopted it extensively as convenient field and naval canteen cooking, allowing even conscripts from the remotest countryside to experience the dish. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force traditionally have curry every Friday for lunch and many ships have their own recipes. The standard Japanese curry contains onions, carrots, potatoes, and sometimes celery, and a meat that is cooked in a large pot. Sometimes grated apples or honey are added for additional sweetness and other vegetables are sometimes used instead. "The Curry Rice Research". (in Japanese)
(rice cake curry)
Southeast Asia
In Burmese cuisine, curries are broadly called hin. Burmese curry contains meat simmered in a curry paste containing onion, garlic, shrimp paste, tomato, and turmeric. Burmese curries are often mild, without chili, and somewhat oily.
South Africa
Curry spread to South Africa with the migration of people from the Indian subcontinent to the region in the colonial era. African cuisine curries, Cape Malay curries and KwaZulu-Natal curries include the traditional Natal curry, the Durban curry, bunny chow, and roti rolls. South African curries appear to have been created in both KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape, while others developed across the country over the late 20th and early 21st centuries to include ekasi, coloured, and Afrikaner varieties. Durban has the largest population of Indians outside of India in the world. Bunny chow or a "set", a South African standard, consists of either lamb, chicken or bean curry poured into a tunnelled-out loaf of bread to be eaten with one's fingers by dipping pieces of the bread into it. 'Bunny chow' means 'Indian food', from , an Indian. The method of serving the curry was created because apartheid forbade black people from eating in Indian restaurants; the loaves could speedily be taken away and eaten in the street.
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Categories: Afghan Cuisine, Belizean Cuisine, Bengali Cuisine, Bangladeshi Cuisine, Bhutanese Cuisine, British Cuisine, Burmese Cuisine, Chili Pepper Dishes, Chinese Cuisine, Fijian Cuisine, Guyanese Cuisine, Indian Cuisine, Indo-caribbean Cuisine, Indonesian Cuisine, Jamaican Cuisine, Japanese Cuisine, Kashmiri Cuisine, Korean Cuisine, Malaysian Cuisine, Maldivian Cuisine, Mauritian Cuisine, Nepalese Cuisine, Omani Cuisine, Pakistani Cuisine, Filipino Cuisine, Cuisine Of Saint Helena, Seychellois Cuisine, Somali Cuisine, South African Cuisine, South Asian Cuisine, Sri Lankan Cuisine, Thai Cuisine, Vietnamese Cuisine
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