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Interesting! I take issue with the common claim that 'curry' isn't a thing in a 'real' Indian restaurant. I did a quick survey online and could not find a sing

Interesting! I take issue with the common claim that 'curry' isn't a thing in a 'real' Indian restaurant. I did a quick survey online and could not find a single solitary Indian restaurant menu without curry on it. From the fanciest to the common takeout joint. There are even chains like 'Curry House'. Let's tone down the virtue signaling in food reviews. It's silly. There are 150 languages in India; there are as many cuisines. To claim knowledge about the 'real Indian' food or culture is transparent nonsense. On another slant, it's a rampant issue in YouTube videos where anybody with an Italian accent claim only they know how to make real Italian food. Learn a little history, folks.

kizunajp 4y ago
I was making the claim that if you went to a restaurant in India, you wouldn't normally find any menu item called "curry", because curry is a genre of foods and not one single item in Indian cuisine.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  Saying "No self-respecting restaurant in India" may be a better way of putting it.
  - kizunajp 4y ago
    That makes sense. Thank you.
- jmillikin 4y ago
  This might be a language barrier issue, but I have never seen an Indian-style restaurant advertise a dish as "curry" in any country I've visited. Even in Japan (I live in Tokyo and have several インド料理 shops nearby), even if the shop itself has カレー in the name, the menu will say what each thing is (keema, sagh paneer, etc). Imagine sitting down and opening a menu and seeing something labelled "soup" or "sandwich"!
  - messe 4y ago
    I only know of one Indian restaurant locally here (Ireland) that has a "house curry" listed, but the rest of the menu is as you describe it.
    - Xelynega 4y ago
      In that case isn't "house curry" similar to "soup of the day"?
      - messe 4y ago
        It's been a while since I've eaten there, so I can't remember if it's that, or something along the lines of their own signature recipe.
      - dfxm12 4y ago
        I would guess it's an original recipe (with no traditional name) and doesn't change daily.
  - j45 4y ago
    North Indian dishes like da saag I keens might be evolving to care less to use it. But I’d bet that’s not just North Indian Christine. Restaurant opened by todays emigrating Indians are more aware of the choices than 30-50 years ago. It was a very different world.
- unmole 4y ago
  If you went to a restaurant in Italy, would you find any item called pasta?
- j45 4y ago
  It is a fair claim. The word rarely exists on its own. It has roots in some Indian languages, but is not pervasive like it is today across all Indian cuisines. Part of this is interesting to learn the stories of the early Indians who left India either as indentured servants which turned out to be an updated form of slavery, or emigrating as labourers from north India (and other areas) and how those migrations played out across the colonized world.
- JoeAltmaier 4y ago
  Sorry, I should have stayed quiet. I'd been scrolling through videos all trumpeting their only true recipe for whatever, and was sensitized.
dagmx 4y ago
The point is that “curry” is a British generalization. Indian restaurants were historically called curry houses as a pejorative. India has many dishes that one might consider a curry, but we have no dish called curry. The only use of the word curry in restaurants is to appeal to British nationals (and anyone they spread their culture to). It’s an artifact of colonialism. I also don’t understand why you think it’s virtue signalling. If anything, your appeal to “150 languages in India” is virtue signalling because you’re trying to make a benevolent justification for a word whose history you don’t understand. Also rich that you say “learn a little history folks” when you yourself clearly didn’t learn it in this instance. Now, there is a word “Kari” in several South Indian languages but it’s used to mean spicy sauce or “kadipoda” which means spice mix, both derived from “black” in reference to the use of black peppercorns. The generalization into “curry” was one of colonial misinterpretation. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/04/why-we-call-indian-dishes-curry-colonial-history/586828/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/04/why-we-ca...
- sampo 4y ago
  > Now, there is a word “Kari” in several South Indian languages but it’s used to mean spicy sauce or “kadipoda” which means spice mix, both derived from “black” in reference to the use of black peppercorns. Is this the same word as "kara", black, in Turkic languages? Apparently, speculatively, yes: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/kuro https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/... Also Japanese "kuro".
  - dagmx 4y ago
    Yes Turkish and Sanskrit have a lot of shared words or similar ones due to various cultural sharing
- unmole 4y ago
  > The only use of the word curry in restaurants is to appeal to British nationals (and anyone they spread their culture to). So, the Curry Points that dot Hyderabad are artefacts of British colonialism? > The generalization into “curry” was one of colonial misinterpretation. Yeah, no. The Telugu kura which is obviously cognate with kari is used to mean, well curry. How about you tone down the misinterpretation and false generalization?
8ytecoder 4y ago
Curry comes from the Tamil word (கறி kaṟi). The curry we have today is a mix of different influences - Ancient Indian (mustard, fennel, cumin, black pepper, curry leaves), Mughal, and Portuguese (Chilli pepper, tomato). There are subtle but important difference but they all share some similarities - especially the spices. Although curry powder (turmeric, coriander, fenugreek, cinnamon, cumin, black pepper, ginger, and cardamom) - those are every day spices in South India which was where most spices where exported from, historically. And we use that exact combination to this day. I see it frequently in British cooking shows - trying to lay claim for curry. I'm sure curry has evolved like with any cuisine. But it's absolute bonkers that even James May seems to think that curry originated in Britain. Now, that's some fine poppycock.
bakul 4y ago
Supposedly curry comes from the tamil word (transliterated as) "kaRi" which may be related to black pepper (native to India) to spice things up. In all Indian languages the color black has a very similar name (in Gujarati Kāḷī (feminine) or kāḷo (masculine) etc. -- also the goddess Kāli -- the one who is black or death!). More generally associated with something burnt (blackened). Anyway, a spicy sauce would be kaRi. In restaurants in South India you may find various dishes named curry (such as kozhi curry or kozhi kari). But when most everything is spicy, why even say that? Indians would rather know what is in a recipe than how it tastes! [Lot of speculation here: perhaps some knowledgeable Tamil will correct this without getting all upset!] I should also point out "curry leaves" -- not sure if there is a connection with curry. They are not spicy but are put in many Indian dishes to give them a certain flavor.
- dagmx 4y ago
  To add to your point on curry leaves: > Curry leaf” comes from the Tamil word “karu-vep-ilai” (‘black neem leaf’), leaves of the sweet neem plant Murraya koenigii
  - bakul 4y ago
    Thanks! In Gujarati we call it "meettho limdo" or sweet neem. It is dark green but not black (except when left in the 'frig for a few days or on the plant when it is sick!).
    - dagmx 4y ago
      There’s some possible history further back in our languages where kala might have meant darker not just black. Similarly the etymology of Krishna (the deity) is both considered “dark” or “black” depending on whom you ask. I suspect it may be a case where our languages at the time didn’t need to delineate between black and a dark colour. Tone/shade was a relative unlike hue.
  - vrc 4y ago
    Telugu is karivepaaku. Same stuff.
j45 4y ago
Handy field reference guide: - Is it possible Indian restaurants like other cuisine were packaged for a non-Indian audience as much as an Indian audience? - Too many people faint at the sight of having to read and pronounce an Indian name, how might it go with something that isn’t short like naan, cha? Even with naan (which means bread), bread is added on to hear people say bread bread. Cha/chai is tea, and Indians live to hear people say tea tea. - In this way curry might be a common word added to dishes. - Next time, at an Indian restaurant, see if you can over hear any Indian guests who exclude the word curry from their sentence when ordering. - Maybe it’s worth asking Indian mothers if the word curry was used by them. - The etymology of curry is readily available. At most it’s a style of cooking (like bbq). - There’s actually over 500 languages in India, but they might have been all the same to the British, so let’s just call it all a curry. The only dish I can think is kadhi which is made with cooked yogurt. It’s not spelled or pronounced like curry. I hope that helps with the offence :)
Avshalom 4y ago
Well on the italian note calling 'curry' 'a thing' is like calling 'pasta sauce' 'a thing'. Like sure in a very vague sense but if you went into a restaurant and it had "Noodles with pasta sauce" as a dish it would (I hope) make you pause at least.
anon291 4y ago
I mean there is no dish that is curry similar to how sandwich isn't a good. Sandwiches are a class of food with very disparate things being called sandwiches. Same with curries. The existence of sandwich shops does not mean there is a singular dish called sandwich
spprashant 4y ago
Curry loosely translates to gravy. Without a more specific term describing the type of curry it's a little pointless. Ever go to an Italian restaurant and say "I ll have the pasta"?

kizunajp 4y ago

I was making the claim that if you went to a restaurant in India, you wouldn't normally find any menu item called "curry", because curry is a genre of foods and not one single item in Indian cuisine.

boomboomsubban 4y ago
Saying "No self-respecting restaurant in India" may be a better way of putting it.
- kizunajp 4y ago
  That makes sense. Thank you.
jmillikin 4y ago
This might be a language barrier issue, but I have never seen an Indian-style restaurant advertise a dish as "curry" in any country I've visited. Even in Japan (I live in Tokyo and have several インド料理 shops nearby), even if the shop itself has カレー in the name, the menu will say what each thing is (keema, sagh paneer, etc). Imagine sitting down and opening a menu and seeing something labelled "soup" or "sandwich"!
- messe 4y ago
  I only know of one Indian restaurant locally here (Ireland) that has a "house curry" listed, but the rest of the menu is as you describe it.
  - Xelynega 4y ago
    In that case isn't "house curry" similar to "soup of the day"?
    - messe 4y ago
      It's been a while since I've eaten there, so I can't remember if it's that, or something along the lines of their own signature recipe.
    - dfxm12 4y ago
      I would guess it's an original recipe (with no traditional name) and doesn't change daily.
- j45 4y ago
  North Indian dishes like da saag I keens might be evolving to care less to use it. But I’d bet that’s not just North Indian Christine. Restaurant opened by todays emigrating Indians are more aware of the choices than 30-50 years ago. It was a very different world.
unmole 4y ago
If you went to a restaurant in Italy, would you find any item called pasta?
j45 4y ago
It is a fair claim. The word rarely exists on its own. It has roots in some Indian languages, but is not pervasive like it is today across all Indian cuisines. Part of this is interesting to learn the stories of the early Indians who left India either as indentured servants which turned out to be an updated form of slavery, or emigrating as labourers from north India (and other areas) and how those migrations played out across the colonized world.
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
Sorry, I should have stayed quiet. I'd been scrolling through videos all trumpeting their only true recipe for whatever, and was sensitized.

dagmx 4y ago

The point is that “curry” is a British generalization. Indian restaurants were historically called curry houses as a pejorative. India has many dishes that one might consider a curry, but we have no dish called curry. The only use of the word curry in restaurants is to appeal to British nationals (and anyone they spread their culture to). It’s an artifact of colonialism. I also don’t understand why you think it’s virtue signalling. If anything, your appeal to “150 languages in India” is virtue signalling because you’re trying to make a benevolent justification for a word whose history you don’t understand. Also rich that you say “learn a little history folks” when you yourself clearly didn’t learn it in this instance. Now, there is a word “Kari” in several South Indian languages but it’s used to mean spicy sauce or “kadipoda” which means spice mix, both derived from “black” in reference to the use of black peppercorns. The generalization into “curry” was one of colonial misinterpretation. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/04/why-we-call-indian-dishes-curry-colonial-history/586828/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/04/why-we-ca...

sampo 4y ago
> Now, there is a word “Kari” in several South Indian languages but it’s used to mean spicy sauce or “kadipoda” which means spice mix, both derived from “black” in reference to the use of black peppercorns. Is this the same word as "kara", black, in Turkic languages? Apparently, speculatively, yes: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/kuro https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/... Also Japanese "kuro".
- dagmx 4y ago
  Yes Turkish and Sanskrit have a lot of shared words or similar ones due to various cultural sharing
unmole 4y ago
> The only use of the word curry in restaurants is to appeal to British nationals (and anyone they spread their culture to). So, the Curry Points that dot Hyderabad are artefacts of British colonialism? > The generalization into “curry” was one of colonial misinterpretation. Yeah, no. The Telugu kura which is obviously cognate with kari is used to mean, well curry. How about you tone down the misinterpretation and false generalization?

8ytecoder 4y ago

Curry comes from the Tamil word (கறி kaṟi). The curry we have today is a mix of different influences - Ancient Indian (mustard, fennel, cumin, black pepper, curry leaves), Mughal, and Portuguese (Chilli pepper, tomato). There are subtle but important difference but they all share some similarities - especially the spices. Although curry powder (turmeric, coriander, fenugreek, cinnamon, cumin, black pepper, ginger, and cardamom) - those are every day spices in South India which was where most spices where exported from, historically. And we use that exact combination to this day. I see it frequently in British cooking shows - trying to lay claim for curry. I'm sure curry has evolved like with any cuisine. But it's absolute bonkers that even James May seems to think that curry originated in Britain. Now, that's some fine poppycock.

bakul 4y ago

Supposedly curry comes from the tamil word (transliterated as) "kaRi" which may be related to black pepper (native to India) to spice things up. In all Indian languages the color black has a very similar name (in Gujarati Kāḷī (feminine) or kāḷo (masculine) etc. -- also the goddess Kāli -- the one who is black or death!). More generally associated with something burnt (blackened). Anyway, a spicy sauce would be kaRi. In restaurants in South India you may find various dishes named curry (such as kozhi curry or kozhi kari). But when most everything is spicy, why even say that? Indians would rather know what is in a recipe than how it tastes! [Lot of speculation here: perhaps some knowledgeable Tamil will correct this without getting all upset!] I should also point out "curry leaves" -- not sure if there is a connection with curry. They are not spicy but are put in many Indian dishes to give them a certain flavor.

dagmx 4y ago
To add to your point on curry leaves: > Curry leaf” comes from the Tamil word “karu-vep-ilai” (‘black neem leaf’), leaves of the sweet neem plant Murraya koenigii
- bakul 4y ago
  Thanks! In Gujarati we call it "meettho limdo" or sweet neem. It is dark green but not black (except when left in the 'frig for a few days or on the plant when it is sick!).
  - dagmx 4y ago
    There’s some possible history further back in our languages where kala might have meant darker not just black. Similarly the etymology of Krishna (the deity) is both considered “dark” or “black” depending on whom you ask. I suspect it may be a case where our languages at the time didn’t need to delineate between black and a dark colour. Tone/shade was a relative unlike hue.
- vrc 4y ago
  Telugu is karivepaaku. Same stuff.

j45 4y ago

Handy field reference guide: - Is it possible Indian restaurants like other cuisine were packaged for a non-Indian audience as much as an Indian audience? - Too many people faint at the sight of having to read and pronounce an Indian name, how might it go with something that isn’t short like naan, cha? Even with naan (which means bread), bread is added on to hear people say bread bread. Cha/chai is tea, and Indians live to hear people say tea tea. - In this way curry might be a common word added to dishes. - Next time, at an Indian restaurant, see if you can over hear any Indian guests who exclude the word curry from their sentence when ordering. - Maybe it’s worth asking Indian mothers if the word curry was used by them. - The etymology of curry is readily available. At most it’s a style of cooking (like bbq). - There’s actually over 500 languages in India, but they might have been all the same to the British, so let’s just call it all a curry. The only dish I can think is kadhi which is made with cooked yogurt. It’s not spelled or pronounced like curry. I hope that helps with the offence :)

Avshalom 4y ago

Well on the italian note calling 'curry' 'a thing' is like calling 'pasta sauce' 'a thing'. Like sure in a very vague sense but if you went into a restaurant and it had "Noodles with pasta sauce" as a dish it would (I hope) make you pause at least.

anon291 4y ago

I mean there is no dish that is curry similar to how sandwich isn't a good. Sandwiches are a class of food with very disparate things being called sandwiches. Same with curries. The existence of sandwich shops does not mean there is a singular dish called sandwich

spprashant 4y ago

Curry loosely translates to gravy. Without a more specific term describing the type of curry it's a little pointless. Ever go to an Italian restaurant and say "I ll have the pasta"?