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Sunday 24 August 2014

Curry

Dishes of highly spiced meat are thought to have originated in pre-historic times among the inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization. Archaeological evidence dating to 2600 BC suggests the use of mortar and pestle to pound spices including mustard, fennel, cumin, and tamarind pods with which they flavoured food.

An older word “cury” was used for any cooked food. It came from the French “cuire” meaning “to cook”. A 1390 cook book was called Form Of Cury.

Vindaloo is an Indian curry dish popular in the region of Goa. It originated from Portuguese sailors, carne de vinha d'alhos ("meat in garlic wine marinade"). The basic structure of the dish was "preserved" raw ingredients, packed in wooden barrels of layers of pork and garlic, soaked in red wine. This was "Indianized" by the local Goan cooks.

The word "curry" was adopted and anglicized from the Tamil word kari meaning 'sauce', which is usually understood to mean vegetables and/or meat cooked with spices with or without a gravy. Kari was first encountered in the mid-17th century by members of the British East India Company trading with Tamil (Indian) merchants along the Coromandel Coast of southeast India.

Indian curry Pixiebay

The first curry recipe in English “To make a Currey the India way”, appeared in Hannah Glasse's The Art Of Cookery in 1747.

The Norris Street Coffee House in London’s Haymarket became the first eatery in Britain to serve curry in 1773.

Commercial curry powder first appeared in Britain in 1780 and was sold at Sorlie’s Perfumery Warehouse, No.23 Piccadilly, London.

The first specialized Indian restaurant in England was opened by Sake Dean Mahomed in 1810.

In 1846, Indian-born author William Makepeace Thackeray wrote A Poem To Curry, as part of his Kitchen Melodies. It is a recipe for veal curry prepared by ‘my darling girl’ described as ‘a dish for Emperors’.

William Makepeace Thackeray inflicted a blisteringly hot curry on his anti-heroine Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair.

The first reference to a “Curry-House” in English was in 1883.

Curry was introduced to Japan in 1870 through the UK Navy to the Japan Maritime self-defense force base. In those days eating meat was rare in Japan and the curry masked the scent. In the 1920's curry was made available to the public through restaurants and became a staple Japanese food.

Butter chicken was developed in the 1950s by three Punjabi restaurateurs who made it "by chance" by mixing the leftover chicken in a tomato gravy, rich in butter and cream. The dish is India's most popular curry, not only domestically but also globally.

Butter chicken. By stu_spivack - Flickr, 

Balti is a type of curry served in a thin, pressed-steel wok called a "balti bowl." Balti food had been unknown outside North East Pakistan until 1977 when an immigrant opened up a restaurant called Aldi's in Birmingham for the benefit of other immigrants.

Since the 1970s, the spread of Balti and other curry houses in England has been remarkable. There are about 10,000 Indian restaurants serving curry in the UK, the vast majority of which are run by people from Bangladesh, not India.

A curry weighing a record 15.34 tonnes was made in Singapore in August 2015.

There are more curry houses in London than in Mumbai.

Sources Daily Express, Wikipedia

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