The roots of Japan's Indian curry • Hacker News Board

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#11

Post by jmillikin » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

kizunajp wrote: post #4

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #3

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 man…

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.

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"!

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#12

Post by hans0l074 » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 2:53 PM UTC

Interestingly, the Nepali entrepreneurs also run a lot of restaurants here in Finland - along side Indian ones. Though I feel that there are more Nepalese ones. The cuisine is almost indistinguishable from North Indian cuisine, and I have heard from some folks who have visited Nepal, that authentic dishes from Nepal are missing from these restaurants. Though I suspect that might not entirely be true.

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#13

Post by discordance » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 2:58 PM UTC

Bose’s original Nakamuraya original restaurant is still open and running, located in a passenger tunnel between shinjuku-sanchome and shinjuku station.

I found it a quite odd spot and configuration, considering the history.

More detail here:

https://wattention.com/restaurant-review-shinjuku-nakamuraya...

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#14

Post by snowman5678 » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

hans0l074 wrote: post #12

Interestingly, the Nepali entrepreneurs also run a lot of restaurants here in Finland - along side Indian ones. Though I feel that there are more Nepalese ones. The cuisine is almost indistinguishable from North Indian cuisine, and I have heard from some folks who have visited Nepal, that authentic dishes from Nepal are missing from these restaurants. Though I suspect that might not entirely be true.

Interesting! I wonder how much of the indistinguishabilty is just them catering to their audience looking for North Indian recipes. There are definitely a lot of Nepali recipes that are very far from Indian cuisine.

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#15

Post by messe » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 3:02 PM UTC

jmillikin wrote: post #11

kizunajp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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"!

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.

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#16

Post by BozeWolf » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 3:16 PM UTC

kizunajp wrote: post #10

rjh29 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two different types of curry. The article/image are about Indian restaurants in Japan, which tend to have a large naan and a few small metal bowls of curry. The one you're talking about is usually known as 'curry rice' (カレーライス) or 'Japanese curry' and has its roots in English beef stew, but with spice powder added. It is eaten over regular sticky white rice, often with a pork or chicken cutlet on top. I personally lo…

You're right! While I was doing the research for this article I found this to be an interesting read on Japanese curry aka カレーライス: https://metropolisjapan.com/the-origins-of-japanese-curry/

This is great! Thanks!

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#17

Post by throw0101c » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 3:18 PM UTC

Tempura also has foreign origins:

> Tempura (天ぷら or 天麩羅, tenpura, [tempɯɾa]) is a typical Japanese dish usually consisting of seafood, meat and vegetables that have been battered and deep fried. The dish was introduced by the Portuguese in Nagasaki through fritter-cooking techniques in the 16th century. The word tempura comes from the Latin word tempora, a term referring to times of fasting when the church dictated that Catholics go meatless.[1]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempura

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#18

Post by dagmx » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 3:21 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #3

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 man…

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-ca...

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#19

Post by 8ytecoder » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 3:21 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #3

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 man…

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.

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#20

Post by brigandish » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 3:27 PM UTC

> So if you are craving for spice in Japan, try one of the two thousand "Indian" restaurants and you will not be disappointed.

Erm, if you've had a proper curry recently then you probably will be. Like everywhere else, foreign foods get tailored to their locality or they die. If you fancy a naan filled with sugar and some pretty bland dishes then try an "Indian" restaurant in Japan. Which should come as no surprise, because plenty of other so-called spicy foods here are a) not spicy, and b) surprisingly/sadly, overly sweet.

That's not to say that you can't get a decent curry here, but you'll have to try harder than just walking into a random curry house. And this…

> Indian restaurants outnumber the top 3 pizza chains of the country put together!

I think the only food more maligned by localisation in Japan than pizza could be Mexican food, which leads us back to spice and sugar. I'm not sure what having more curry houses than pizza huts in Japan proves. It would mean something in the US or Italy, but in Japan?

Tastes differ.