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The roots of Japan's Indian curry

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Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#101

Post by anuraj »

joshuaissac wrote: post #81
anuraj wrote: post #46

"Now to be clear, India has no such dish as a curry. No self-respecting Indian restaurant has a "curry" on their menu. They would have a Palak Paneer or a Malai Kofta or a Murgh Makhani - all of which we lump into "curry" - but no "curry" - This is patently wrong. Curry is a South Indian word referring to vegetables originally (Malakkarry means vegetables). Come to Kerala - you have Moru Curry (Butter Milk Curry) , E…

> Curry is a South Indian word referring to vegetables originally Not exclusively to vegetables. It originally comes from 'kari', meaning 'blackened' or 'burnt', and referred to cooked vegetables and meat. 1. https://www.etymonline.com/word/curry#etymonline_v_491

That etymology is probably wrong. I posit - it comes from 'Kant/rikkuka' means to cut and cook. Kari vs KaRi.

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#102

Post by vrc »

unmole wrote: post #84
dagmx wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telugu Kari doesn’t mean curry in the sense that British people understand it. Please actually look up the history of what kari is. The use of curry in Indian restaurants in Hyderabad are an artifact of colonialism. Hyderabad in particular caters a lot to foreign nationals due to the proliferation of the tech sector there. Anyway What curry dishes are they serving there? “Hyderabadi chicken curry”? What is it called…

> Telugu Kari doesn’t mean curry in the sense that British people understand it. As a native Telugu speaker, I use kura in the same sense as the English curry to refer to a diverse class of dishes. > look up the history Here's some history: Hyderabad was never colonized by the British. My grandparents who grew up in Hyderabad State and didn't speak any English used kura in the same sense that I do. > Hyderabad in par…

Kodi kura was the exact example that popped into my mind. Kura is a cognate/derivative from some Dravidian root similar to Kari/Curry (I believe Malayalam and Tamil use the kari form)

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#103

Post by fakedang »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #39
Brajeshwar wrote: post #28

I'm not much into food. I'm kinda the "I eat because I have to." My disclaimer is that I'm not an expert but here are a few interesting stories that might be relevant to this story. I come from a place where there is a huge influence of the Japanese and grew up in folklores punctuated with Japanese stories. I got to know a tad more, when one of my school-friend took a keen interest in digging up British and Japanese…

> Also, most Indian Restaurants in India, if not owned, are pretty much run (cooks, etc.) by Nepalese. Really? There must be some odd social dynamics behind that because it sounds so implausible going from demographics alone.

Cheaper, more diligent, less likely to cause issues.... Well at least these are some of the reasons I've been told.

Also Nepalese isn't necessarily Nepali citizens. India and Nepal are so intertwined, both countries citizens have free passage across each other. A significant percentage of Indian citizens in the very highly populated states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal are of Nepalese origin. I would assume the total number of Nepalese Indians would be at least 30-50 million, considering that the collective population of the above 3 states alone amounts to roughly 460 million.

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#104

Post by vrc »

dagmx wrote: post #23
bakul wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

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

Telugu is karivepaaku. Same stuff.

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#105

Post by gumby »

Brajeshwar wrote: post #28

I'm not much into food. I'm kinda the "I eat because I have to." My disclaimer is that I'm not an expert but here are a few interesting stories that might be relevant to this story. I come from a place where there is a huge influence of the Japanese and grew up in folklores punctuated with Japanese stories. I got to know a tad more, when one of my school-friend took a keen interest in digging up British and Japanese…

> I grew up visiting many Japanese monuments, including the last stand of the INA's holding place in India where Subhas Chandra Bose worked with the Japanese.

Rash Behari Bose (the subject of the article) and Subhas Chandra Bose were entirely different people from different generations.

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#106

Post by gumby »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #39
Brajeshwar wrote: post #28

I'm not much into food. I'm kinda the "I eat because I have to." My disclaimer is that I'm not an expert but here are a few interesting stories that might be relevant to this story. I come from a place where there is a huge influence of the Japanese and grew up in folklores punctuated with Japanese stories. I got to know a tad more, when one of my school-friend took a keen interest in digging up British and Japanese…

> Also, most Indian Restaurants in India, if not owned, are pretty much run (cooks, etc.) by Nepalese. Really? There must be some odd social dynamics behind that because it sounds so implausible going from demographics alone.

This kind of phenomenon is pretty common, basically due to network effects. Consider how many small town motels in the US are owned by Patels. Or those “Chinese” (definition and style changes in every country) restaurants: regardless of the cuisine written on the window (Sechuan, Hunan, Cantonese, Shanghaiese…) what is the ethnicity of the owner likely to be (depending on what country you live in)?

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#107

Post by gumby »

nerdponx wrote: post #75
rayiner wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, most Indian Restaurants in India, if not owned, are pretty much run (cooks, etc.) by Nepalese. And most "Chinese" restaurants by Bengalis. Of course, the "Chinese" food in India are, well, very very Indian-ised. A great many Indian restaurants in the US are also owned by Bengalis. I visited a Bangladeshi restaurant in Atlanta that was advertised as such. The owner mentioned that most of the Indian restaurants…

I used to live above a very conventional Indian restaurant in New York, and once in conversation the owner mentioned to me that he was from Bangladesh. I asked him if were any interesting special dishes from Bangladesh that we don't normally see on Indian restaurant menus in America, and he just shrugged and said something to the effect of "meh, it's all the same anyway." I thought that was kind of interesting. The f…

Had a friend who ran a restaurant in Palo Alto. He had been trained in a three Michelin star restaurant in Burgundy. When they opened they had rabbit, squab, and other great dishes, but hardly anyone would order them. Steak and salmon were the most commonly ordered. It wasn’t worth buying what is considered more “exotic” by the clientele — they just couldn’t sell enough.

But when they threw a party at home…!

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#108

Post by genocidicbunny »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #82
grogenaut wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took months to convince my family that the extra hot was mildy warm. But also at a wagamamas in London I had them do double extra hot on their hottest dish and could barely tell. I'm American from the Midwest living in Seattle. I refer to many spicy thing like that golden extra spicy as "spicy as katsup"

This is my problem with a lot of spiciness advertising around me (in America). When I order something advertised as "hot" or "very hot", 90% of the time it's either medium/mild at best, or just packed with spicy peppers to the point of just tasting bad. But it can be hard to communicate to some people when their upper level of spice tolerance is banana peppers.

> This is my problem with a lot of spiciness advertising around me (in America).

It might just be a thing around here, but a lot of Indian or Thai restaurants have two separate heat scales, the 'normal' one, and the Indian or Thai one. One of the Thai restaurants that I used to frequent, for example, had a scale where 'spicy' was the same as 'Thai mild' and 'Thai spicy' would genuinely make your hair stand on end.

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#109

Post by rippercushions »

nerdponx wrote: post #75
rayiner wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, most Indian Restaurants in India, if not owned, are pretty much run (cooks, etc.) by Nepalese. And most "Chinese" restaurants by Bengalis. Of course, the "Chinese" food in India are, well, very very Indian-ised. A great many Indian restaurants in the US are also owned by Bengalis. I visited a Bangladeshi restaurant in Atlanta that was advertised as such. The owner mentioned that most of the Indian restaurants…

I used to live above a very conventional Indian restaurant in New York, and once in conversation the owner mentioned to me that he was from Bangladesh. I asked him if were any interesting special dishes from Bangladesh that we don't normally see on Indian restaurant menus in America, and he just shrugged and said something to the effect of "meh, it's all the same anyway." I thought that was kind of interesting. The f…

Bengali cuisine is definitely a thing. Lots of fish and mustard oil.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_cuisine

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#110

Post by tkadur »

anuraj wrote: post #46

"Now to be clear, India has no such dish as a curry. No self-respecting Indian restaurant has a "curry" on their menu. They would have a Palak Paneer or a Malai Kofta or a Murgh Makhani - all of which we lump into "curry" - but no "curry" - This is patently wrong. Curry is a South Indian word referring to vegetables originally (Malakkarry means vegetables). Come to Kerala - you have Moru Curry (Butter Milk Curry) , E…

> Curry is a South Indian word referring to vegetables originally (Malakkarry means vegetables)

FWIW, Kannada has no such word. ಕರಿಬೇವು ("karibevu") refers specifically to the curry plant and (as far as I know) there is no word "kari" which refers to curries in general.

My parents had always told me that "curry" was, therefore, a generalization and anglicization of various dishes containing curry leaves. But seeing as "kari" is a word in several other South Indian languages, perhaps Kannada is just the odd one out.

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