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The roots of Japan's Indian curry

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Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#121

Post by yakubin »

grogenaut wrote: post #68
sho wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> spicy foods here are a) not spicy Ha. Can confirm. Lived there 2 years and while I love the food, as far as I can tell there is no food available anywhere in Japan, at all, that the average south east asian would recognise as even mildly spicy. And outside the home islands I have observed Japanese people reacting hilariously to the actually spicy local food. My favourite was a co-worker who literally collapsed to t…

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"

In my experience, "spicy ketchup" is almost never spicy, even in the least. What distinguishes it from other ketchups is that it's less sweet (but still very sweet). The only actually spicy ketchup I found is "Kotlin Extra Hot", but I'm not sure if it's a thing outside of Poland.

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#122

Post by rawicki »

johnwalkr wrote: post #88
sowbug wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Co Co Curry in Japan is my favorite of the second kind. It's easy to come close at home, as dole says, but the restaurant lets you pick the exact spice level, and they always get the rice just right: sticky enough to carve out with a spoon, but still porous enough that it absorbs the curry sauce. Go Go Curry is also worth a visit, and their US franchises are reasonably authentic. But it's a slightly different style:…

Co Co is great in how much you can customize it. I always go for very spicy curry with potatoes and fried chicken on top. Go Go is funny in that they list the calories of each meal in terms of rice balls. And some are like 10 rice balls! They used to have a world champion curry, limited to a few orders per day per store [1]. 2.5kg! [1] https://14fourteen.jp/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/b3bb8c6af2d...

For me, my neighbourhood Co Co had completely broken spicyness scale - 3 was not spicy enough, 4 was the most I could eat (and it goes to 10!).

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#123

Post by rawicki »

thesalsabear wrote: post #98

Why are Indians getting taught about Indian food?

From experience of traveling to many countries and talking with people about food - not everyone is interested in it. I've heard many bad recommendations or people surprised I know the dishes they have never tried. And that's okay.

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#124

Post by grogenaut »

yakubin wrote: post #121
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"

In my experience, "spicy ketchup" is almost never spicy, even in the least. What distinguishes it from other ketchups is that it's less sweet (but still very sweet). The only actually spicy ketchup I found is "Kotlin Extra Hot", but I'm not sure if it's a thing outside of Poland.

You mistake what I'm saying. Katsup is not spicy. I'm saying "you must think katsup is spicy"... it's more funny to people than saying "as spicy as water", "Man this catsup shore is spicy" just works better for a joke.

I'll have to try and find the Kotlin extra hot at the Eastern European grocery by my house.

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#125

Post by joshuaissac »

kelipso wrote: post #93
joshuaissac wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 might actually be wrong. The kari for blackened, burnt, etc comes from കരി where the r sound is a dental flap type r sound, while the kari for curry comes from കറി where the r sound is the typical r sound. So it's more likely the etymology is from malakkarry, which means vegetables, meaning than kari from the blackened, burnt, etc meaning.

Perhaps, but the difference is pronunciation is not definitive evidence.

For example, curry veppu (curry tree) is pronounced with the regular r sound in the standard dialect, but in some dialects, it is instead kariyaappu with the dental flap r sound (the 't' in American English 'atom').

The kari for 'burnt', 'blackened' is also related to 'karuppu' for 'black', which is pronounced with the regular 'r' (like curry) instead of the dental one.

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#126

Post by thesalsabear »

_shantaram wrote: post #119
thesalsabear wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking about the comment section.

Ah, well, even in that case there's still a lot of things Indian people don't know about Indian food. Just by virtue of being Indian we do not learn everything there is to know about Indian people / food / culture.

@_shantaram Maybe. I recommend that you find something other an online chat section to learn about Indian food!

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#127

Post by grogenaut »

genocidicbunny wrote: post #108
xboxnolifes wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It takes so much buy in to get them to take you seriously on spice sometimes.

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#128

Post by rawicki »

rippercushions wrote: post #114
bobthepanda wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the Korean food in Japan? Korean food is pretty up there in spice level.

Not by Thai or Sichuan standards it isn't. But to answer your question, denatured Korean food (esp. yakiniku BBQ) is widely available, and more authentic versions can be found if you head to the Koreatowns found in every major city (Okubo in Tokyo, Tsuruhashi in Osaka, etc).

Okubo is great. I'd say it's easier to find (if you sample random restaurants in Japan) good Korean than good Indian or good Thai.

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#129

Post by yakubin »

grogenaut wrote: post #124
yakubin wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, "spicy ketchup" is almost never spicy, even in the least. What distinguishes it from other ketchups is that it's less sweet (but still very sweet). The only actually spicy ketchup I found is "Kotlin Extra Hot", but I'm not sure if it's a thing outside of Poland.

You mistake what I'm saying. Katsup is not spicy. I'm saying "you must think katsup is spicy"... it's more funny to people than saying "as spicy as water", "Man this catsup shore is spicy" just works better for a joke. I'll have to try and find the Kotlin extra hot at the Eastern European grocery by my house.

Yeah, I got that. Just wanted to expand on the weirdness of what "spicy ketchup" seems to mean in practice.

Fair warning: "Kotlin Extra Hot", although a bit spicy, still doesn't hold a candle to what Indian cuisine can offer (or Japanese — e.g. wasabi).

Re: The roots of Japan's Indian curry

#130

Post by notahacker »

dagmx wrote: post #113
unmole wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Indian regions don’t exist in isolation. Hyderabad existed as a politically and culturally separate entity. The ramifications of these historical distinctions play out in politics to this day. See Telangana statehood for an example. > Kari in telugu You keep bringing it up but to the best of my knowledge there's no kari in Telugu. > The colloquial use of it as such is an artifact of British rule. Do you have a sour…

Sorry I meant Tamil Not Telugu. But the point remains the same. Curry in the British sense is not curry in any Indian sense. Kari doesnt imply a specific gravy dish, it implies a spiced sauce component. Saying you want a curry dish is like saying you want a cream dish when you order murgh makhani. It’s incongruent and a conflation of modern colloquial use vs the actual dish. Just like not ever meat dish is a ragu in…

> Kari doesnt imply a specific gravy dish, it implies a spiced sauce component

So a bit like how us Brits use "curry" then...

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