Curry has become symbolic of Indian cuisine, but it’s more complicated

When many of us think of Indian food, we think of curry.

That saucy and aromatic blend of spices, meat, and vegetables, often slow-cooked and served with rice and traditional naan bread or roti.

But, surprisingly, the word curry doesn’t originate from India.

Out of all the major pre-colonial languages spoken in India, none of them contain the word curry.

So, how did the dish become the poster child of authentic Indian cuisine?

Curry’s origin story

Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama reached Calicut on the Malabar Coast in 1498.

It was the beginning of the European and British presence in India that would eventually change the subcontinent in multiple ways, including shaping how we view Indian cuisine today.

“When you really dig deep, nobody really knows where [the word] curry comes from,” Lizzie Collingham, a researcher and author, tells ABC Radio National’s Every Bite.

Dr Collingham says the arrival of the Portuguese is the earliest record of the word curry being applied to Indian dishes.

With the arrival of European and British settlers in India, mainly around Goa and Cochin (now Kochi), the word curry became a way to refer to what Indian people were eating.

“Curry was a word the Portuguese used and then when the British picked it up … That’s what they called any dish that an Indian [person] ate,” Dr Collingham says.

But it wasn’t what Indian people called their food.

The colonisation of India’s cuisine

Over time Indian dishes, like many other traditional cuisines around the world, have evolved through colonisation and migration.

Many of the ingredients thought of as staples of Indian food, including curry, were historically introduced to the subcontinent, often by a colonial presence or changes within society.

For example, when the Portuguese arrived in Goa, India, they found that the Brahmins (priests who belonged to the highest Hindu hereditary class) didn’t eat onion and garlic for spiritual reasons.

“Brahmins wouldn’t have used onion and garlic because they were considered rather heating and dangerous foods for spiritual people,” Dr Collingham says.

“But the ruling classes would eat quite a lot of it, and meat, and put a lot of spices in.”

And chillies? They didn’t exist in India until the Portuguese settlers brought them to Goa and Cochin from the Americas.

In fact, it was black and long pepper that were used by Indian people during that period to add heat to their food.

The exchange of spices and regional ingredients was part of the reason why the Portuguese had a presence in India, Dr Collingham explains.

“Cardamoms grow in the hills in what’s now Kerala above Cochin. And you’ve got spices being brought in like nutmeg and cloves … So, all those spices would have been plentifully used in Indian food in that period,” she says.

And so in Goa, during this time, dishes that we now associate with the term “curry” began to emerge.

The British touch

Over a long period, the British presence in India increased. Eventually, it transitioned into political and military dominance over a large part of the country.

The British had Indian cooks working for them, and these workers would adapt their food to suit their customers.

“It was too spicy and too difficult for the English to digest … So they adapted their dishes to meet British tastes,” Dr Collingham says.

The British enjoyed these dishes and tried to replicate them back in Britain, but they found being authentic to the process was too labour-intensive.

“They [the British] have this awful way of whatever they touch, they tend to homogenise,” she says.

And soon curry powder came to be. It was an entirely British invention.

True to home

Authentic Indian cuisine is based on seasonal produce specific to the regions. And it’s traditionally reflective of the classes Indian people belong to.

Chef Helly Raichura, who owns the Melbourne Indian restaurant, Enter via Laundry, says adapting to changing seasonal and historical environments is a feature of Indian cuisine.

“Evolution is the only constant in Indian food because it has changed so much,” she says.

Ms Raichura avoids cooking stereotypical Indian cuisine in her restaurant.

Instead, she relies on the foundations of what was passed down through her family to cook what she believes is an authentic Indian regional menu.

“They [her ancestors] were very much connected to the land. They were very much connected to where they were and taking and using things that were seasonal for them,” she says.

When Ms Raichura arrived in Australia, she was surprised to see seasonal produce wasn’t prioritised in the same way it is in India.

“It was very shocking to me to see very bad quality tomatoes that you can still buy in winter … I was like, just don’t sell it,” she says.

Ms Raichura believes India’s strong relationship with seasonal food enhances the eating experience.

“There are rituals and recipes at specific times of the year that are cherished,” she says.

“You’re not getting strawberries in winter, you’re waiting for it. There’s an anticipation.”

The intersection of curry and identity

We’ve often heard Italians baulk at the Westernised state of Italian cuisine — particularly pizza.

And the same thing can be said for many traditional cuisines around the world including Japanese, Thai and Mexican.

So it’s little wonder that many Indians have struggled with associating curry as a symbol of authentic Indian cuisine.

“I think there are a lot of layers to what Indian food is and layers of history and then when you put it down to just the C word [curry] … you know?” Ms Raichura says.

“For the longest time ever, no self-respecting Indian said, ‘I’m going to have a curry tonight’ … That wasn’t in the vocabulary,” Dr Collingham says.

Understanding the history of their cuisine, and how it shapes their identity today is sometimes a complex task for Indians, Canadian author Naben Ruthnum adds.

“I’m a postcolonial mess of a person over here who’s scraped together an identity that has very little to do with my country of origin.”

And today, for many Indians all over the world, curry has taken on a different meaning, despite its ambiguous and colonial origins.

“To me, it’s come to sort of represent a blend of identities,” Ruthnum says.

Despite being a colonial invention, some Indians have learned to embrace the word curry and reclaim the dish as symbolic of their complex history, he explains.

“It’s come to represent a food that I really like, and it’s come to represent all the things that I didn’t really understand about history and myself.”