I’m Indian. Here’s what I need you to know about “curry”.
*To preface this article, this is a combination of my experiences and does not necessarily represent all Indians, but does represent many of the people I’m surrounded with and have spoken with. I will include research whenever I can for further reading.
Okay. So I’m Indian and I moved to America from India for college many years ago. When non-Indians find out that I’m Indian, I often get one of the following responses:
“You’re from India? I love curry!”
“You’re from India? (Local coffee shop) has the best chai tea lattes and I had one this morning!”
“You’re from India? I love naan bread!”
AND I CANNOT TELL YOU how infuriating these responses are. Almost as infuriating as being told that someone loves India because they do yoga at the Y, or that they love India because they watched a Bollywood movie one time, or being asked if I know their coworker Sandeep, because of course I would know all of the other Indians in this city.
So let’s talk about this.
Curry. What even is curry?
When you tell me that you love curry, it means absolutely nothing. This is a multi-faceted issue.
In the part of India where I come from (for I cannot speak to other regions), “curry” means any meat or vegetables with a sauce, a liquid, or a gravy (instead of vegetables/meats that are dry). So, literally everything is curry, but also nothing is curry.
All of the following pictures are curries:
“But the restaurant I go to has chicken curry!” Cool bro. Everyone makes their chicken curry differently. What they’re probably serving you is Chicken Tikka Masala or Butter Chicken.
There are a lot of different types of curries — yogurt-based, spinach based, cream-based, coconut-based, tamarind-based, kormas, tomato-based, a mix of multiple of these, and the list goes on-and-on. Classifying them all as “curry” reduces thousands of years of culture and history of delicious food to one word, which is just unfair. Curry was originally a term used by our colonizers to take away the richness of our culture, but that’s a discussion for a different day.
Separately, there is also a regional dish called “kadhi”, pronounced similarly to curry, and that’s a specific dish from the state of Rajasthan. This happens to be where my family is from, so we do, in fact, eat kadhi in my home, but this has nothing to do with curry as you know it or picture it. Kadhi is a dish with a sauce made of spiced yogurt and has “pakoras” or lentil fritters. It is almost never served in restaurants unless you are to specifically go to a Rajasthani or Gujarati restaurant, in which case it will definitely be served.
Curry in Thailand
In Thailand, various types of curries are given names based on their colors to make things easy for foreigners. Since I am not from Thailand, I cannot speak on whether or not the term “curry” is appropriate in Thai culture.
Curry in Japan
Curry also exists in Japan, so you might see it on the menu at your favorite Sushi restaurant. It’s often served with pork katsu, which is breaded meat. Japanese curry is a specific blend of spices, to my understanding, and is far more understated than Indian curry.
Curry Powder
“But Aakriti, I have a bottle labeled curry powder in my kitchen right now.” Yes, cool. Curry powder was created by the Western world and doesn’t traditionally exist in the Indian subcontinent. What you bought is some kind of spice mix that is reminiscent of a curry (what curry? it depends on what spices they’re mixing together). Most of these curry powders contain generic/popular Indian spices (like cumin, turmeric, chilli powder, coriander, onion and garlic powder) that are used in most Indian cooking, but will definitely taste different from house-to-house/restaurant-to-restaurant/brand-to-brand. This is why Indian food tastes different everywhere you go — it’s so heavily determined by the spice blend they use, similar to BBQ, I guess.
Curry leaves
We also have an ingredient in India called the curry leaf. These leaves come from curry trees, which are native to Asia. In Hindi, my native tongue, these are literally called “curry pata”, where “pata” means leaf. Very often in our cooking, we’ll fry these at the beginning in vegetable oil, along with mustard seeds and chopped onion. This is the base of many of our curries, hence the name. They have a strong aroma, and are believed to possess anti-disease properties.
Indian Spice Blends
For those that are intimidated by spices, you can buy spice blends at Indian stores around the world that were created for particular dishes. It’s perfectly acceptable to use these Indian spice blends, rather than try to balance 30 different spices, and most Indians keep these in their homes for convenience too — so we won’t think you’re appropriating our culture, in case that’s something you’re afraid of. Your food will taste better and more authentic than whatever you bought at Trader Joes, I promise.
But what about those other questions?!
What’s wrong with Chai Tea Lattes? Well, the word Chai means Tea, so you’re literally saying “tea tea”, which I think is silly. Also, chai tea lattes don’t usually have the right blend of spices to be authentic Indian chai.
“Naan bread” is similar — naan is always bread, and cannot be anything but bread. In India, we have hundreds of types of bread, so we don’t often eat naan at home. Naan is generally difficult to make since it usually requires a tandoor, and it’s also very carb-y.
Yoga — most people that do yoga are non-Indian. This article talks more about this. I personally don’t have strong opinions on the cultural appropriation of yoga, as I haven’t read or researched in-depth on this issue. However, I do find it offensive when someone reduces my culture to the one thing they know about it — whether it be yoga, curry or dramatic Bollywood movies.
If you would like to read further on the food makeup of India, the Wikipedia page on this topic is fairly extensive. Every state in India has a different cuisine, which I think is pretty cool! Read more here.
I hope that this has taught you a little more about curry, and I hope that you will now be more specific when you tell someone that you love “curry”. I also hope that this means that no one will ever tell me, an Indian, that they love my country because we have curry, as that’s basically the equivalent of saying that I love America because you have sandwiches. Thanks for reading, and for learning!