50 Fun Facts About Curry

The English word 'curry' most likely comes from a word in which language family?

The Tamil kaṟi meant a spiced mixture eaten with rice; it reached English via Portuguese caril or Dutch carrijl.

Whose 1747 Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy had the first anglicised 'currey' recipe?

Her recipe for 'currey the India way' shows how Anglo-Indian cooking was already reaching British kitchens in the 18th century.

Which key curry ingredient did NOT exist in India before the Columbian exchange?

Portuguese traders brought chilies, tomatoes and potatoes to Goa after 1510; medieval proto-curries got their heat from black pepper alone.

Which foul-smelling gum from the genus Ferula was a key spice in medieval Indian proto-curries?

Despite the smell, hīng adds a meaty flavour once fried in oil, and it is still used in dal today.

Archaeologists at Mohenjo-daro found people grinding spices with mortar and pestle as early as when?

Starch-grain analysis of skeletons and pottery found turmeric and ginger, the residue of what have been called 'proto-curries'.

Where was the first commercially available curry powder advertised in England, in 1784?

Sorlie's Perfumery Warehouse sold it decades before Crosse & Blackwell and Sharwood's built brands on it.

Western curry powder is a commercial adaptation of which traditional Indian spice blend?

The name means 'hot or warm spices' and there is no single authentic recipe; every region and household has its own.

Which spice gives curry powder its deep orange-yellow colour?

The rhizome is boiled, dried and ground; despite Ayurvedic tradition there is no good clinical evidence its curcumin treats disease.

The curry tree, whose leaves flavour many South Indian dishes, belongs to which plant family?

Bergera koenigii was described by Linnaeus in 1767; the word 'curry' does not actually come from the tree.

Which Indian dish was reputedly invented in Glasgow, possibly by chef Ali Ahmed Aslam?

The story goes that he improvised a sauce from a tin of condensed tomato soup for a customer who found his chicken tikka too dry.

Which British Foreign Secretary called a Glasgow-born curry 'a true British national dish' in 2001?

He used it as a symbol of multicultural Britain; the dish has been called inauthentic by Britons and South Asians alike.

The name vindaloo derives from a Portuguese Goan dish of pork cooked with what?

Carne de vinha d'alhos became 'Portuguese curry' for the British; the potato in British vindaloo is a later folk etymology.

Fat Les's 1998 football anthem 'Vindaloo' celebrated which British ritual?

The drunken post-closing-time clientele proved their machismo by ordering the fieriest thing on the menu.

Rogan josh, coloured with alkanet and Kashmiri chillies, is a centrepiece of which multi-course feast?

One etymology gives 'stewed in ghee' from Persian; another gives Kashmiri roghan, 'red'.

The word korma comes from a Hindi-Urdu term meaning what?

It ultimately traces to the Turkic qawirma, 'a fried thing', though korma and modern Turkish kavurma are quite different dishes.

Massaman curry is a Thai fusion dish; its spices came from Persia, India and which other region?

Cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and star anise meet lemongrass, galangal and shrimp paste; the dish's Muslim roots mean pork is rarely used.

Massaman curry is usually built on chicken, potatoes, onions and which nut?

The richness comes from coconut milk and cream, as in many central Thai curries.

The 'sweet' in the Thai name for green curry, kaeng khiao wan, refers to what?

It is generally more pungent than the milder red curries and evolved between 1908 and 1926.

Thai curries mainly differ from Indian ones in relying on what instead of dried spice mixes?

The 1873 Thai dictionary defined kaeng as a watery dish with shrimp paste, shallots, chillies and garlic; coconut milk was not even required.

In Thai, the name of the yellow dish kaeng kari literally means what?

It is milder than other Thai curries and uses cumin, coriander, turmeric and fenugreek, an Indian-style spice profile.

Phanaeng (panang) curry is distinguished from other Thai curries by what?

It is cooked in coconut cream until the oil separates; the modern nutty note often comes from ground peanuts.

Curry was introduced to Japan by whom, first appearing in Japanese cookbooks in 1872?

The navy thickened it with flour so it would not spill at sea, and it is now one of the most popular dishes in Japan.

On which day of the week do Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force ships traditionally serve curry?

Every ship's galley unofficially competes for the best recipe; Yokosuka sells 'navy curry' to promote its naval heritage.

What are the three basic vegetables in Japanese curry?

It is served over rice, over udon, or stuffed in deep-fried curry bread, and beef, pork and chicken are the usual meats.

In Japan, katsu curry refers exclusively to curry served with what?

In the UK the name has drifted to mean any Japanese-style curry, sometimes called 'katsu sauce'.

Japanese karē pan, reportedly created in 1927, was originally sold under what name?

Nakata Toyoharu is usually credited; the dough is breadcrumbed and deep-fried like a savoury doughnut.

Japan's biggest curry-rice chain, CoCo Ichi, is run by which company based in Ichinomiya, Aichi?

It has more than 1,300 branches in Japan and outlets in a dozen other countries, including India.

The Madras curry of British menus takes its name from a city now called what?

The dish and the name were invented in Anglo-Indian cooking; the term is unknown in India itself.

The balti was developed in the 1970s in which English city, home to the 'Balti Triangle'?

It is cooked fast in oil rather than ghee in a thin pressed-steel wok, and a bid for EU protected status failed.

Jalfrezi was created in Bengal during the Raj for what purpose?

The stir-fry technique came with Chinese labourers on Assam tea plantations; a 2011 survey rated it Britain's most popular curry-house dish.

Which curry, born in Bangladeshi-owned English curry houses in 1971, is hotter than vindaloo?

It is a thick tomato-based curry that may use scotch bonnet, habanero or Carolina Reaper chillies.

Which dry coconut-milk meat curry was named the world's most delicious dish in a 2011 CNN poll?

Rooted in Malay and Minangkabau cooking, it is stewed until the oil separates and the meat fries in its own sauce.

Butter chicken was invented at which Delhi restaurant, which popularised it in the 1950s?

Kundan Lal Gujral and Kundan Lal Jaggi, refugees from Peshawar, reportedly made it by chance from leftover tandoori chicken in a buttery tomato sauce.

Currywurst was invented in 1949 in West Berlin by whom?

She got ketchup and curry powder from British soldiers and later patented her sauce as 'Chillup'; Germans eat some 800 million a year.

Coronation chicken was created in 1953 by Rosemary Hume and which flower arranger?

The original used apricot purée and curry powder; it is served cold as a salad or sandwich filling.

Bunny chow, a hollowed-out loaf of bread filled with curry, comes from which South African city?

It was created among the city's large Indian community around the 1940s; a quarter-loaf version is called a kota.

Curry goat became a staple of Caribbean cooking thanks to whom?

Indentured Indian sugar workers carried curry to the Caribbean in the 19th century.

The word dal comes from a Sanskrit root meaning what?

It refers to split pulses that need no soaking, and to the soups made from them; India is the world's largest pulse producer.

Laksa, the spicy coconut noodle soup of Malaysia and Singapore, originated in which cuisine?

Its name comes via Malay from a Persian word meaning 'slippery', a reference to noodles.

Manchester's 'Curry Mile' is a stretch of which road?

Running through Rusholme, it is thought to be the UK's largest concentration of South Asian restaurants, now busy with shisha bars too.

Which Regent Street restaurant, opened in 1926, is the oldest Indian restaurant in the UK?

Founded by retired Anglo-Indian officer Edward Palmer, it won a Michelin star in 2016.

Sake Dean Mahomed opened England's first Indian restaurant in London in 1810. What was it called?

He was also the first Indian to publish a book in English and introduced 'shampoo' baths to Brighton.

Curry ketchup is the standard sauce for currywurst and also for which Dutch fried snack?

It is a staple in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavia, from brands like Zeisner and Hela.

Which spices typically go into the Indian blend that Western curry powder imitates?

The components are roasted, then ground and often added right at the end of cooking.

Because of Massaman curry's Muslim roots, which meat is rarely used in it?

Chicken is the usual choice, with duck, beef, venison, mutton and goat as variations.

Which 18th- and 19th-century curry powder brands became British household names?

Curry powder was first sold by Indian merchants to British traders as a ready-made way to copy an Indian sauce.

Which Indian dish did indentured workers spread to the Caribbean and British traders to Japan in the 1800s?

That is how a Tamil word for a spiced mixture ended up on menus in Kingston and Tokyo.

In China and Korea, curries are typically based on what?

Southeast Asian curries lean on spice paste and coconut milk; Indian ones fry the spices in oil or ghee first.

The Ain-i-Akbari says Mughal cooks prepared aubergines with which curry aromatics?

The Mughals also gave India biryani, marrying Persian pilau with the local love of spice.

When the Imperial Japanese Navy adapted British curry, what did it substitute for bread?

It also thickened the sauce with flour so it would not spill in a rolling ship.