Curry

Curry has become a modern catch-all label for pretty much any spicy stew from Jamaica to Jakarta. The word itself is an anglicised form of the Tamil 'kari', meaning sauce, dating from British Empire days in the Indian sub-continent. As for the origins of the spicy stew itself, they go right back to the Harappan civilisation of the Indus river valley in the region of modern day Punjab, some 6,500 years ago. 

The Indus river was a 'cradle of civilisation' on a par with those of Mesopotamia, the Nile, the Yangtze delta in China, and an Andean society in Peru. These were all primarily stable agrarian communities with sophisticated building capabilities and quite advanced irrigation techniques. The primary cities of the Indus valley region were Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa itself, and it is in the excavated ruins of those cities that archaeologists found traces of both the ingredients and the cooking utensils that the Harappans used to make their various spicy sauces. 

The utensils were pestle and mortar and clay and metal cooking pots. The ingredients were locally foraged or farmed  spices such as black pepper, cardamom, cassia, cumin, ginger, fennel, mustard, saffron, tamarind and turmeric. The spices would be ground to a masala (literally 'spice blend') paste in differing combinations and then turned into a sauce by the addition of oil (usually sesame oil). This was cooking for flavour, making stews with aubergine, chicken, lamb or mango, the world's first 'curry' cuisine.

'curry'

When the Harappan civilisation came to a fairly rapid end around 2,000 BC because of climate change and the drying up of many of the rivers in the basin, the population migrated out east, west and south to Mesopotamia, to Egypt, to India, South-East Asia and beyond, taking their culinary traditions with them, and eventually catalysing what became the global spice trade.

The Arabs of Mesopotamia (effectively modern day Iraq) became the principle traders, going to India to buy spices to sell in the west and in turn introducing western herbs and spices like bay leaves and fenugreek to the Indians. Indian spices commanded high prices in the west and were thought of as luxury items, prices kept abnormally high by the tall tales of the traders about how difficult such exotic produce was to obtain. (For instance, cassia reputedly grew in shallow lakes patrolled by dragons, black pepper was extracted from fiery caves, cumin had to be harvested from snake-infested waters.)

spice market

Eventually the Europeans, initially Portuguese and Italians, opened up sea routes to India and the East and the overland spice road became less important. These maritime trade routes also led to other key ingredients getting added to the recipes of Indian masalas, with cloves, coconuts, mace and nutmeg incoming from Sumatra in the east, and chillis, coriander, okra, potatoes and tomatoes arriving from the west. Soon the resourceful Indians were growing the new fruits, spices and vegetables and not just importing them.

Our own national love affair with curry started back in the 18th century with the gradual British colonisation of the Indian sub-continent. The British in India developed a liking for curry and when they returned to Britain they brought that love with them. The earliest recorded use of the word in English is in a recipe of 1747 in Hanna Glasse's ' Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy'. (I love such optimistic titles.) Hers was a fairly basic approach, but I suppose it served a purpose.

Hanna Glasse's 1747 recipe

Of course, English curries 'made the India way' rarely lived up to the magic of the original. There were a few restaurants, such as the Hindoostane Coffee House and Hooka Smoking Club that opened in London in 1810 and served authentic Indian cuisine, It even offered a takeaway service. But it was one of only a handful, catering to ex-Raj families and Indians living in the capital. For nearly two centuries we had to put up domestically with ordinary stews that had a couple of spoonfuls of Venkat's Curry Powder stirred in, and even Vesta packet curries (just add water) were not much better.

That all changed markedly after WWII, the partition of India, and India and Pakistan becoming independent. For a variety of reasons, there was an influx of people to Britain from the sub-continent. Some were displaced by geopolitical shenanigans, others had trained as chefs on ships whose useful life was being superseded by container vessels. They brought with them both the culinary skills and also the market for proper Indian food. Curry houses began to open up in many large towns and cities.

It also led eventually to a market for pre-prepared spice mixtures, the most common being garam masala, which typically comprises black pepper, cardamom, cassia, chilli, cinnamon, clove, coriander, cumin, fennel, ginger and nutmeg. The availability of such items has raised the quality of home-cooked curries immensely.  

The first curries I ever ate were at Indian restaurants in Cambridge when I was in my late teens, at the Taj Mahal and the New Bengal in Regent Street. They were probably owned and run by East Pakistanis (or Bangladeshis once the East declared separation from West Pakistan in 1972), but like the terms curry and curry house, many establishments were labelled Indian restaurants, regardless of whether they were Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani or Sri Lankan and regardless of the regional variety of their cuisines.

During my years at Warwick University and living in Coventry, regular visits to the Rajah were in order, and less frequently the Simla (pricier and not as good). That was in the days before Indian beer (Cobra, Kingfisher) had been invented, and Mateus Rosé was the drink of choice. 

Nowadays, such 'Indian' restaurants and takeaways proliferate across the land. There are at least twenty in and around Blackpool and I've eaten at the many of them. My yardstick dish is Methi Gosht, a lamb curry with fenugreek. It's what I ask for when I go to anywhere new, just to get  measure of the place.  

Curiously enough, of all the curries I've eaten in all the curry houses from San Francisco to Cairo, the best I ever had was at an Indian restaurant on a Greek island. This was back in 2006 at the Bombay Garden in Skiathos town.

Skiathos Bombay Garden

The holiday on Skiathos was fun, we had an apartment on a hillside overlooking the bay, the weather was great (it was mid-August), the beach was lovely (and I often shared my sunbed with a local cat), the dining was invariably outdoors, but the Bombay garden was something special. The setting was beautiful and the food was exquisite, prepared by chefs who had been brought in from Bengal, I was told by the English proprietor. It was a meal that lives long in the memory and even made it into my morning glory poem (except I haven't called it that).

Swallows
Stirring stiffly in the seams of last night's fading dreams,

(thank you Mythos beer and Skiathos Bombay Garden) I

taste spices on your sleepy smiling lips, aromas linger in

your golden hair, mementos of saffron garlanded delights.

From where I lie in bright sunlight, the sight of swallows

picking insects out of the air on another perfect morning.

I thought we might get up, shower and take coffee on our

balcony, but you have other ideas, of enjoying this bounty

beneath the sheet, ask was I dreaming of concubines? It's

a tease, of course, you're good at that and I happily comply.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)