Curried Cultures: Globalization, Food, and South Asia edited by Krishnendu Ray and Tulasi Srinivas (University of California Press)
Curry has become such an international dish that it’s hard to remember it originated in India. Yet when people think of Indian cuisine, this is the first menu choice that usually comes to mind. How did this dish become both the culinary symbol of a country and a popular meal across the globe? Japan, Thailand, Great Britain, the United States all have their own version of curry—Campbell’s Mushroom Soup with curry powder, anyone?
In Curried Cultures, a group of academic writers look at the history, proliferation, and perhaps the decline of curry, in a series of essays that painstakingly comb through every detail of the dish.
When the princely states of the Subcontinent became Great Britain’s Jewel in the Crown, culinary matters sharply divided the colonized from the conquerors. The British occupiers, believing that the local diet led to weakness and poor health, clung fiercely to their slabs of animal flesh washed down with beer. The people of the Subcontinent prided themselves on vegetable dishes that were spiced with a sophisticated flavor that had yet to reach the West. Each side shuddered at the barbarity of the other; it took the common soldiery of England to find a meeting ground with their subcontinental counterparts through meals of curry. Although canteen cooks probably adopted curry because of its ease and economy, the dish became popular with British troops and traveled with them to Japan and other corners of the world.
Today in Great Britain curry shops are as numerous as fish and chip stands. “Going out for a curry” is a popular way to end a night of serious drinking. In the U.S., fast food curry houses are spreading across the country, becoming almost as ubiquitous as Chinese or Thai restaurants—and equally Americanized. The Indian princes of the Raj would be horrified by what America calls curry and most citizens of modern-day India would find it inedible.
Even within India, the concept of curry is changing fast. Traditional curry dishes take time and attention which is difficult to find in a high-tech, high-speed world. Even the least sophisticated curries, the ones found in the roadside hostelries called Udupi hotels, have changed in the drive for efficiency. In India and abroad, supermarket shelves are filled with small, flat, red and white boxes that are sold under the MTR label. They contain a foil envelope filled with curry that’s quickly reheated in boiling water.
These ready-to-eat meals are cheap, flavorful, and based upon an ancient culinary tradition. In a temple in southern India, five thousand pilgrims are fed daily with fifty different selections, including curry. Legend has it that this is where the famous Mavalli Tiffin Rooms (MTR) garnered their recipes, giving their restaurant customers silver utensils with which to eat the adopted temple curries. Nowadays a version of that food can be ordered online or bought in overseas grocery stores; boxes of MTR meals feed foreign consumers who have no idea of the history behind the packaging, as well as families in India who demand flavor as much as convenience in their fast food.
Although it’s an interesting look at the way global popularity changes traditional food, Curried Cultures suffers from this kind of sentence: “I think studies of immigration demand a dose of corporeality.” Readers who hack their way through the jungles of jargon will find a lively history waiting for them—and probably a strong yearning for a plate of curry.