An Invitation to Indian Cooking - Madhur Jaffrey [2]
But with expert long-distance help from my mother, I started learning. I began adapting her recipes to what was available in England and later, when I moved to America, to the ingredients and appliances that I found here. Over the years I discovered that the electric blender could do much of what the Indian grinding stone did, and much faster; that instead of roasting eggplant in hot ashes as my mother recommended, I could do it directly over a gas burner; that American meats just couldn’t be fried the Indian way because they contained too much water and that it was often better to cook with canned tomatoes than fresh ones because they had more taste and color. Slowly I began changing the recipes to suit the conditions. I managed to arrive at the genuine taste of traditional dishes, but often had to take quite a circuitous and unorthodox route to get there.
I’m sure by now you want to know what special ingredients are required to produce that genuine flavor, what special spices you need before you embark on this culinary adventure. Let me start negatively by saying that what you don’t need is curry powder, which many of you may already realize. But for those who don’t, let me explain.
To me the word “curry” is as degrading to India’s great cuisine as the term “chop suey” was to China’s. But just as Americans have learned, in the last few years, to distinguish between the different styles of Chinese cooking and between the different dishes, I fervently hope that they will soon do the same with Indian food instead of lumping it all under the dubious catchall title of “curry.” “Curry” is just a vague, inaccurate word which the world has picked up from the British, who, in turn, got it mistakenly from us. It seems to mean different things to different people. Sometimes it is used synonymously with all Indian food. In America it can mean either Indian food or curry powder. To add to this confusion, Indians writing or speaking in English use the word themselves to distinguish dishes with a sauce, i.e., stewlike dishes. Of course when Indians speak in their own languages, they never use the word at all, instead identifying each dish by its own name.
The origin of this English word could be kari, a Tamil word meaning “sauce,” it could be a spice called the kari leaf, or it could be karhi, a North Indian dish made with buttermilk and chickpea flour. Who knows where some wandering sixteenth-century Englishman found his inspiration! Whatever its source, the word is obviously a British oversimplification for what is universally recognized as a richly varied cuisine.
If “curry” is an oversimplified name for an ancient cuisine, then “curry powder” attempts to oversimplify (and destroy) the cuisine itself. Curry powders are standard blends of several spices, including cumin, coriander, fenugreek, red peppers, and tumeric—standard blends which Indians themselves never use. Here again I am sure the British are responsible for its creation. This is how I imagine it happened:
A British officer in full uniform (possibly a young David Niven) is standing under a palm tree and looking fondly at his bungalow as Indian servants go back and forth carrying heavy trunks from the house into a waiting carriage. When the carriage is loaded, the servants line up on the veranda with tears in their eyes. The officer himself, overcome with emotion, turns to khansamah (cook).
OFFICER: How I shall miss your delicious cooking. My