On Mar 22, 3:35*pm, (Victor Sack) wrote:
> Dan Abel > wrote:
> > The name "curry" means "soup or sauce" in India.
>
> I think Indians would have a problem with this simplification.
>
> A repost:
> There is really no such thing as "Indian curry", except perhaps in the
> quaint western notion of a highly-spiced stew-type dish vaguely "Indian"
> in concept and execution. *There is no such notion in India, at least
> not any that would be commonly accepted.

This is also a quaint eastern notion, because the word curry (actualy
kari) to indicate a highly spiced stew type dish has entered the
lexikon in Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, etc. Further, each of these
countries was colonized by a different European power, making it less
likely that the word curry came from a British misunderstanding. In
the case of Malaysia, the presence of Indian Muslims as well as the
descendents of Tamil rubber-tappers make it seem likely that they
brought the word kari as well as the various highly spiced stews we
know by that name.