How an Indian Stew Shaped the Modern World: From Cleopatra to Queen Elizabeth

As an Indian, call it whatever you want, make it whichever way you want. But just make it delicious and nourishing, that is what food is all about.

Indian spices and cuisine have had such an impact on most other cuisines across the world but it still bewilders me when the Atlas food survey thinks Indian cuisine is just the 11 th best in the world. There is still a huge misconception of Indian cuisine in the western world as most of the restaurants still generally serve Punjabi or northern cuisine as it's not too spicy and the rest of the country is not represented well or there is still no knowledge about it and hence this poor ranking too could be a result of it's poor research on what constitutes Indian cuisine

I’m from the Caribbean. I grew up eating ‘curry’ although I didn’t hear that word until much later in life. My (Indian) grandmother’s cooking always started with onions garlic ginger and turmeric, with the addition of black pepper, bay leaves, anise seeds, cinnamon and other herbs and spices depending on the dish. She cooked everything like this, even lasagna 😂.

In Japan's case, it's believed that curry was popularized by the Japanese Navy. Cooks who finished military service would often open restaurants in their local municipality or port cities. It's assumed that Japanese Navy learnt the dish from its interaction with the British Navy in the late 19th century. These days, curry is served every Fridays in the Japanese Navy. Each ship will have its own unique secret recipe, and there is an annual Navy-wide competition to decide the best curry.

You know where you will not find curry powder? India. 😂

The news about the archaeologists finding curry remains at a Harappan site is mind-blowing, because as they said in an interview- the food in that part of India is similar at least in ingredients and cooking techniques to what is still being eaten today. On the other hand, Haryana, Punjab and Gujarat (the sites of Harappan/late harappan civilization that fall in India) are largely vegetarian today whereas archaeologists repeatedly found evidence of charred pieces of meat from cattle (possibly Nilgai) cooked in a proto-tandoor....I don't know but food trivia just blows my mind

As an Indian, I thank you for going to great lengths to put this story together. And 90%+ of the information in this video is new to me as well.

Thank you, India, for giving me my absolute favorite thing to eat. I can't describe how much i love curry.

I love all curry styles from Indonesian to Japanese to Thai to India to the Maldives. But as a second generation Hungarian growing up in England, I am genuinely surprised Hungarian food did not become as well known and popular. If you like curry styles, look up a few Hungarian recipes and use genuine Hungarian Paprika (not smoked or Spanish). You won't be disappointed. Chicken Paprikás, Beef or Pork Pörkölt, or a real Hungarian Gulyás are so insanely aromatic and flavourful. They are almost made the same way only without the more eastern spices.

Wow, Ancient India was such an amazing and advanced place.

My maternal ancestry is from Bengal who came to British Guiana as indentured servants and brought their foods and other cultural traditions. At every holidays we serve a curry dish. It is one of our go to meals

I was a restaurant manager of a Indian/Manchurian style restaurant. When I started I spent weeks researching the dishes we were doing so I can better do my job. I was blown away by how deep curry culture goes. It was interesting to learn, but I knew I had only learned surface stuff. Your video goes much deeper than I did, and it was great to watch.

It is Kari in Tamil and Malayalam languages where their ancestors had strong trade across South East Asia and West But it was the British who took the Kari across the whole world. Kari means spiced stew or thick broth or roasted paste in Tamil and Malayalam Kari also means pepper, spice, roasting, veg and non veg. In Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand we know that it was the Tamil traders who brought the dish to South East Asia regions. In our Malaysian history we learned that the western ghat of the present Tamilnadu and Kerala yields abundant amount of the spices for east-west in the past. Till to date the best spice powders are produced by the Malaysian Indians predominantly the Tamils. eg.Babas, Alagappa....brands. Later it was introduced in Korean, Japanese and Chinese Culinaries.

In Australia, I learned Fijian Indian curry recipe. As a Thai, that broadened my perspective of curry.

So a “curry” could apply to a stew made out of any spice blend in the tradition of the ancient spice trade. Awesome. Just sad that my northern European country wasn’t part of it. But perhaps I could invent a Swedish masala in modern times ☺️

Locations: Basmati (Punjabi): /rtuw3FtmUnemDHhe7 Iraqi: /h2kDzAZ2H3MaBTgz9 Bangladeshi: /rK55w3fb9piyVtJg7 Kerala: /pgzhiAE6tD19as4K7 Japanese Curry: /vjW5jrxcT5wFXnT5A Kate's Place: /ofHzMTaZGsFZDuUQ9

*@**31:25**:* Believe it or not, *French cuisine had long adapted some Indian food* into their culinary repertoire in several forms: they have Norman curried mussels, "briani", "massalé", and "achards" (their imaginative re-renderings of "biryani", "masala", "achar") from Réunion, as well as even a *Parisian chicken curry* called "cari St-Denis"!

My wife’s chicken curry is actually my favorite food I’ve ever had. She uses a spice blend from her aunt in southern India. It’s so amazing. I tell her she needs to learn how to make this mix, as her aunt won’t always be able to give her a spice mix from the other side of the planet.

My fav is chettinad crab curry at Sri Ananda Bhavan. The spice is through the roof. The heat is on par with jungle curry. The mud crab so sweet like a lollipop. I still remember the taste like it was yesterday😋

Finally, the long-awaited video! 👏 Unlike in our immediate neighboring countries that like to deny their pre-Islamic connections to India, in Indonesia we have to learn about Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa at school although we never learned about their culinary history 😅 It feels somewhat nostalgic for me to read names like Hammurabi and Vasco da Gama in this video 👨‍🏫 It is definitely one of my pet peeves, how white people call everything “curry” when even locals themselves don’t call their dishes that. I like how Indians describe the whole thing as “Curry is an umbrella term popularized by white people who couldn't be bothered to learn the actual names of our dishes” 😂 In Indonesia, we would only call a dish _kari_ or _kare_ if it has South Asian or Middle Eastern spice elements in it. Otherwise we would accept it if our many varieties of _gulai_ or _gule_ are categorized under “curry” but definitely not dishes like _rendang_ which is in its own category 😊 I wonder if the sentiment is similar in Thailand, as they have different dishes that white people would just indiscriminately call “curry” other than their many iterations of _kaeng_ 🤔