The last time I was subjected to the water-boarding called looking for a Manhattan apartment, I cast a covetous eye on a beautiful midtown loft. This place had a sunny balcony facing the art deco fantasy of the Chrysler Building, and a motormouth roommate who talked like she was on cocaine. I’d almost convinced myself I could handle the roommate, but one thing she said stuck sourly in my head.
She asked me whether I’d be cooking. ‘I can’t stand that curry smell,’ she said.
Let’s put that trope out of its British Raj-induced misery. Indian dishes as a whole are not called curry. They’re called sabzi or khana in Hindi, or just plain Indian food. In Punjabi cooking, curry is one specific dish: a thick yellow sauce made with yogurt and garbanzo flour, spiced with turmeric and eaten with rice. Some stir munchies like vadas, chicken or mutton into this base.
Calling all Indian food ‘curry’ is like calling all American food ‘Jello’: it’s nonsensical. If you tell me, ‘Let’s get some curry!’ and then order saag paneer, I’m going to laugh at you. Loudly.
Is this just semantic quibbling, when cheap Indian restaurants themselves perpetuate the corruption? Forget Curry in a Hurry, try ordering a Chinese dish by the wrong name. I did that at the tiny takeout place on the corner and got a stern lecture. ‘That not chow mein,’ the owner said. ‘I make you lo mein.’ Damned if it wasn’t better, just like he said.
Furthermore, there ain’t no such thing as chai tea, star-buckers. Chai is tea, so unless you and your sibling are the Doublemint twins, or you’re the mascot for Little Caesars Pizza-Pizza, don’t be ign’ant and run around asking for tea-tea. (Mmm, Doublemint twins.)
On that minty-fresh note, I leave you with these bouts of Kiwi brilliance. From two weeks ago:
A Tauranga woman is accusing a local branch of The Warehouse of racial discrimination after she was denied the right to return purchases because they “smell like curry”… After a brief conversation with a Warehouse employee, the mother of five was allegedly told: “We can’t take these back – they stink like curry”… With the family having eaten roast lamb and vegetables for dinner, Mrs Ali argued there was no chance the clothing could have acquired a “curry smell”.
And in 2003:
A small-town motelier denied an Indian man a unit for a family holiday because she claimed he might make the room smelly by cooking curries… after learning that Mr Roychoudhury is Indian, she said she could not offer the room because she would not be able to get the smell out before the next guests arrived… Mrs Nemhauser had not asked the family if they would be cooking Indian food.
Do the various styles of Indian cooking have characteristic olfactory hues? You bet. So do Thai, Italian, Mexican and sex.
And they’re all orgasmic.
Finally, someone sets it straight. “Chai tea” got no small amount of eye rolling from me when I first heard the term.
Yeah well haldi (turmeric) stains everything. I was always the kid with yellow tupperwear. I do have to say though, that Indian food does have a smell that can hang around but only if food has been cooked in the same place for a long period of time. Haldi, however, never leaves a formica countertop. Perhaps the man who couldn’t accept the purchases should have been a bit more sensitive and said something else? Yes well, these people might attack our food but they continue to gobble it up. Indian is, afterall, the national cuisine of England (who wants steak and kidney pie anyways?). Sometimes I think it has to do with harming another person’s dignity and just plain being rude in order to carry out prejudices and learnt stereotypes. When my father worked in the silicon valley tech industry, my mother would prepare lunches for him. He distinctly remembers a man asking him in a degrading tone if his food had gone bad when my mother had made methi paranthas. Her excellent cooking made that man change his tune once he smelt the aroma. I remember when my parents were looking for a new house in the ‘burbs, we had to decline a mint-condition beauty because it smelt like seafood. Any guess of who lived there?
In my experience this is going to be a downhill battle for a long, long time. Damn the Brit who brought over Indian spices to old Blighty, mixed them up randomly, and called the resulting concoction ‘curry powder.’ Even today I have to explain to innocently clueless gora’s tha not all Indian food is curry. There are meat curries, fish curries, etc, and yes there is punjabi curry or ‘kadi’, but Indian food is NOT based on this bizarre curry paradigm.
Good luck driving this point home. Maybe Madhur Jaffrey can help us out here.
And so does any type of fish. People still think it is suitable to reheat that in the office microwave, rendering it smelly and useless for days afterward (especially for those of us vegetarians!)
right on manish.
Haldi leavs a formica countertop if attacked quickly with a cleaner like Fantastik. Be prepared for a very creepy blood-red in between stage, however.
Manish, I had forgotten what real Punjabi curry is like until your evocative description. One of the most delish things I’ve ever eaten, as a guest in a Punjabi mansion in Delhi, was kadi on rice, accompanied by the tastiest lemonade known to humankind. (My mother had been telling me about that lemonade for years, yet it lived up to its expectatins.) Mmmmm. Now I’m hungry late at night. Damn you! 🙂
Finally! A posting I thought just didn’t exist outside of my mind. As for ‘curry’ smell, I say we let’em have it. Stink it to high heaven.
But seriously, this is classic culturural ignorance (and an opportunity). Here’s how – its not just curry (as they mean it) that smells, this society is not set up to accommodate it. How many apartments and even 2000 or 3000 sq ft houses have you seen with kitchens worthy of Indian cooking? Pardon my generalization, but in the USA at least, cooking often involves temperature changes of tv dinners in microwaves. That involves little or no smell. An office assistant at one of my jobs actually threw out indian restaurant food leftovers from the fridge because “they had a smell”. The deal was that typically the food is so inert that there is nothing for the nose when the food is not hot. So if there’s any smell it must be bad. The kitchens that might work in all different ways fail in one: There is no exhaust to the outside. Add to that the hermetically sealed house with carpeting out the wazzu and you bet it’ll overpower you. None of the open verandahs and front doors to get some cross-ventilation in before parathas are made in fresh air. The fumes generated while cooking are meant to be exited, not inhaled and imbibed. I mean, there’s serious alchemy happening to that aaloo or bhindi, or tinda. That inert vegetable will never remain the same after passing over the fire! We actually put in our contract for the builder to install a letterbox type opening at the microwave level exiting to the outside from right over the range. This was what concluded the problem for us.
In my south Indian book, curry is nothing without the curry leaf it’s named after. And most curries in the US don’t use any curry leaves at all. Not that us Indians can claim sole hegemony over the humble curry anymore anyways.
OT: Any of you blokes in the city? I’m looking at spending the next 3 months there on an internship.
I used to almost throw up growing up at the smell of fish cooking in my house. To be Bangali and fish-phobic…but yeah, i harbor some long-held grudges against some of my White friends for comments about the “smell” of my house…although when i was 5 or 6 I thought the smell of another desi house I used to go to was objectionable (not that I ever had the bad manners to say anything to them about it…like some of my White friends at the time).
anyway, a friend of mine told me that Von Singh’s (a punjabi and dutch owned place) (or maybe it’s Indian Bread Company or whatever it is hideously called) now has things like “indian fritters” (pakoras).
Can anyone confirm? i don’t like the new sucking up anymore than the old “let’s take it on the chin constantly” response to racism 🙂
oh, and if we’re going to quibble about language (which i’m certainly willing to do :), can we not use “Indian restaurant”? A substantial number, if not most, of the generic “Indian restaurants” that give you that “curry” in New York are owned and/or staffed by Bangladeshis.
Well, my good Indian mama ( I refuse to use anything more desi, I like the way that sounds, so what of it?) could never stand the smell of any kind of cooking hanging around the house and taught me well. Ventilate! Crack open a window (yes, even in the coldest days, the fresh air will do you good, and you only need to open it the tiniest bit) if you don’t have a fan, if you do – run the fan when you cook and don’t reuse cooking oil. Yuck. Actually, we didn’t fry things usually, to stay more healthy. If stuck in carpeted apartments, vacuuming every other day or so will cut the odor. C’mon, it only takes a few minutes….
As for the haldi, use a board on top of your counter that you can put things on, so that if you spill any haldi, you can scrub the cooking board instead of the counter. And clean out the fridge regularly! Don’t keep things open, keep them wrapped properly and in containers, and use lots of baking soda in the back. You can cook as much fish or kardi or garlic, and no smell.
Ok, I know you all know these things, but, ahem, I have sort of a thing for cleaning…..laundry or more complex cooking, blech. But cleaning, oddly enough, I like. Can’t stand a messy house.
Saurav, Fantastik is indeed fantastic. And do you know toothpaste can get out a lot of stains on painted surfaces?
As for calling everything curry, well, gentle education is the best. I mean, I work with people from all over the world and everytime I meet someone from one of ‘those Eastern European’ countries (you know, all those former Soviet states) I embarrass myself by not knowing exactly where they are!!! I then have to go look it up on the internets. Poor red-faced silly me…
PS Can’t use just MD as my ‘handle’ anymore? Comment submission error if no more than three characters? What shall I call myself now? MD, the real MD? MD#1, MD – your intellectual and moral superior (ha, ha, kidding)? Suggestions welcome (be nice).
Oh, and some people are just imaging the curry smell and are just close-minded jerks (re, the last few anecdotes of the post).
PPS You will notice, that the actual name of a certain person’s blog is ChaiTeaLatte. Ahem. Didn’t put much thought into it, thought it would last about two days or so…..
obviously, I meant cooking, not curry smell…..
Oh, never mind.
Good write up Manish. Especially about original Punjabi kari/curry, delicioso with pakora’s and aloo and lashings of it drowning a plate of rice with peas, a bit of salad, and a popadom for dipping.
Yum Yum Yum.
I am not feeling so persecuted and marginalised now for not being a South Asian Woman Writer.
Food solves alot of low self esteem problems.
Tim Curry! LMAO!
dude, the punjabi dish is karhi (i.e. with a hard r, like in garh) , not curry … and it’s not just punjabi btw, it’s found all over western india – the rajasthani version is actually much lighter and somewhat more subtle than the punju versio i grew up with .. delicious! and of course the gujarati version is sweet…
Why do Gujaratis put sugar in their food? I had a sweet dhal it was nice.
punjabi boy,
on the subject, as a south indian it gets me slightly peeved when papad or appadam is referred to as “popadum.” one more brit construct/vestige that we can do without, just like the “curry,” hmm? and yes, manish, thanks for chai tea bit, lets all drink some good old chai to more of that!
as a south indian who can’t read or write her mother tongue, it doesn’t peeve me at all. poor turbanhead is forever subject to my IMs asking, “how do you spell ‘avesham’?” or some other random word in malayalam.
i didn’t realise that spelling was a colonial vestige. i think my young cousin spells the word similarly b/c that’s what it sounds like to him. since the head turban doesn’t exist to be my mallu translation expert, i spell out indian words improperly all the time. sometimes it’s not a post-colonial hangover, it’s just being human. 🙂
Manpriya- Clorox softscrub.
Haldi-stained tupperware- put a little oil on a paper towel and swipe the inside of the tupperware before you put the food in.
Thanks a lot Manish; great post, but now I’m starving!
don’t get an eating disorder on me, Punjabi Boy. it’s only food, not love 😉
For those who cant stand the smell of “curry” ……. I hope they know that scientists here in the west are reserching the impact of “turmeric” in preventing Alzhimers disease.
The spicy fish curry, the chicken curry from Kerala. Good stuff! 😛
Swati
I humbly beg your forgiveness for offending you by poppadom. How can I redeem myself? Please, let me try, are you tempted?
DesiDancer
I am allergic to love. If I have low self esteem I look at pictures like this, it cheers me up. I also like looking at pictures of monkeys with guns like this. I think it says something profound about men and our destiny, dont you? Otherwise, I go for long walks and only resort to comfort eating if there is no beer in the fridge. Then I eat pizza, sometimes chicken with rice. Other than that, I’m just a normal guy.
This is exactly why I can’t take too much desi food… I find the spices and flavors to be a little too overpowering. I much prefer cuisines (like middle eastern) in which the spices are more subtle and you can still discern the natural flavor of the vegetable or meat on your plate.
Why are we so bothered that all Indian food is called curry ? Is it because curry supposedly smells and we have been negatively stereotyped for that ? So educating people about curry-less Indian food would be an exercise in futility because the stereotyping and the smell allegations will continue anyway. I have decided to be a curry eater and be in your face about it. On a side note, most meat based Indian food served in Indian restaurants in the US is not really that Indian. Its Mughlai and except for a very small percentage of bourgeois North Indian Muslims who eat it regularly at home, Mughlai food is not a staple diet in the homes of the Indian masses.
How about not calling Indian food — Indian food. We don’t speak Indian. And we certainly don’t eat Indian. Most of the “Indian” restaurants in America serve Punjabi/Mughlai stuff.
Manish, I’m ashamed to admit it, but I find your “pun”-ditry hilarious- the picture of Alan Curry is a case in point.
This “curry” business is a very English thing. Watching the footie, going for a pint, then for a Ruby Murray (cockney for curry) on the way home. Probably where it stems from this unforgivable usage. Where to begin? Naan bread, not just naan. Lentil daal, not just daal. Chicken tikka masala, you what? Vindaloo, que? Bloody Brits, can’t take us anywhere.
“Curry” in Tamil Nadu is vegetables sauteed in oil and the holy trinity of mustard seeds, red chili peppers and curry leaves. “To curry” as in “to blacken.”
I believe there is a difference between “curry” as in curry powder and kadi.
Papadum / popadum – it all tastes good, transliteration be damned.
How about some Mulligatawny soup, eh? (Molagu Thani = pepper water)
Can someone enlighten me to the origin of ‘vindaloo’.
Why do Gujaratis put sugar in their food? I had a sweet dhal it was nice.
i’m gujarati. i’ve never really seen my mom, or any of my aunties put sugar in our food, but i’ve heard a lot of people say that they know gujarati people who do this. however, i do know that when my mom makes dhal she puts ketchup in it and perhaps thats the ‘modern day equivalent’ to sugar? i think sometimes people put gohr (chunks of sugar from sugar cane?) in it.
Had some of the Soup Nazi’s Mulligatawny soup…disgusting, it had me running for my bottle of Hajmola.
The only house that smelled in my diverse neighborhood was the Middle Eastern kid’s. Go figure.
Ketchup might be a substitute for tomatoes.
Vindaloo, is not exactly an Indian dish. I think it was the Portugese in Goa that came up with it. The “vin” in vindaloo stands for wine or vinegar neither of each is common element in Indian cuisine. I think (not sure)it doesn’t spoil easily and therefore the portugese sailors used to take this on board on their voyages.
That aside, can someone tell me why Vindaloo seems to be in so many punchlines of jokes involving Indian food. I think the recent Leno bit had it. And then there have been others, some eighties movie that I can’t remember now.
Wikipedia on vindaloo:
Regarding this:
Probably for no deeper reason than it sounds funny. Or, to be nicer about it, it has a poetic ring.
Gurpreet, actually Indian food depending upon what the dish is and what regional touch it has, has the full spectrum of flavors – right from jeera-chawal which is simply light fried cumin with cooked rice to all the way volcanic mirchi masala for which you have to have a tongue of steel or just plain numb. I am intimately familiar with at least a couple of regional cuisines, and I can guarantee you that the food offered in 99% restaurants does NOT represent everyday home cooking. Restaurant cooking is typically overcooked, overspiced and overcreamed, and you can typically tell by the lack of much green-ness in any green veggies. In fact most dishes offered at your typical Indian restaurant aren’t even cooked regularly in most homes, and not even 5% of the vegetables sold in Indian markets are ever prepared at these restaurants. Note that I’m not saying these are not tasty, just that I can’t eat them regularly for the reasons above.
In summary, unless you’ve already tried it, see if you can land a freshly home-cooked meal at one of your friends place when in India. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
I expect a better answer than it just sounds funny. The least I expect from this place is a full cataloguing of the term in chronological order. Cross-indexing wouldn’t hurt either. And should we be offended by it becuase it’s really not Indian?
Why is it that some people can go on and on about things like mid-palate bitterness of certain wines but when confronted with Indian food, all they can say is “Spicy!”
Next time I break bread with “those” people, I am going to take a bite of my complex spice infused food, move it around in my mouth, and then say “ahh yes a hint of cardamom, I believe from the Malabar coast”. I think the use of an actual Kerala village name instead of Malabar Coast, should make the comment even more esoteric.
The real victims of the “curry” offense are uneducated tastebuds. That “mulligatawny soup” recipe made me want to cry.
Any chance I could see a thread about favorite South Asian restaurants in New York?
This must have been in the pre-Patel epoch of motel ownership.
Hey Al Mujahid, ‘sup. Why are we so bothered that all Indian food is called curry ? Well, I think it just represents a willing ignorance or uncaring attitude towards something that isn’t all the same. Same reason why all Italian food isn’t called pasta, or all caffinated drinks aren’t called just coffee – they all are not the same. I find it akin to saying all people that look a certain way are Arab or all muslims are terrorists (pardon the extreme; the concept is the same). I mean being simply ignorant is one thing, but claiming one “likes curry” surely requires some enlightenment.
Disagreement number two: Mughlai may not be staple diet in the homes of the Indian masses, but its as Indian as the Taj or Mirza Ghalib. Some ideas imported, others perfected and localized in India.
Yes, We need a thread on the favorite Indian restaurants across the US. Indian restaurants in UK are better though. Jamaal’s in Oxford, England absolutely kicked ass.
A Mutineer’s Dining Guide- good call!
I can chip in my two cents:
I like cheap dhabas like Pakistani Tea House (tribeca-ish); i’m also a sucker for curry in a hurry’s naan, but i think that makes me a coconut 🙂 there are also a couple dhabas on that little street just above houston where allt he cabdrivers wait (b/w 1st and A i think).
Dimple’s chaat is legendary (two locations, only been to the manhattan one–near chelsea in the nonprofit ghetto) but I heard rumors about them being targeted for poor working conditions, if that’s something that would concern you;
there’s Kati Roll’s overpriced but good rolls (near nyu);
jackson diner is obviously good but it’s expensive now (74th b/w roosevelt and 37th i think);
there’s a good south indian place in jackson heights as well, although i forget what it’s called–i think it’s around 35th ave and 73rd street, but i could be totally off on that.
and of course there’s the plethora of other places in jackson heights, which vary in quality and depending on product. i don’t mind shireen mahal, shaheen (actually they changed their name…it’s the one on 72nd and broadway)is okay if you can deal with pakistani food (i.e. are not vegetarian) and are very supportive of work to assist the local community; and there’s delhi palace too; kabab king has the same problem as shaheen–pakistani food.
you can also go exploring desi neighborhoods besides the commercial areas in manhattan and jackson heights (which not enough people do) depending on what particular kinds of food you like–if you dig pakistani food, go to midwood (coney island)–people seem to like bukhara and there are a bunch of other places. there are a number of places in astoria, there are some bangali places in church mcdonald (f to church) that are okay (they have big ramadan stocking stuffers), there are places in jamaica, etc., etc.
oh– and don’t miss the chinese desi cuisine–there’s tangra masala in elmhurst, i think, and a few other places scattered here and there (there’s one in new hyde park actually).
just don’t get caught on 6th street 🙂
I don’t get the fuss over Jackson Diner; I agree it’s overpriced.
I really like Dosa Hut and its neighbors (Something) Mahal and Pongal on Lexington. I like Curry in a Hurry’s food and prices, but sometimes I’m not in a hurry and don’t feel like carrying an overloaded tray up stairs and hunting for a table while my meal gets cold.
Curry Leaf in Brooklyn Heights is really good, everything tastes fresh and distinct.
I had a truly awful meal at Ayurveda Cafe on the Upper West Side. It was like having baby food for dinner. Criminally bland.
What I want to know is – has anyone tried the exorbitant Devi?
In addition to Kati Roll, Roomali (27th east of Lex) is good. Also India Bread Company, round the corner from Kati Roll– they also offer Naan-sandwiches and some really killer stuffed parathe
Rajbhog in Jackson Heights has great chaat and “staple” food. Their mithai is also outstanding.
Baluchis (multiple locations) is consistent, but the menu is a lot of heavy dishes.
for Chinese-Desi, Chinese Mirch (28th & Lex) is good.
and Ghandi (yeah, that’s how they spell it) on Bleeker at 7th is atrocious. Avoid.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention Surya, on Bleecker just west of 7th Avenue. The food there is fantastic. But it’s really expensive. They have a great brunch of weekends for $10, which is the only way I can afford to eat there.
nina– i TOTALLY agree. jackson diner never tasted great to me, i gave it three tries before giving up and muttering, “i can’t believe i paid that much for THAT”.
i think you’re referring to madras mahal, btw. they are AWESOME; i was raving about the dinner i had there for days. i’ve heard good things about pongal, too. other than that, i totally miss bukhara. and tamarind. and utsav*. sigh. new york.
in d.c. it’s heritage india or NOTHING. for south indian food, i have to go all the way to maryland, which means i never do.
:+:
*i could be wrong on the name of this one…i just remember it was within walking distance of where i lived in midtown.
ANNA- yeah it’s Utsav. I totally forgot about them and Tamarind… both good.
I never really appreciated Jackson Diner either. It gave me my first case of heartburn, ever. Every subsequent visit has yielded similar side effects.
*I suppose I should footnote that my recommendations on restaurants are from a vegetarian point of view.