curry...

signs

is it true the british invented the curry to disguise the tast of the rotting meat back in the good old days of the empire.
thanks

p.s no intentional link between this thread and my last one

t1m103

think you will find the spices they used were probly around a bit before the empire,the word curry might originate from then but the dish itself or use of the spices i wouldnt of thought so.

krish

getting heavy with spices has, I beleive, historically been used to disguise unpleasant tastes and flavours, including putrid and fetid food

krish

there's no single curry invention as such is there???

I suppose the mixture of spices that is "Curry Powder", as well as Coronation Chicken and the use of ****ing apples and sultanas in such dishes were invented during the British Raj - and bear little relation to most of the subcontinent's cuisine

signs

are we agreed it's a myth then?
it's just i'am having a debate about it at work (to much time on our hands )

misterjingo

I've been told this one a few times myself

pave

I thought it had something to do with the days of the empire,but on reading this.....

http://www.menumagazine.co.uk/book/curryhistory.html

Mr.D

Its probably more to do with flavouring and adding variety to a bunch of fairly bland ingredients....meat wouldn't have been eaten with any regularity and might well have been salted a few hundred years ago.

No-one is going to eat rotten meat regardless of how flavoured it is and if a dish is known to specifically be designed to mask rotten meat its hardly going to increase in popularity. Its bad enough to eat rotting meat today ...back then it would almost certainly have been fatal.

Reign-Mack

Along the same lines as krish depends what you define as curry? people have been doing it to food for thousands of years long before britain was even called britain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry

The Dude

I dont think it's related to the empire at all, but can well believe in the reasoning behind using all the chillies and spices.

I absolutely swear by Lamb Phaal as a cold remedy, it's like DIY chemotherapy!