I got a very good book for those who want to start making curries. It's called The Indian restaraunt cookbook, and it's by Pat Chapman. The instructions are simple and easy to understand, and it tells you how to make starters, like Onion Bahjis, curries, and the various types of bread. Anyway, I have a Goan Vinegar Chicken curry simmering away at the moment. Yum.
Hmmmm. It's not a Madhur Jaffrey book! Sounds worthwhile. Making curry for the dinner party is one of the best things for saving a big clusterphuck.
Funny thing about the word curry. I've never heard an Indian person use it to describe a style of food. I've been married to an Indian woman for several years. We're trying to figure out where westerners got that term.
I've been making a few myself lately, a book (not from either of the names mentioned above) with a few recipies in. It is rewarding to come up with a good curry, favourite effort so far was one I chose for being quick. I did get a few extra helpers, and it did take over three hours, but well worth it. A mild pistachio korma where the rice was hotter than the main dish. As for the name curry, isn't it derived from the Hindi word for gravy? Which is essentially what a curry is.
It isn't so much the word curry as why people call the food "curry." That would be like us calling food "sauce" just because it had a sauce on it. It just sounds funny, that's all I'm saying.
The sport Snooker is called that, as it was invented in a town in India, and the British guys who came up with the game couldn't pronounce the town's name properly. And Hong Kong, which translates into 'Fragrant harbour' was only a small area of Hong Kong island. When it became a British possession in the mid 1800's, the first westerners to run the place thought the whole area was called Hong Kong. I guess these are like 'curry' in that they're inaccuracies that have just stuck. My Hindi isn't great, but perhaps 'curries' could be renamed the Hindi for 'nice food' or whatever. If whole cities can seemingly be renamed (e.g. Bombay is now Mumbai), changing the word for curry might be possible.
im part indian. definition of curry - anything can be curried, for example potatoes, brinjal, or anything, it doesn't matter. it isn't one food. its a lot. its queer and wierd. btw a lot of indian cities are going back to original names, for ex- madras-chennai.