Originally Posted by
nerd
What do you mean by "gravy"?
Curry usually means the usual 4 or 5 spices (plus or minus a few), but gravy is an entirely different thing.
Am I missing something?
Originally Posted by
nerd
But no one is talking about sauces.
We're talking about the spices that would make up curry (be it a Gringo invention or not...)
From Wikipedia:
Curry is a generic description used throughout European and American culture to describe a general variety of spiced dishes, best known in South Asian cuisines, especially Indian cuisine. Curry is a generic term and although there is no one specific attribute that marks a dish as "curry", some distinctive spices used in many curry dishes include turmeric, cumin, coriander, fenugreek, and red pepper. The word curry is an anglicised version of the Tamil word khari, which is usually understood to mean "gravy" or "sauce" rather than "spices".
I have never come across a so-called curry without a gravy or sauce of some kind. I think you may be confusing "curry" with "curry powder", which is another abomination (sorry,
PointsScrounger!).
Originally Posted by
Points Scrounger
I think this discussion is going awry in that "curry" can refer both the spices and the gravy! The term has taken on the shorthand usage of "Indian food (usually with sauce)", esp in Britain.
Speaking of curry, adding curry powder and a dollop of chutney really perks up egg salad!
No self-respecting Indian would use "curry powder" in cooking. To Indians, it is as absurd as throwing some rosemary, oregano, thyme and basil together, bottling the mixture, and calling it "Italian powder," to be used in making pasta, veal and fish alike, as though any dish would become Italian by the use of this mixture.