From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: NYTimes.com: How Curry, Stirred in India, Became a World Conqueror Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2006 23:47:08 +0530
Hi Fred, i could not get our website to accept this, and it features Goa a great deal, perhaps you may succeed, regards, Eric. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/01/books/01grim.html?_r=1&emc=eta1&oref=slogin What could be more Indian than chilies? Yet before the Portuguese arrived at the beginning of the 15th century, Indians had never seen or tasted a chili, a New World spice that Columbus called "pepper of the Indies." The heat in Indian dishes came from a red pepper known as long pepper or from the black pepper familiar in the West. In addition to chilies, the Portuguese brought carne de vinho e alhos, or pork cooked slowly in wine vinegar and garlic. Local cooks in Goa, Portugal's trading headquarters, reinterpreted the dish. They fashioned an ersatz vinegar from tamarind, and threw in lots of spices, especially chilis. Thus vindaloo, a corruption of vinho e alhos, was born, and with it a new traditional Indian food.... Curry is not, strictly speaking, Indian at all. It is a British invention. From the Portuguese, the early British traders learned to apply the word "caril," or "carree," incorrectly, to sauces made from butter, crushed nuts, spices and fruits that were then poured over rice. (In various South Indian languages, "karil" or "kari" referred to spices for seasoning or to dishes of sautéed vegetables or meat.) Eventually, the word evolved into a catchall. "Curry became not just a term that the British used to describe an unfamiliar set of Indian stews and ragouts," Ms. Collingham writes, "but a dish in its own right, created for the British in India." [See full article at the above URL. --FN]