Curry

In India, curry means “sauce,” and typically it refers to the sauce used in a dish. By the time you reach Southeast Asia, curry comes to mean “stew,” typically an aromatic and spicy stew that extends across a broad expanse of the world. (The etymology of the word is somewhat obscure. Some sources suggest it comes from a Tamil word meaning “sauce,” others from the word meaning “to prepare”—that’s how general it is.) For those of us who did not grow up in Asia, curries are not household staples or the stuff of daily meals but are an occasional foray away from our Western staple meals. These are good and necessary diversions. They keep things lively and prevent us from getting into cooking ruts. I also suspect that part of their appeal, for those who don’t make a stir-fry or a curry or two every week, is that these meals add to a nutritional diversity that our bodies respond to and crave. I believe that when we crave Chinese or Thai food or a spicy Indian curry, it’s more than just our mood; it’s possible that our bodies are calling out for the differing nutritional offerings from, say, the galangal and rich coconut milk in a Thai dish, the heavy clove and cardamom in an Indian curry.