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What is curry?

Cuisine or construct? RUSHANI EPA retraces the history of the saucy, spicy dish across the Indian subcontinent and its diaspora.
Yellow bamboo shoot and chicken curry
Yellow bamboo shoot and chicken curry

What exactly is a curry? Curry can denote anything from a stew to a silky, saucy number, a viscous, gravy-based meal, a soup, or even a dry-fried spiced dish made by any culture from across the world, but most notably the Indian subcontinent.

The term could have originated from the Tamil word “kari”, meaning spiced sauce, but British food historian and writer Dr Elizabeth Collingham claimed it all began when the Portuguese colonised Goa on India’s west coast in the early 1500s. The Portuguese heard Goans saying the word “kari” or “caril” and adopted it. Later, the British claimed it as “curry” and spread it across the world. Used broadly, the unspecified use of the word can erase the unique names of dishes in their mother dialects, making these dishes more approachable to the West.

Back in the UK, high-end grocers stocked curry powders and chutneys based on flavours they thought resembled those found in Madras, Bombay and Calcutta. All the food across Madras, now known as Chennai, in India’s south, was distilled into one uniform curry powder, and Madras curry still populates menus to this day. The kicker is that it isn’t even Indian; it’s a British creation, just like the word “curry” itself.

Whichever region’s curry you favour, or if you like your bowl sauced or soupy, here’s our guide into some of the more popular types of curry in Australia.

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Beef Massaman, a popular type of Thai curry
Beef Massaman curry (photo: William Meppem)

Thai curry

A rich picture of Thai regional cuisines is often painted over with the broad brush of green curry, red curry or Massaman curry outside of Thailand. The Thai government only spurred this along with its initiative, the Global Thai program, which it launched in 2002 to get Thai food into restaurants and homes across the globe. In doing so, they created standardised menus that featured the aforementioned curries.

Palisa Anderson of Chat Thai and Boon Luck Farm is among a cohort of chefs deprogramming Australia’s homogenised understanding of Thai food to restore regionality (no, you don’t have to say goodbye to your favourite Thai green curry recipe). Thailand’s history with curry differs to other Southeast Asian countries. While Thailand was never colonised, Anderson says it was “cross-pollinated” by migration throughout the ages. Take the Massaman curry, for example, which many contend to be a Southern Thai dish influenced by Malay and Indian cuisine but Thai food expert David Thompson traces the origins back to 17th-century Thailand via Persian merchant Sheik Ahmad Qomi.

From the hearty cuisine in the northernmost part of Thailand, Lanna, with its dishes such as khao soi, a curried chicken noodle soup; to the fiery Isaan region in Thailand’s north-east that spruiks fresh and grilled foods high in acid like som dtum, the green papaya salad; to Bangkok’s central Thai cuisine showing off the best of “royal” cuisine along with street-vendor dishes; all the way down to the south lined with coconuts, where you can find the spiciest food of all and is home to a large Muslim population who cook up a mean goat biryani.

“Every dish is different from village to village, even though the name might be the same, the way it is cooked would be completely different,” says Anderson. “What is a curry? Is it a soup or a stew? All I know is that it means it’s an abundance of food, representing our generosity and eagerness to share and nourish.”

Now, it’s time to make our Thai green curry recipe, red curry recipe, or Massaman curry recipe (pictured above).


Chana masala curry
Chana masala curry (photo: Alicia Taylor)

Australian curry

Understanding curry in Australia starts with spice blends. Masala refers to a mix of spice powders in various Indian languages, like Urdu “masalih” or Hindi “garam masala”, being a hot blend and one of the most famous ones. There are different varieties from varying regions, but it was coined in ancient times as a medicinal spice blend. Meanwhile, in countries across Southeast Asia, fresh or dried spices are ground by hand in a mortar and pestle to create unique, fresh spice mixes.

Historically in Australia, Keen’s Curry Powder, a blend of turmeric, coriander, salt, fenugreek, black pepper, chilli, rice flour, allspice, and celery, was the only access to spices migrants could find when they came to Australia. The Tasmanian condiment, created by British arrivals Joseph and Annie Keen in the 1860s, embedded further into Australian food culture when missionaries introduced the powder to First Nations Australians – not Australia’s finest moment, but a significant one all the same. Even now, it’s big in the homes of Aboriginal Australians in recipes such as curried sausages. Torres Strait Islander chef and restaurateur Nornie Bero even uses it in her dad’s favourite recipe of tin meat (corned beef) and rice in Mabu Mabu.

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Sri Lankan curried snapper with rice
Sri Lankan snapper curry (photo: William Meppem)

Sri Lankan curry

Chef Gayan Pieris at Many Little Bar & Dining in Red Hill South puts his Sri Lankan culture on a plate. Pieris sees the generic term “curry” as a launching point for new diners. “Curry is used as a universal word for pretty much any spiced dish but it’s our job now to explain the differences to people. Even if I call something a Sri Lankan chicken curry, we have so many different variants from across the island. I try to state the town or area from which each dish is inspired on our menu,” he says.

On his menu, Negombo prawn curry highlights the use of prawns, which is common for the coastal town on the island’s east, and Jaffna goat curry shows off a dish that harnesses the rich intensity of roasted curry powder from the Tamil population in the island’s north.

Now, it’s time to make our Sri Lankan chicken curry recipe or Sri Lankan fish curry (pictured above).


Pork tonkatsu Japanese curry
Pork katsu curry
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Japanese curry

In a game of global ping pong, colonisation spread “curry” from India to Britain and into Southeast Asia. In Japan, curry, or “kare” was introduced during the Meiji Restoration, with British sailors nourishing themselves with a thicker, heartier roux in their curry. It was classified by the Japanese as yōshoku, or Western food, in the same vein as katsu and hamburger steak.

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