DID YOU KNOW ...

• The word curry can be traced back to a Tamil word which means "spiced sauce".
• Today, the word curry has a different meaning in our world than it does in Southeast Asian and India. There it roughly translates into a type of gravy or stew.
• Curries have been used as far back as the early 1300s or earlier!
• Although most people think of curry as being spicy, the original dish in India didn’t include chili peppers!
• Ancient healers often used curry spices, particularly turmeric, to heal inflammatory ailments. Today, modern medicine is beginning to see the benefits of using spices to treat arthritis.
• According to archeologists, hot and spicy ingredients and seasonings have been incorporated into foods for over 6,000 years.
• There’s a special name for people who love spicy foods: Pyro-groumaniacs!
• Chili peppers have great health benefits! They are rich in vitamins, a good source of beta-carotene, calcium, and potassium, and can even reduce your cholesterol.
• If your mouth is on fire, don’t reach for the water. Instead, choose cold milk or yogurt. Water will only move the oils around in your mouth increasing the fire.

Origin of CURRY

Most people in the world today know what a curry is - or at least think they do. In Britain the term ‘curry’ has come to mean almost any Indian dish, whilst most people from the sub-continent would say it is not a word they use, but if they did it would mean a meat, vegetable or fish dish with spicy sauce and rice or bread.

The earliest known recipe for meat in spicy sauce with bread appeared on tablets found near Babylon in Mesopotamia, written in cuniform text as discovered by the Sumerians, and dated around 1700 B.C., probably as an offering to the god Marduk.

The origin of the word itself is the stuff of legends, but most pundits have settled on the origins being the Tamil word ‘kari’ meaning spiced sauce. In his excellent Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson quotes this as a fact and supports it with reference to the accounts from a Dutch traveller in 1598 referring to a dish called ‘Carriel’. He also refers to a Portuguese cookery book from the seventeenth century calledAtre do Cozinha, with chilli-based curry powder called ‘caril’.

In her ‘50 Great Curries of India’, Camellia Panjabi says the word today simply means ‘gravy’. She also goes for the Tamil word ‘kaari or kaaree’ as the origin, but with some reservations, noting that in the north, where the English first landed in 1608 then 1612, a gravy dish is called ‘khadi’.

Pat Chapman of Curry Club fame offers several possibilities:- ‘karahi or karai(Hindi)’ from the wok-shaped cooking dish, ‘kari’ from the Tamil or ‘Turkuri’ a seasonal sauce or stew.

The one thing all the experts seem to agree on is that the word originates from India and was adapted and adopted by the British Raj.

On closer inspection, however, there is just as much evidence to suggest the word was English all along.

In the time of Richard I there was a revolution in English cooking . In the better-off kitchens, cooks were regularly using ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, galingale, cubebs, coriander, cumin, cardamom and aniseed, resulting in highly spiced cooking very similar to India. They also had a ‘powder fort’, ‘powder douce’ and ‘powder blanch’.

Then, in Richard II’s reign (1377-1399) the first real English cookery book was written. Richard employed 200 cooks and they, plus others including philosophers, produced a work with 196 recipes in 1390 called ‘The Forme of Cury’. ‘Cury’ was the Old English word for cooking derived from the French ‘cuire’ - to cook, boil, grill - hence cuisine.

8 Health Benefits of Curry

1. Eases Swelling in Joints

Turmeric, the primary ingredient in curry, is responsible for many of the dish’s health benefits. The most prolific may be its effect on those who suffer from arthritis or otherwise sore and inflamed joints. Turmeric may reduce swelling and ease the pain associated with inflammation of the joints. This claim has been tested conclusively on rats.

2. May Reduce Risk of Alzheimer’s and Dementia

Another benefit of the turmeric in curry is a reduced risk for Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia. This is because of curcumin within the turmeric; curcumin can identify plaques in the brain called amyloid plaques. In excess, amyloid plaques can interfere with the brain’s wiring and cause memory to degrade over time. If you ingest enough curcumin on a regular basis, the curcumin will bind to the plaque and keep it from reproducing.

3. May Reduce Risk of Cancer

Turmeric has been found to reduce the risk of developing prostate, breast, skin and colorectal cancer, possibly because of its antioxidant properties. It may also at least reduce the speed at which these cancers progress. However, ingesting curry alone will not erase your risk for cancer.

4. Boosts Immunity

Other ingredients in curry, such as chili pepper and even curcumin, are beneficial in boosting your body’s immunity and healing properties. This is because they’re rich in vitamins such as vitamin C, vitamin A and vitamin B6, and they boost the infection-fighting cells.

5. Eases Digestion

Ingredients in curry such as asafoetida, allspice, anise, cardamom and black pepper may be helpful in easing digestion problems. Indigestion, constipation, loss of appetite, stomachaches and even hemorrhoids may improve after ingesting the dish on a regular basis.

6. Helps Burn Fat

While a diet of only curry won’t keep the pounds off on its own, it’s actually a well-balanced way to get a variety of vegetables and proteins that may help you burn fat cells. Black pepper is the dish’s ingredient that’s best able to break down fat cells.

7. May Help Manage Asthma

A number of ingredients in this dish are purported to help ease the frequency of an asthma sufferer’s symptoms. Asafoetida and curcumin alike can help regulate symptoms of mild asthma.

8. Improves Appearance

Many ingredients in the dish, such as turmeric and cinnamon, are rich in antioxidants, which can help improve the appearance of your skin and help prevent the negative cosmetic effects of long-term exposure to pollutants or smoke. The curcumin can also improve the appearance of your hair and nails by providing necessary proteins.