Curry’s complex background simplified in potato dish

Referring to last week’s column on the Indian ricelentil gruel called khichree, which the British changed to kedgeree, longtime reader Randy Burnside, of Jupiter, emailed:

“Your article on how the Raj changed Indian names for food, inspired me to ask for another explanation.

I have a ‘Kari’ tree with wonderfully pungent leaves. I received it as a small ‘baby’ growing from a large ‘mother’ tree’s roots. It grew in a pot for one season and is now in my Jupiter Farms yard, over six feet tall. (I have several ‘babies’ if anyone would like one.)

My dictionary says it is a ‘Kari’ tree, Tamil. I have read that the British changed it to ‘curry,’ the Indian spice we all love. Please authenticate.”

Thanks for being a reader, Randy. Yes, indeed the Brits changed, you may say even corrupted, the pronunciation of most of the foreign words they met in their vast global empire, of which India was the crown jewel. Almost literally, since the Kohinoor, the diamond atop the “taj” (crown) of the Moghal emperors, ended up atop the crown of the British emperors.

The sun has set a long time ago on the arc of the empire, but it is the genius of the Brits that their language is now the world’s lingua franca. Some superficial atavistic urge has in fact led to rolling back some of the “changes” – the city of Calcutta is now Kolkata and Bombay is Mumbai, for instance – but tune into any talk show, or film award show on Indian or Pakistanian TV stations (on the internet, of course) and you will see what I mean – the language used is more English than Hindi or Urdu, not to speak of the dress and the elan.

The Brits are probably the only imperial power that has left behind such a vast, mostly positive legacy, even after its apparent demise. Of course it has helped that America, with its English language and culture, has been the dominant virtual world empire for over a century, even as the dusk was settling in over Pax Britannica.

To come back to your query, yes, the original word is indeed kari (pronounced ka-ari with a long ‘a’) and it is an original Tamil word from southern India, where old Madras, now called Chinnai, is the major city. But even in the Indian subcontinent, the English variant – curry – is the common pronunciation now, especially among the educated class.

Thank God we have a large curry leaf tree in our backyard, which grew out of a runner of our original tree that died mysteriously several years ago. Its pungent leaves are an essential part of many curried dishes my wife Kaisari makes. They are especially appropriate in most vegetarian as well as some daal (lentil) dishes. These leaves are available in several Indian groceries here, either fresh or dried. There really is no substitute, although some books suggest bay or cassia leaves. Here is a simple dish to make. Kitchen Counselor is a weekly column about kitchen and cooking tips written by Gholam Rahman, a former staff writer for The Palm Beach Post. To reach him, email gholam_rahman@ pbpost