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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

The subject of Curry has been extensively debated on this talk page.
Before adding any more threads, please look to see if your question has been asked and answered already.
To help you, here are a few of the most frequently asked questions.
Aren't curries necessarily Indian?
Many styles of curry are eaten in India, but Indian restaurants outside the country serve food adapted to local tastes. Outside India, curries are often prepared with curry powder rather than freshly ground spices, and cooked much more simply. Southeast Asian curries use ingredients like pork and pineapple not used in Indian curries.
Isn't "curry" just a synonym for Tamil kari?
No, that's an etymological fallacy. The English word is derived, possibly indirectly, from Tamil kari, but the English and international dish(es) have changed in many ways from Dravidian cuisine.
Why mention British influence on an Indian dish?
Because Anglo-Indians adopted a version of curry, and British traders brought curry to England in the 17th century. From there it went to the Caribbean and to Japan in the 19th century, becoming the international dish it is today.
Why all this talk of cultural exchange?
Spices came to India in ancient trade from Southeast Asia. Key curry ingredients – chili peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes – arrived in trade from the Americas, after Columbus's voyage. Before the 16th century, Indian dishes were spiced with nothing hotter than ordinary pepper. The English traded curry around the world. Other nations like Japan adopted the dish in their own way. Every time, the dishes were adapted to local cultures.

Removal of subjective terms

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In medieval India, proto-curries were flavoured with mild spices such as asafoetida, cardamom, coriander, cumin, and ginger, with the modest heat of black pepper. A definite step in the creation of modern curry was the arrival in India of spicy hot chili peppers

I would like to remove adjectives like "modest" and "spicy hot" from the article. The addition of chilli peppers did modify curry to some extent but there are no reliable sources to indicate that the spice level changed over time. The spicyness of a dish also varies with the amount of spice added and we don't have reliable sources to be aware of how black pepper was added before to curry and how much chilli peppers are added now, as they vary wildly. OrigamiSoft (talk) 22:32, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sauces in India before Columbus could contain black pepper or long pepper to provide a little heat, but not chili, so they were not spicy hot by modern standards

Same issue here and the source for this links to a podcast on "gastropod" and I am not entirely sure that this follows Wikipedia:Reliable sources. I also cannot find any mention of black peppers being less spicy and thus not "spicy hot by modern standards" in the provided source. OrigamiSoft (talk) 22:42, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I replied to your earlier comment. I think this issue is stemming from a perception, which after reading more, I find to be prevalent in a very small subset of people who eat curries (mainly, some but not all British/non-Asian people): the notion that the level of heat is a defining factor of curries. This is not the notion prevalent amongst the majority of scholars, chefs, food historians, or indeed, in the vast majority of the billion plus South and South East Asian populations who eat curries every day. YawnkyDoodle (talk) 22:49, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with this point of view. I am visiting this page after a while, and I see that there have been a number of changes, though some issues persist. One of these issues is what appears to be the framing of 'curry' or 'modern curry' (this distinction itself is not a well-recognised one) as a 'spicy hot' dish. Most curries today, as was the case historically, are not particularly spicy hot. Conversely, there was always some space for spicy hot curries, using black pepper, long pepper, Indian mustard, and cloves. And while none of these reach the Carolina Reaper levels of heat, they by themselves can and do pack heat enough to clear up noses, make eyes and mouths water because they are used generously and not as a dash of seasoning as often used in the west. It has been pointed out by some scholars that chillies in a number of Indian languages have the same name as the regional name for pepper because it was a (cheaper, easy-to-grow) replacement for pepper. Chillies are used today much in the same way and proportion as hot spices historically. That means, mostly to give food a tempering flavour and/or mild, balancing heat and sometimes in very few corner cases to give it a strong burning heat. YawnkyDoodle (talk) 22:45, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for asking this question but I am quite new to editing Wikipedia. Can I add the verification needed tag to the this point? I know we're not supposed make any major edits without discussion on the Talk page

Sauces in India before Columbus could contain black pepper or long pepper to provide a little heat, but not chili, so they were not spicy hot by modern standards

I think I might have to examine the article more closely to reduce an ambiguity still left OrigamiSoft (talk) 22:50, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know. I edited Wikipedia years ago in the early 2000s, lost that id, and literally created a new one after many years because I saw some activity around this subject, which is something that interests me. YawnkyDoodle (talk) 23:00, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sharing my own list of research and reading for this article. A number of these sources are already used in this article, but I have extracted and made my notes on parts of them which may help improve this article. Please do not remove this; though this looks elaborate, it is comprehensive and easy to quickly refer to. YawnkyDoodle (talk • contribs) 01:24, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your interest. All terms in natural languages such as English are ambiguous, and all on any topic which is at all contentious are open to people's interpretations, so are "subjective" in different ways: this cannot be avoided. What we can do is to define terms carefully within the article when first used to minimise ambiguity. The term "curry" itself is used worldwide for a class of foods, and in the Indian subcontinent with somewhat political overtones. Wikipedia covers many topics that are much more political than this; we just need to do our best to explain things neutrally and reliably. The article is already well cited and carefully worded; changes need to be considered at least as carefully to ensure they are improvements rather than disturbing the equilibrium that has only been attained with considerable effort (see the FAQ above). On "heat", in Britain curries are expected to have a little spiciness, even for a very mild korma with other attributes: but they certainly do not have to be "hot". All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:47, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You have responded to me about subjectivity of the language broadly, but to be clear when I said I agree with this point of view, I meant that I agreed with OrigamiSoft's comments about the degree/quality of heat in curries, and not in a broad sense because I don't know what other terms or phrasing they have in mind. Though it is intriguing to read your observation that the term 'curry' is used 'in the Indian subcontinent with somewhat political overtones': because as someone who routinely encounters the term and the food in the subcontinent, this political overtone is entirely absent in a vast majority of the usage. Ironically, the only instances of any political load present in the word is almost inevitably in context of outside the subcontinent, largely to do with how curry is defined and perceived.
Based on my updated perception, I do agree with you that 'On "heat", in Britain curries are expected to have a little spiciness, even for a very mild korma with other attributes: but they certainly do not have to be "hot".', and as I have said in an earlier comment to OrigamiSoft, this perception is colouring the phrasing and tone in this article.
As you have said earlier, there will be some subjectivity in articles, and I feel that the point of view that the understanding of curry in this article that should take precedence is the one that is in line with its major current (and historical) form which is also entwined with its place of origin. YawnkyDoodle (talk) 10:43, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That all sounds very reasonable, but the final phrase is concerning. "Place of origin" may sound simple and neutral, but it isn't. The cuisine began there of course, but it was modified by foreign influences and cultural exchanges over many centuries; and curries developed further in Britain and elsewhere. We must avoid both colonialism and saffronising. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:54, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the sentiment that "we must avoid both colonialism and saffronising", but not sure why putting an emphasis on the place of origin negates its various colonial and pre-colonial influences and/or its diverse global evolutions? Emphasizing India (and the Indian subcontinent) does not automatically default to aggressive Indian/Hindu nationalism.
Shouldn't South Asians' (especially Indians') perceptions of their own historical and daily food be given some sort of emphasis? There are more Indian eateries in the top three or four Indian cities than all of Europe (including the UK), North America, and Australia combined.
Even outside India a number of Bangladeshi and Pakistani establishments present themselves as 'Indian restaurants'. On one hand, this is unfortunate because it does takes away space and highlight from the nuances of actual Pakistani and Bangladeshi cuisines (which have large overlaps with Indian cuisines, of course). On the other hand, this goes to show that both in the subcontinent as well as outside it curries are largely understood to be originally 'Indian food', and I would say that is rightly so. YawnkyDoodle (talk) 11:24, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think we agree on the framework. The key thing is always the detail. The cited article text sets out a clear chronology. No historical event ever negates another event; they just fit together to describe what happened. Vague claims that curries are largely, generally, by the common man, etc etc, understood etc etc (add weasel words of choice) to be Indian food etc etc are worthless: we need specific detail of actual, reliably cited events, and we will make progress. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:36, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with most of your points, including about vague language and weasel words. I also keep in minds your points about how some subjectivity cannot be avoided and that we must try to carefully try to define things. I also hope that we will come up with methods to include broad public consensus about things which may not be researched in an academic sense.
For example, when you say "in Britain curries are expected to have a little spiciness, even for a very mild korma", even though there may be limitations regarding the quality of citations for this claim and although this may be not in line with my understanding of what curries in South and South East Asia are defined by, I trust that you represent a truthful view of a popular understanding and build on that. I hope for a similar openness as we dive further into this.
That said, I suggest we just open and close focussed discussions on this page. YawnkyDoodle (talk) 23:50, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You are taking up a great deal of time and space on this talk page, to little benefit; this (with the additional threads below) is getting very close to WP:DISRUPTIVE. "Popular understanding", general principles and suchlike vague phrases are more or less definitional of what Wikipedia calls WP:Original research (please read the policy): uncited claims and weak generalisations that derive from what some editor believes, rather than what the sources say. I do hope we can now terminate this discussion as it is proving altogether unproductive. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:34, 19 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Based on the edit history, YawnkyDoodle has made a single edit to this article on 28 October 2025. I am unable to find additional edits by them on this page (see the user-contribution search linked from the View history tab, e.g. via the Toolforge user search) https://sigma.toolforge.org/usersearch.py?name=YawnkyDoodle&page=Curry&server=enwiki&max=. They have also been transparent in noting that they edited Wikipedia in the past, were inactive for a period, and have only recently resumed contributing.
Throughout this discussion, YawnkyDoodle has responded to points raised courteously and has made an effort to engage constructively. They have compiled a substantial list of sources that could be used to further improve the article, which suggests an intent to contribute productively. In this context, it seems appropriate to reiterate the importance of Wikipedia:Assume good faith and, given the current situation, the guidance at Wikipedia:NOTVANDALISM.
Disagreement over content, sourcing, or framing is not vandalism. Wikipedia content is developed through discussion and compromise, in line with Wikipedia:CONSENSUS. Repeatedly characterizing good-faith dissent as vandalism risks discouraging participation and does not help move the article toward consensus. This is particularly relevant when the bulk of recent edits and positions on the page come from a single editor, as articles are not owned by any individual editor per Wikipedia:OWN.
I would also like to emphasize the importance of maintaining a respectful tone in discussions, as outlined in Wikipedia:CIVIL. Differences of opinion are expected, but addressing them through policy-based arguments rather than attributions of motive helps keep discussions productive.
Finally, YawnkyDoodle has suggested keeping discussions focused and structured, which seems reasonable:

That said, I suggest we just open and close focussed discussions on this page.

I support this approach and believe it would help keep the conversation constructive, civil, and aligned with Wikipedia’s collaborative norms. OrigamiSoft (talk) 17:02, 19 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your comments, which are plainly well-intentioned. However, everybody here has been civil, and there have been no tangible issues about the actual article text as far as WP:CONSENSUS or for that matter WP:OWN might be concerned; and nobody has even suggested anybody was an intentional vandal, far from it (that would have been easy and quick to deal with). The issue at hand is the enormous length and poor focus of the talk page presentation, which has suggested very little actually about the article. There's a new item below which, again at great length, resulted in one minor change to the text (success, I guess) and a large amount of material which is plainly WP:UNDUE being on a minor point, covered in another article and presented in this article in one sentence, that the thread implied could be extended to many paragraphs. That misses the basic point that a top-level Wikipedia article is a summary of much other material, not a ragbag that tries to cover every detail at all imaginable levels on all possible subtopics. Suggestions for improvements need to be concise, focused, and in line with standard practice, which includes understanding that articles fit into a framework (like the various navbars at the end of the article here) and should not be repeating materials already covered in other articles in that framework. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:30, 19 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the response. I agree that this is a top-level article and that proposals should be concise, focused, and mindful of WP:UNDUE and the article’s summary role.
That said, I don’t think the length of a discussion alone makes it unhelpful, particularly when it introduces new sources or perspectives. The sources compiled by YawnkyDoodle are interesting and, in several cases, help clarify points that have been sources of disagreement. Even if not all of that material belongs in this article, it can still be useful in informing how existing content is framed or weighted.
I also want to clarify that my earlier comments were not about alleging incivility, but about ensuring that differences of opinion are resolved through policy-based discussion and consensus, rather than being dismissed outright.
To keep things productive going forward, it would probably help if YawnkyDoodle (and any others) split distinct issues into separate, clearly scoped talk-page threads, each tied to a specific, actionable change to the article text. That should make it easier to assess proposals on their merits and move discussions toward consensus. OrigamiSoft (talk) 20:19, 19 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. We certainly need a way ahead. At the moment I don't see anything further that actually involves editing the article. If there are to be further suggestions, it'd be best if they were simple and concrete, like "Change 'The dog bites the man' to 'The man bites the dog', reason: per source Jones 2021". Chiswick Chap (talk) 02:53, 20 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ongoing References and Reading List for Curry

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Origin and History of Curry
Title Year Author Source Type _____________________Extract/s_____________________ _____________________Notes_____________________ Link Src# Key Takeaways
Easy Curry Cookery 1989 Pamela Clark Cookbook/
Cookery 		"Not all curries are hot some are just deliciously spicy, and it's easy to vary the heat to suit individual tastes simply by adjusting the ingredient that makes a curry hot in flavour." Notice how she says "the ingredient that makes a curry hot in flavour" as opposed to simply saying "chillies". This implies even internationally it was/is understood that chillies are not essential to curries, even for heat. https://archive.org/details/easycurrycookery0000unse/page/n1/mode/2up 1 Curries are not defined by heat or chillies, even by international authors.
Cooking with curry 1952 Florence Brobeck Cookbook/
Cookery 		"Curries well spiced, but not hot, used in moderation, stimulate digestion, nourish a man's body, and exalt his soul." ~From an ancient Hindu religious book The book claims that "This is the first book ever published on curry dishes, either in this country or abroad." https://archive.org/details/cookingwithcurry00brob/page/n7/mode/2up 2 Curries are ideally not hot, but 'well-spiced'. Curries are ancient Indian cuisine and not a modern derivative.
Cooking with curry 1952 Florence Brobeck Cookbook/
Cookery 		"Curry is a ritual in Indian life, through theory and practice for possibly six thousand years, according to ancient holy books." The book claims that "This is the first book ever published on curry dishes, either in this country or abroad." https://archive.org/details/cookingwithcurry00brob/page/n7/mode/2up 3 Curries have been eaten in India continuously for thousands of years.
Curry Club: 250 favourite curries & accompaniments 1992 Pat Chapman Cookbook/
Cookery 		"The Oxford English Dictionary attributes the word 'curry' to the Tamil South Indian word Kari as far back as 1628, when the early English voyagers to India could well have been shown this dish when they asked what was being prepared. Whether or not this is true matters not - kari has remained unchanged for thousands of years." Pat Chapman is well-known as the founder of "The Curry Club", and award-winning author of multiple curry guides and Cookbook/Cookerys. https://archive.org/details/curryclub250favo0000chap/page/178/mode/1up 4 Curries have been eaten in India for thousands of years, and there is reliable continuity in their form and essence.
200 Healthy Curries 2013 Sunil Vijayakar Cookbook/
Cookery 		"A common perception is that a curry is a hot and spicy dish. Yes, you can eat a curry that will blow your socks off but, on the whole, most curry recipes are delicate and highly sophisticated, containing a balanced blend of spices and herbs." The book is published in London and is addressing the 'common perception' in that region. https://archive.org/details/200healthycurrie0000vija/page/8/mode/2up 5 Curries are typically not too hot, but delicate, sophisticated, and balanced.
Mmmm... curries 2011 Love Food (Publisher) Cookbook/
Cookery 		"Curries do not have to be although some are. but must be aromatic and balanced The range of spices used therefore is far more extensive than the list over the page and may include warm and fragrant flavourings rather than just hot ones." Even books without a named author, meant for common usage recognise that curries are not meant to be exceedingly hot, or at all hot in many cases. https://archive.org/details/mmmmcurries0000unse/page/6/mode/2up 6 Defining quality of a curry is it delicate and balanced nature, and not how hot it is.
The lore of spices: their history and uses around the world 1991 Jan Öjvind Swahn Historical/
Academic 		"Οne of the world's first Cookbook/Cookerys was written in the fifth century A.D. by an Indian brahmin, Sheta Karma. He paid close attention to the priests' temple service, and their duty to prepare good food for offerings to the eternal deities. For us, who sit at mortal tables 1,500 years later, it is still exciting to note that he described a curry mixture which recalls those of recent years." Not sure which ancient text he is referring to, and I am sceptical that something is not right about this reference, but the core point he makes is valid, that curries have ancient continuity. I am including this despite my scepticism as the book is by a respected author and I could be wrong. https://archive.org/details/loreofspicesthei0000swah/mode/2up 7 Curries are an ancient India cuisine, and modern curries are strikingly similar to ancient ones.
Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors 2006 Lizzie Collingham Historical/
Academic 		"However, the curries of ancient India were not the homogeneous dishes often associated with the term today. Instead, they were a blend of regional spices and ingredients meticulously crafted into distinct culinary styles, reflecting the rich culture and biodiversity of the land." Clearly mentions that ancient India had curries and that they were diverse, and that the western idea of curries is homogenised. She uses a term 'often associated'; the question is often associated by whom? Certainly not by Indians who inherit the legacy of curry, nor by any other South or South East Asians, who eat curry every day. https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Curry/17OHtHr10hwC?hl=en 8 Curries existed in India, and they were vastly diverse.
Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors 2006 Lizzie Collingham Historical/
Academic 		"By the 16th century, the Portuguese had introduced a number of now-essential ingredients to Indian kitchens, including tomatoes, potatoes, and chili peppers, the latter of which fundamentally transformed the heat profile of many Indian dishes." Clearly mentions the importance and impact of chillies, but does not cite is as a point of origin or definitive step for curries. She speaks about 'many Indian dishes', not 'all modern curries', nor about 'curries as we know them today'. https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Curry/17OHtHr10hwC?hl=en 9 Curries existed in India, and they were vastly diverse.
The Philosophy of Curry 2022 Sejal Sukhadwala Historical/
Academic 		""Curries are mentioned often in ancient Indian literature or writings about India. There are references to white rice served with curried crabs and vegetables in prehistoric India. There’s also a detailed description of a picnic in the Mahabharata (written between 400 BC and the second century), which mentions curries among several other meat preparations: ‘Clean cooks, under the supervision of diligent stewards, served large pieces of meat roasted on spits; meat cooked as curries and sauces made of tamarind and pomegranate ...’ During the Aryan era (1800–1500 BC), Hindu sects such as the Kanyakubjas in Uttar Pradesh served rice and vegetable curries at weddings.

An early reference to curry-like dishes comes from the Greek historian Megasthenes (350–290 BC), who wrote in his travelogue titled Indica: ‘Among the Indians, at a banquet, a table is set before each individual ... and on the table is placed a golden dish on which they throw, first of all, boiled rice ... and then they add many sorts of meat dressed after the Indian fashion.’ Another historic observation was in AD 477 in the Mahavanso, in which a Brahmin named Kassapo ‘partook of rice dressed in butter, with its full accompaniment of curries’. The Mahavanso, also known as the Mahavamsa or Mahawanso, is a chronicle of the ancient kings of Ceylon, once a part of India.

In Indian Food: A Historical Companion, K. T. Achaya (1923–2002) describes one of the earliest recorded recipes for a curry in the second century AD: Blending of pulses along with vegetables and meat to give curries was practised; thus mung dhal, pieces of lotus stalk, and chironji seeds were seasoned with asafoetida and green ginger pieces, fried in oil, and boiled to a curry, to which might have been added fried brinjal pieces, mutton, jackal meat or even animal marrow, the dish being finished with black pepper and dry ginger: an elaborate concoction truly fit for a king.

Travellers to India in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries also described royal curries in lavish detail. The Portuguese writer Duarte Barbosa (1480–1521) wrote in his 1516 Book of Duarte Barbosa about the Rajah of Calicut’s meal: ‘Attendants ... brought in a large silver tray on which were placed empty silver saucers. On another low stool was placed a copper pot of cooked rice. A pile of rice was heaped on a plate, and curried meat, sauces and chutneys placed in the saucers.’"" 		The book 'The Philosophy of Curry' has been critically acclaimed by many book review and food culture platforms, and people, including authors, food personalities, and scholars, such as Bee Wilson, Nigella Lawson, Dan Lepard, and Krishnendu Ray (Chair, Department of Nutrition and Food Studies, NYU). The author lives in London, so this implies she is quite aware of the sense of the word 'curry' as is used in the UK. https://www.hindustantimes.com/lifestyle/art-culture/flavours-of-ancient-india-read-an-exclusive-excerpt-from-the-philosophy-of-curry-101651240309010.html 10 Curries have existed in India since millenia, and have been documented as such by Indic, Greek, and Portugese sources, and have later been recognised in the same sense by multiple scholars, translators, and researchers"
The Oxford companion to food, 3rd Edition 2014 Alan Davidson Dictionary/
Encyclopedia/
Definition 		"Curry: a term adopted into the English language from India, has changed its meaning in migrating and has become ubiquitous as a menu word now denotes varions kinds of dish in numerous different parts of the world but all are savour and all spiced" This entry deals with "curry" as a term that is "a menu word now denotes varions kinds of dish" as opposed to commenting on the Indian-origin curry specifically. It is not stating that "Curry is a dish mainly derived from the interchange of Indian cuisine with European taste in food" (unlike as cited in the article. Like many definitions of curry, it comments that it refers to different kinds of dishes, simply asserting that "all are savoury and all spiced". In fact, the entru further clarifies that "The earliest apparent mention in print in the English language occurs in a translation (1598) of a Dutch traveller's account of voyages in the E and W. Indies. Referring to Indians, this text states that: 'Most of their fish is eaten with rice, which they seeth in broth, which they put upon the rice, and is somewhat sour but it tasteth well and is called Carriel, which is their daily meat' This account was reasonably correct." This understanding of curry (under different names) spans centuries, and continues till today. The meaning of the term curry has expanded, but it has not excluded the original meaning, nor has its centre shifted from the original meaning. https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont0000davi_w2w6/page/241/mode/1up 11 Curries existed in the same way they are understood and eaten today since before colonial times, and one part of its meaning, that is the syle of food it has has remained the same, while another part of its meaning, which is the ethnocultural association of the term, has expanded over time to include cuisines in other nations.
The Oxford companion to food, 2nd Edition 1999 Alan Davidson Dictionary/
Encyclopedia/
Definition 		"CURRY is an Indian category of spicy sauces or dishes transformed for Anglo-Indian purposes." This entry deals with "curry" as a term that is "a menu word now denotes various kinds of dish" as opposed to commenting on the Indian-origin curry specifically. It is not stating that "Curry is a dish mainly derived from the interchange of Indian cuisine with European taste in food" (unlike as cited in the article. Like many definitions of curry, it comments that it refers to differnt kinds of dishes, simply asserting that "all are savoury and all spiced". In fact, the entru further clarifies that "The earliest apparent mention in print in the English language occurs in a translation (1598) of a Dutch traveller's account of voyages in the E and W. Indies. Referring to Indians, this text states that: 'Most of their fish is eaten with rice, which they seeth in broth, which they put upon the rice, and is somewhat sour but it tasteth well and is called Carriel, which is their daily meat' This account was reasonably correct." This understanding of curry (under different names) spans centuries, and continues till today. The meaning of the term curry has expanded, but it has not excluded the original meaning, nor has its centre shifted from the original meaning. https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont0000davi_w2w6/page/241/mode/1up 12 Curries existed in the same way they are understood and eaten today since before colonial times, and one part of its meaning, that is the syle of food itis has remained the same, while another part of its meaning, which is the ethnocultural association of the term, has expanded over time to include cuisines in other nations.
History of Burma 1925 G. E. Harvey Historical/
Academic 		"In them he set up what were neither spirit imagesnor images of the Lord, and worshipped them with offerings of rice, curry and fermented drinks, night and morning." (p. 17, referring to a 10th century CE event) and "King Narathihapate, styled Siritribhavanatityapavaradhaniniaraja, the supreme commander of a vast army of thirty-six million ' soldiers, the swallower of three hundred dishes of curry daily" (p. 63, referring to a 13th century CE king). Dishes from as early as 10th century CE Myanmar is interpreted as curry (and rightly so), because curries refer to a type of food. And European influence is not central to its definition or understanding. https://ia801504.us.archive.org/26/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.32059/2015.32059.History-Of-Burma_text.pdf 13 Curries are a type of food which are neither defined by European taste nor by Columbian ingredients
Curry primer : a grammar of spice cookery 1984 Juel Andersen Cookbook/
Cookery 		“Curry is spicy food; curry is colorful food; curry is exotic and delectable food but the curry we have always known just doesn't exist. But we will call it curry anyway, and simply redefine it. We'll say that it is spicy because it is piquant aromatic, taney and flavorful it is not just peppery and hot.""

“Whatever this kind of cooking is to be called, cooking with spices goes back to pre-history. Grinding stones found in excavations of the ancient cities of the indus valley, Harappa and Mohenjodaro (4000 BCE), contained traces of mustard seed, cumin, saffron, fennel, and tamarind which, presumably, were used in cooking.” 		Very astutely, with the phrase ""Whatever this kind of cooking is to be called"", this book observes that the name 'curry' is less important, what is more significant and contant is that it is a type food characterized by style of cooking, and its ethnocultural origin. https://archive.org/details/juelandersenscur0000ande/page/8/mode/2up 14 Curry is not just peppery and hot. Curry is a type of food, that, irrespective of its name, goes back to Indian prehistory."
50 great curries of India 1980 Camellia Panjabi Cookbook/
Cookery 		""Curry, as the word is used today in India, simply means gravy. In the West, gravy is a liquid sauce made with juice from the meat, and thickened with flour and seasonings. Indian curry or gravy is made by cooking the meat or vegetables along with lots of ingredients including thickening agents and a combination of spices but using no flour. Western dishes most closely resembling curry are ragout, navarin and hotpot.

The origin of the word curry seems to be a meat or vegetable dish to be eaten with rice, which is considered to be the main dish of the meal."" 		Curry is defined as a type of food, both historical and modern, Indian and Western. This definition does not include any mention of how hot or spicy it should be, or any European influence on its nature. https://archive.org/details/50greatcurriesof0000panj_p4c8/mode/2up 15 Curry is defined as a type of food, both historical and modern, Indian and Western. This definition does not include any mention of how hot or spicy it should be, or any European influence on its nature."
New curries 2006 Pamela Clark Cookbook/
Cookery 		"Generally accepted as originating from kari, a Tamil word for a spicy or seasonal gravy or sauce, a curry is basically just that, while the recipes vary from country to country, and even region to region, most share the common denominator of being wet and savoury. From an incendiary Goan vindaloo to a mellow Kenyan stew, from traditional robust lamb and chicken mixtures to lighter seafood and vegetable dishes new to our repertoires, there's a curry to suit all tastebuds and occasions." This definition includes international curries. In fact, it states "Curry lovers are familiar with Indian curries, but New Curries widens the repertoire with curries from all over Asia, including Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam." And yet it does not mandate heat or European/Columbian influence as a seminal or definitive factor. https://archive.org/details/newcurries0000unse/mode/2up 16 Curry is a type of food. It has Indian origins. It is found across the world. It may or may not be hot.
A world of curries: an international Cookbook/Cookery 1967 Ruth Philpott Collins Cookbook/
Cookery 		"On the menus of India and the Orient, curries—savory blends of meats and vegetables subtly flavored with a mixture of aromatic spices—are the basic dish. Each region, each country, has its own traditional curry recipes handed down over the generations, in a variety as exotic and bewildering as the East itself." Even when definitions of curry expand to include many countries, India is considered central, and the European/Columbian influence or the degree of heat is not considered a definitive factor. https://archive.org/details/worldofcurriesin0000coll/page/n1/ 17 Curries are savoury, subtle, and aromatic. Curries are traditional.
A world of curries: an international Cookbook/Cookery 1967 Ruth Philpott Collins Cookbook/
Cookery 		“One of the earliest Cookbook/Cookerys we know of (Kheme Sharma) was compiled in the fifth century an. by a Brahmin named Sheta Karma who had gathered his material from the Vedas, Upanishads, and other sacred books of the Hindus. In it he told how the temple priests experimented for long years with native herbs and spices, finally evolving a dish worthy of offering to their gods, and one which would benefit their people-CURRY.

Curry, from the Tamil word kari, means simply meat or food, but meat blended in a manner to provide man with nutriment for his body, appeal to his senses of taste and smell, and aesthetic qualities to satisfy his artistic nature.

The Hindu prayer book, the Bhagavad Gita, deals with the three classes of man's food: the nutritive which gives health, longevity, clear intellect, the strong, salted foods which incresse the passions and rouse fighting blood, and the stale impure ones which lead to the deterioration of the body and to death. These sacred texts also stress the importance of the preparation of the curry dishes, and indeed this preparation has over the centuries become a fine art.

Today curry still remains literally a dish for the gods throughout all India. The devout Hindu still places the first portion of his meal, prepared with ritualistic prayer, at the foot of the tulasi tree in his courtyard, where the gods, in the form of birds or beggars, may partake of it. On feast days he carries a flower-decked tray to the temple where the great stone Siva shares it with a priest or a sacred bull. Curry forms the one main meal of the day for the vast majority of those millions of India's Hindus and Pakistan's Moslems.” 		Kheme Sharma is the author, and the book is Kshemakutuhala, dated conservatively to the mid 16th century CE https://archive.org/details/worldofcurriesin0000coll/page/n1/mode/2up 18 Curry is recognised as a tradition rooted in India, and it is defined by its ethnocultural origin rather than in terms of its heat levels or in terms of influence on it."
Kshemakutuhala by Kshemasharma (critical study) 1988 Hiteshbhai Vrajalal Bhuptani Historical/
Academic 		"Mix the meat with spices and form small and big rounds. Steam them and then fry in ghee. Dip them in spicy buttermilk or curry." This text is dated to 1548 conservatively, but may be earlier as well as noted elsewhere. It is a record of traditional cookery. https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/essay/kshemakutuhala-by-kshemasharma-critical-study/d/doc1598695.html 19 Ancient recipes are often unambiguously translated as 'curry' by scholars who are familiar with the type of food being spoken about
Brinjal - Mango Curry: World's Oldest Curry 2023 TackOn TV Cookbook/
Cookery 		"...the brinjal-mango curry still enjoys popularity in several parts of India. We attempted to recreate the 5000-year-old recipe in our kitchen, adding a couple more ingredients than mentioned earlier. One addition is obviously the salt, but it’s not the sea salt, but the Saindha Namak or Pink/Rock Salt, mined from the salt mines in the Sindh region.

We also used sesame oil, likely the earliest edible oil known to Indians, and also as evidenced by traces found in the research at Farmana.

We omitted chillies, chilli powder, and tomatoes, as these items arrived in India only a few hundred years ago. Instead of chilli, we used pepper to spice up the curry. Trust me, it was delicious" 		This person provides sober reasoning and he also points out that mango-brinjal curries are cooked even today https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1URuedO-_U 20 The Indus Valley discovery is recognised clearly as a curry. Ancient recipes are often unambiguously translated as 'curry' by those who are familiar with the dish. It has maintained a continuity throughout centuries which is recognised by chefs, cooks, scholars, and historians.
What ancient Tamils ate 2018 The Hindu Historical/
Academic 		“Couplets in the Sirupanatrupadai say that people of the Marudham landscape ate white rice with a thick pasty curry made of crab flesh and ridge gourd.” The lines in Sirupānātruppadai being mentioned are (lines 193-195) இருங்காழ் உலக்கை இரும்பு முகம் தேய்த்த

அவைப்பு மாண் அரிசி அமலை வெண்சோறு,

கவைத்தாள் அலவன் கலவையொடு பெறுகுவீர்; . This text is from Sangam Era (early 1st millenium CE), and composed by Nallur Nathananar. It is understood by the translator that the style of food, eaten with rice, maps to 'curry' in English. 		https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/sangam-literature-offers-abundant-references-to-food-in-the-tamil-country/article24046748.ece 21 A number of ancient foods are unambiguously translated as 'curry' based on a shared underlying commonality"
Nation on a Platter: The Culture and Politics of Food and Cuisine in Colonial Bengal 2012 Jayanta Sengupta Historical/
Academic 		""A writer in the Bamabodhini Patrika in 1874 similarly enumerated the types of cooking a bhadramahila (lady) should learn: Native Brahmin dishes of rice and curry; meat in the Moghul style; sweetmeats made from chhana, coconut, semolina, lentils, pumpkin, and thickened milk; western-style pickles and jams, cakes, biscuits, puddings, and bread; and Indian roti, luchi, and puri."" The colonial era author classifies curries as a native food in the context of Bengal, in a paragraph that contrasts it with Mughal food, Western food, and food from other regions/cultures in India. Curried Cultures: Globalization, Food, and South Asia (Edited by Krishnendu Ray and Tulasi Srinivas; University of California) 22 Curry is recognised as a native food, with no mention of European influence."
The history of Indian food and its evolution 2022 Sonal Ved Historical/
Academic 		"This happened at a site in Farmana in India. They pieced together a recipe of the remains. The starch analysis reveals certain ingredients that were found on all these remains, and they pieced together a recipe which is known as the proto-curry or the first curry that Indians ate. Now, of course, we get irritated with people referring to our cuisine as curry cuisine, but we did eat curry, and this is the proto-curry, and it had aubergine, turmeric, ginger, and salt, which means that these were indigenously Indian ingredients. It didn’t have cheese, and it didn’t have paneer, and it didn’t have tomatoes." The term 'Proto-curry' is specifically used to mean 'first curry' referring to the earliest known curry traced to the Indus Valley in 2600 BCE, and is used interchangably with curry. They are not treated as two different categories of food. She refers to the BBC report, which also uses the terms interchangeably, and in the accompanying video the author simply uses the word 'curry'. https://www.ted.com/talks/sonal_ved_the_history_of_indian_food_and_its_evolution/transcript 23 Curry has been eaten in India for more than 4500 years, and people today recognise the continuity of the cuisine and call it by the same name
Cooking the world's oldest known curry 2016 BBC Historical/
Academic 		"Everyone eats. But what if you were told that 4,000 years ago they ate almost exactly what you ate last night? That re-heating it in the microwave was the only real advantage you had over an average Harappan home cook.In other words, had you been washed ashore four millennia ago on the banks of the now lost river of Saraswati and hitched a bullock cart ride to Farmana in the Ghaggar valley near modern-day Delhi, here's what you might have eaten - a curry." The term 'Proto-curry' is specifically used to mean 'first curry' and/or 'first known curry' referring to the earliest known curry traced to the Indus Valley in 2600 BCE, and is used interchangably with curry. They are not treated as two different categories of food. In the accompanying video the author simply uses the word 'curry'. In the article itself the author emphasizes how almost unchanged curries are since 4500 years that "re-heating it in the microwave was the only real advantage" one has gained "over an average Harappan home cook.". https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-36415079 24 Curry has been eaten in India for more than 4500 years, and even the most ancient curry recipe is practically identical to curry recipes today.
Feasts and Fasts: A History of Food in India 2015 Colleen Taylor Sen Historical/
Academic 		"Analysis of the residue in cooking pots and human and bovine teeth (then, as now, bovines were fed leftovers) at Farmana, 60 km (37 miles) from New Delhi, confirms that between 2500 and 2000 BCE cooks in the Indus Valley were using turmeric, ginger and garlic as flavourings – the ingredients for a 4,000-year-old north Indian curry. (Throughout this book the word ‘curry’ denotes a meat, fish or vegetable stew served with rice, bread or another starch.)" Colleen Taylor Sen, cited in the existing version of the article as a 'reliable source' refers to the Indus Valley dish simply as 'curry'.. As in her other book, ahe also defines curry in this one, without any reference to European/Columbian influence and/or heat levels/chillies. https://speakingtigerbooks.com/product/feasts-and-fasts/?srsltid=AfmBOoplJm9wiNh7jyD0cKnatjmwd_WQGXi1QXsn3naXqhyFQOc3RIWb 25 The earliest known curry existed in the Indus Valley. Indians have been eating curry since ancient times. Curry is defined as a type of food, and the influence of various cultures/ingredients and/or its heat levels are not definitive aspects of curry,
The Mystery of Curry 2013 The Slate Historical/
Academic 		""... the original curry predates Europeans’ presence in India by about 4,000 years. Villagers living at the height of the Indus civilization used three key curry ingredients—ginger, garlic, and turmeric—in their cooking. This proto-curry, in fact, was eaten long before Arab, Chinese, Indian, and European traders plied the oceans in the past thousand years.

You may be wondering how on earth anyone can know what people were cooking 4,500 years ago. While the ancients left behind plenty of broken pots and mud-brick house foundations, they generally didn’t leave us their recipes. And foodstuffs, unlike pots, rapidly decay.

But thanks to technological advances, scientists can identify minute quantities of plant remains left behind by meals cooked thousands of years ago. It is no easy task; researchers must gather crumbling skeletons and find ancient dirty dishes before using powerful laboratory microscopes to pinpoint the ingredients of ancient meals. But the effort is paying off, in the form of evidence that curry may be far, far older than previously thought.

What does this mean for how we think about South Asian cuisine today? Thanks to Kashyap and Weber, we know that curry is not only among the world’s most popular dishes; it also may be the oldest continuously prepared cuisine on the planet."" 		The term 'Proto-curry' is specifically used to mean 'first curry' and/or 'first known curry' referring to the earliest known curry traced to the Indus Valley in 2600 BCE, and is used interchangably with curry. They are not treated as two different categories of food. It is repeatedly emphasized that curry is antique and predates colonial and other influences. The food is unambiguously called 'curry' despite there being no chillies or even pepper in it. https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/01/indus-civilization-food-how-scientists-are-figuring-out-what-curry-was-like-4500-years-ago.html#return 26 The earliest known curry existed in the Indus Valley. Indians have been eating curry since ancient times. Curry is defined as a type of food, and the influence of various cultures/ingredients and/or its heat levels are not definitive aspects of curry, and it has been considered by the author as a candidate for ""the oldest continuously prepared cuisine on the planet""."
Archaeobotany at Farmana: New insights into Harappan plant use strategies 2011 Steven A. Weber, Arunima Kashyap, and Laura Mounce Historical/
Academic 		""To better understand how cooking and processing techniques affect starch morphology (see microbotanical section of this paper) we have been conducting a series of experiments using clay pots and recipes gathered from our ethnographic research at the village of Farmana. Starches are organic and fragile nature. Thus food processing, preparation and cooking techniques can easily affect starch granules resulting in structural and morphological damage and gelatinization (breakdown of intermolecular bonds of starches) (Babot 2003; Campus-Baypoli 1999; Ratnayake and Jackson 2007; Takahashi and Shirai 1982). This is especially true when water and heat are involved. On the other hand alkali cooking techniques and use of salt and sugar can augment granular stability and increase the gelatinization temperatures, resulting in the survival of starches in the cooking-pot residues. Through experimentation, we are identifying the changes in the starch grain structure and morphology resulting from various cooking practices, and then attempting to identify these markers in the archaeobotanical record.

The cooking experiments have focused on vegetable curries, chutneys, roasting and boiling roots and tubers, making 'kheer' or pudding from rice, wheat pudding, making rotis (flat bread) from wheat flour, and brewing barley. All experiments were conducted in the archaeobotanical laboratory at Washington State University Vancouver (WSUV), with support from the National Science Foundation. The experiments are still continuing with additional support from WSUV.""

Our experiments with eggplant, ginger, turmeric and mango have all indicated that cooking does cause specific structural and morphological changes in starch granules. Further, the amount of time the plants were cooked, and the material in which the plants were cooked in, directly impact starch preservation (Kashyap and Weber 2010). Since many of these cooking markers (microscopic features) are also present in the macrobotanical samples, Harappan processing and cooking practices may be recognizable. Once the experiments are completed (late 2011) and all the ethnobotanical data is processed and analyzed, a comprehensive publication will be produced."" 		The researchers clearly mention that cooking vegetable curries with ingredients like brinjal, mango, ginger, etc. was crucial for confirming their findings. They never use the term 'proto-curry'. https://anthro.vancouver.wsu.edu/media/documents/archaeobotany_at_Farmana_2011_UPuB325.pdf 27 The researchers who found the Indus Valley food residues do not refer to the ancient food as 'proto-curry'. They instead state that cooking vegetable curries was a crucial part of their process."
How archaeologists across the country are unearthing the food of ancestors to shed light on the evolution of eating 2011 Arunima Kashyap Historical/
Academic 		"After talking to the local people, I realised I was doing things wrong. Instead of boiling eggplants and turmeric individually, I should have cooked them together. When you mix all the ingredients with salt, the starches are at a perfect stage to be identified under the microscope," The researchers could connect the dots after following the local extant techniques of cooking curry. It's not just about finding traces of ingredients, but cooking them together in a certain way that makes the difference. And this technique of cooking base ingredients together with spices and salt is called curry. Also of note, oddly specific Indian kitchen implements like the handi and silbatta are still used today and their form is identical to what was used thousands of years ago. The silbatta is essential for grinding spices for making curries. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/how-archaeologists-across-the-country-are-unearthing-the-food-of-ancestors-to-shed-light-on-the-evolution-of-eating/articleshow/58085366.cms 28 Ancient Indian cooked icurry n the same ways that current Indians cook curry.
Starch Grain Analysis and Experiments Provide Insights into Harappan Cooking Practices 2013 Steven A. Weber and Arunima Kashyap Historical/
Academic 		""Starches from the curry or chutney were better preserved than those being boiled or roasted.""

""In order to analyze how Indian culinary practices (different kinds of recipes) affect the degradation of the starches, we did some experiments by making eggplant curry. The recipe for the eggplant curry was collected from the residents of the current village of Farmana, India, during the 2009 excavation season. For this experiment, the eggplant was cooked for almost 30 minutes until it was mushy. Samples were taken every five minutes to study the degradation of starches.

We also prepared mango chutney for this experimental study. The recipe for mango chutney was also collected from the residents of the current village of Farmana."" 		The researchers cooked current Indian staples for their analyses https://archive.org/details/connectionscompl0000unse/page/186/mode/2up 29 The imprints from current Indian curry and chutney recipes were crucial for researching ancient cookery in India"
How curry from India conquered Britain 2020 BBC Documentary ""...gradually, the term was adapted and used as a generic term for any stew-like food from the Indian subcontinent—rather ignoring such subtleties as regional differences and completely different flavours, textures, cooking methods, and ingredients.

Thousands of British men and women spent time in India. They had Indian cooks and servants, and while some tried to maintain Western eating habits, most quickly embraced the tastes of their new home. When they returned to Britain, they brought their new love of Indian food back with them.

Manuscript books, kept by those in the know, also differentiated between dishes. But they were very much a minority, and in Britain, curry became a catch-all term for almost anything with Indian spices.

The Anglo-Indian cuisine of this era was a hybrid, using pickled cucumbers to replace mango, apple instead of tamarind, and ready-made spice blends galore. It was great, but had very little in common with its Eastern roots.

Queen Victoria took a different approach, regularly eating ‘Indian dishes’ prepared by the cook to her Indian attendants, who’d joined the royal staff at her Golden Jubilee in 1887.

Curry, in its 1970s form, was cheap and cheerful, adapted for British tastes. In 2001, the then Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, declared boldly that Britain’s national dish was chicken tikka masala—a classic example of an Indian dish, buttered chicken, meeting British tastes, in this case with the addition of cream and, allegedly, cream of tomato soup.

In the last decade or so, the British relationship to Indian food has changed. Most of us have grown out of wanting something so hot it’ll hospitalise us. Leading Indian chefs are teaching us that there is so much more to Indian food than the comforting predictability of the average restaurant menu. Maybe after 250 years, we’ve simply come full circle."" 		This video points out the differences between British and Indian perceptions of cuisine, and how it was the British who took to the taste of Indian food rather than Indian food being adapted for the British. It make clear the even as early as Queen Victoria people were eating Indian curries in Britain, and distinguishes the ealy British-adapted food as Anglo-Indian cuisine (which still exists as a subset of Indian cuisine today by the way). It correctly recognises that 'curry' is a catch-all term. It also points out that at least since the 2010s, the perception of curry has been changing more towards authenticity. At no point does it mention curries having chillies or being hot. If anything, the adaptation to British tastes is a process of making it more bland. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VijTieSlaE0 30 British fascination with Indian cuisine drove its spread in Britain, rather than Indian food being extensively adapted for British palates. Anglo-Indian cuisine emerged as an early British adaptation (it still still existing as a distinct subset within broader Indian cuisine). Queen Victoria and her contemporaries were already consuming authentic Indian dishes in Britain rather than Anglo-Indian food. The term “‘curry’” is identified as a broad, catch-all label for diverse Indian dishes (these diversity of curries continue to thrive). Recent decades (since 2010s) have seen a shift in Britain towards valuing authenticity in Indian food. The portrayal of curry as 'hot' isn't essential. If anything, British adaptation made curry milder and blander."
How an Indian Stew Shaped the Modern World: From Cleopatra to Queen Elizabeth 2023 OTR Food & History Documentary “The two best foods in the world, two curries. And that doesn't even scratch the surface of this beloved category.

Today, we're diving into the ancient history of what we now call curry, the ingredients and techniques that would define a cuisine, and how a simple stew would inspire Caesar's conquests, help set off the Crusades, trigger the Age of Exploration, and change the world forever. In 1964, the United States Supreme Court heard a case about obscene content. In the end, one of the justices would write that famous line, which was more or less, ""I can't define it, but I know it when I see it."" That's kind of like a curry.

There really is no unifying anything in all these dishes that fall under the umbrella of curry. But even if we can't define it, we know it when we see it. Curry is an impossibly broad category, and on the surface there's not much that all these things have in common. They use different spices, different proteins, and they come in different colors and flavors and textures. But maybe that's actually the point. Alright, let's start at the very beginning. It's the year 2600 BC, and someone in the Indus Valley is hungry. So in a mortar and pestle, they combine cumin, mustard seed, fennel, saffron and tamarind. A simple act of food preparation that maybe didn't feel important at the time. But it's the first example we've ever discovered of someone going through the trouble to prepare a blend of ingredients not for sustenance, not for health, but just to add flavor.

Anyway, it would take another century for real research to be done into the civilization, and it's only in the 2000s when we've really begun to understand their impact on cuisine: the founders of curry. In 2010, a few years after the discovery of that first spice blend, scientists from Vancouver made another find in another Harappa city. Here it was the leftovers of a cooked stew, made with eggplant, ginger, and turmeric. And there were other finds. Harappans were cooking with lentils and chickpeas. Mango used both fresh and dried as a seasoning. Sugarcane salt, basil, and cooking oil made from sesame, and of course, the original spices from that old mortar and pestle. And each example of these spices found was used in different combinations, different proportions, seasoning, and spices meant to suit individual dishes. Now this was quite a breakthrough. This was the first time we find an example of what would become the foundation of Indian and Thai cuisine: the technique of grinding spices and using them as the base of a stew. And again, the Harappan civilization was much more advanced than we expected. They weren't just making spice pastes, but they were frying them in sesame oil. And as implements, they were cooking meat and bread in tandoori ovens, and simmering their stews in pots called handis, still in use for the same purpose today.

And while modern Punjabi curries might not exactly resemble the food of the ancient Harappans, well, maybe it hasn't changed as much as you think.

But wherever they'd end up, moving north, south, east, and west, they'd bring their technique of using spices and aromatics ground into a paste or powder and then cooked into a stew, and they'd set out to acquire more spices for their masalas. Kicking off the very beginning of thousands of years of the spice economy.

...this is really exciting. So we have mutton curry, and let's taste it by itself first. Yeah, I'm going to try it by itself first. I can see already—just looking at it—onion. I see cilantro. I see light green chili, which is this. So just a couple slices of that in here, but it's not going to be spicy. Iraqi cuisine is not a spicy cuisine. This is just amazingly good.The food here, the Iraqi curries we were lucky enough to get to try, are absolutely fascinating. And it's worth mentioning that the oldest written recipe ever discovered, ever in the entire world, was basically this. A Harappan style stew with North Indian spices carved into clay 3,700 years ago. And even though some of the ingredients are newer and some of the flavors have certainly changed, both of these dishes have history.

once the descendants of the Harappans found their way to Babylon, either through migration or through trade, the Babylonians and later Assyrian and Persian kingdoms would become the biggest trading partner of the Indians, buying spices to resell further to the west.

Why is the word ""curry"" so loaded?

""I think it's loaded because it tries to simplify an incredibly complex topic. For instance, if we said all Italian food is pizza, we would be doing a massive disservice to all of the wonderful nonas and wonderful grandmothers who are there making pasta for centuries.""

""I think my thesis on this is that curry does exist. It does now, right? The way I use the word personally is to represent a stew that starts with a masala, right? Is the idea of taking, and this can apply to a Thai curry, a Malaysian curry, a Jamaican curry, South African Bunny Chow.""

""Yeah, words are a lot like food, right? There's an evolution to them as we continue to evolve. If you look back even thousands upon thousands of years ago, we could say the first curry existed in the Indus Valley 5,000 years ago where a lot of archaeologists were doing something called starch grain analysis, and they would pick out little seeds and stuff from the teeth of decomposed bodies, and they would be able to say, 'Oh, well, this was fennel, this was ginger, this was garlic, this is the first beginnings of curry—' That's literally the entire purpose of this video, by the way."" 		The entire documentary is worth a watch, but one of the most important takeaways from this is that even after looking at curry from a more global point of view, what stands out as definitive are the cooking technique and its ethnocultural origin. It shows that curry has absorbed many ingredients and influences over time, but none of these define what a curry is. And chillies and European influence doesn't define it either. Notably, the references to chilli and heat/spiciness appears just twice in this 45:00 minute documentary, and not in any way that implies it is a defining ingredient for curry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt10iMRWg20 31 Curry is a hard-to-define food, but mostly it is characterised as a type of food that involves cooking the vegetables or meats with spices, and often perceived as a stew. The other important common factor is that it is traced to the Indus Valley civilisation. Crucially, it is not defined by any single ingredient. And the European/Columbian influences or the presence of chillies or degrees of heat are nowhere near the defnitive aspects of what a curry is. There is also a lot of similarities between the cookery in Harappa and Indian food today, despite changing ingredients."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt10iMRWg20 2017 Lizzie Collingham and Shaf Islam Documentary “It really reminds me of a dish that Edward Terry, who was probably one of the first Englishmen to give us a description of a curry that he ate in Delhi, wrote about. One of the things he was absolutely impressed by was a white chicken dish cooked in almonds and rice flour.

The English were in India because they loved spicy food. The elites and the wealthy loved richly spicy, complex dishes with many layers of flavor.

At that point, chilies hadn't reached northern India.

Vasco de Gama discovered the sea route to India. Thirteen years later, three different types of chilies were growing around Goa in southern India. Normally, these new foods weren't taken up by Indians quickly, but chilies were adopted like hotcakes.” 		The implication is that European food was bland, but Indian food had spices. And the chillies became successful in India because it was akin to how Indians cooked and ate, and not because they were important for adaptation to European tastes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUPghl2Yu48 32 Curry is not defined by chillies, and chillies succeeded as it is similar to Indian tastes, not because it was a response to European needs"
The Curry Chronicles 2019 Lizzie Collingham and Raghavan Iyer Historical/
Academic 		""IYER: Anything that has a sauce or gravy to it. And it can be with or without spices. In fact, a few of the curries in India don’t have spices in it, but they’re just done with fresh herbs. The bottom line is, I’ve always said, if it’s not a sauce or a gravy, it is not a curry.

TWILLEY: Okay, so sometimes Indians do eat what we know as curry. But would an Indian ever call their own food curry?

COLLINGHAM: Well yeah, weirdly—when I talk to my Indian friends now they will say, if they’re visiting me in England, they’ll say, ‘oh will you make me a curry?’ And they don’t mean will I make a kind of British Indian curry. They mean will I make an Indian dish that I make at home. So yes they very politely use our term for their food."" 		Raghavan Iyer emphasizes the Indian understanding of curry: flavoured, sauced, foods. (This is the reason the term 'stew' has often come up in definitions by scholars, etc. The stewing process isn't essential to curry making to be fair, but some amount of sauce is definitive in curries, even if it just a little bit. Without sauces Indian food have other names. It should be noted that 'curry' is very much a central part of the vocabular in India. Indian English uses the word in the same sense as described by Iyer, and Indian restaurant menus will have curries offered in the same sense in India.) https://gastropod.com/transcript-the-curry-chronicles/ 33 British idea of the term curry is not the only meaning. Indian foods that have a sauce are also called curries, and these account for the majority of curries, both in terms of the number of dishes as well as in terms of the amount consumed."
Indian food: a historical companion 1998 K. T. Achaya Historical/
Academic 		""A later work, the Kumara-Harana, recommended pork cooked with the soft roots of the banana. A favourite curry was an alkaline salty extract of banana roots, cooked with certain aquatic green plants, and also with fish.""

""Another work, the Shreerambhagavata of Shankaradéva, refers to the popularity of boiled rice covered with water and kept overnight, to be eaten next morning with brinjal curry or fish as an accompaniment (this was also the practice in Bengal at the time)""

""A king is described as feeding his labourers with choice dishes like the rich roast flesh of lampreys, and the fat of turtles. Fish was relished, quite naturally, by the folk of the littoral, and several kinds are mentioned: the aral, varal and horned valai, besides prawns, caught by such fishing communities as the Meenavar. In fact, the Tamil word meen for fish even entered the Sanskrit language. At a meal, white rice was served with curried crabs and vegetables.” 		K.T. Achaya was food scientist, nutritionist, and food historian who was the executive director of Protein Foods and Nutrition Development Association of India. He also consulted to the United Nations University (UNU) Programme for advanced training in Food Science and Technology. He has 150 publications and acquired 11 patents. To his name and universally respected as an authority on Indian food. He refers to a certain type of food as curry, without making a distinction between pre-colonial and post-colonial periods. https://archive.org/details/indianfoodhistor0000acha/ 34 Foremost experts do not recognise a separate category as 'proto-curry'. They simply call a certain type of food as curry."
A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food 1998 K. T. Achaya Historical/
Academic 		""...the word curry was gready widened in usage to include a liquid broth, a thicker stewed preparation, or even a spiced dry dish,""

""...In the Mahdbharata, a dish of rice cooked with minced meat is termed pistaudana. Roasted birds figure frequently in the epic. For a picnic dinner, meat was roasted on spits and cooked as a curry""

""One word used for both pepper and pepper-dressed meat in Tamil is kari (anglicized in colonial times to curry, q.v.). To obtain thdlittakari, or kuy, meat was marinated in ground pepper and mustard seeds, and then fried in oil""

""The use of pepper in cuisine is well illustrated in the Manasolldsa written by King Someshwara in the twelfth century a d . ,,, An elaborate dish was prepared by seasoning a mixture of mung dhal, pieces of lotus stalk and priyala (chironji) seeds with green ginger pieces and asafoetida, frying the lot in oil, and boiling it to a curry; to this could be added pieces of brinjal, mutton, jackal meat or even animal marrow, the dish being finally dusted with black pepper or dry ginger."" 		K.T. Achaya recognises curry as ""a liquid broth, a thicker stewed preparation, or even a spiced dry dish"" without any mention of chillies or any supposed European influence on its taste/nature. He refers to foods from as early as the Mahabharata as 'curry'. There is no distinction made between curry and proto-curry. https://books.google.co.in/books/about/A_Historical_Dictionary_of_Indian_Food.html 35 Foremost experts do not recognise a separate category as 'proto-curry'. They simply call a certain type of food as curry. This is evident when they speak of both pre-colonial regional and historical Indian cuisine, none of which have European/Columbian influence."
Food in the Sangam Age: Portrayals in the Pathupattu 2025 Kerala Museum Historical/
Academic 		""Their food was hand-milled white rice and crab curry made with crabs caught from the field. They ate pazhamchoru (the previous day’s rice gruel) and made beaten rice using the pestle. The making of the beaten rice points to the abundance of food in the region. The farmers offer white rice and curry made with poultry raised on their farms to the travellers. Cane juice was available to drink. They were also served fish curry made of murrel fish caught by fisherfolk.""

""Rice along with pomegranate cooked in butter churned from fresh buttermilk, and a curry with black pepper and curry leaves was served with various kinds of pickles."" 		Roughly refers to 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE, and a little later as well. Kerala Museum may be considered a non-partisan expert source generally because of it being a government museum. But that the state is run by communists who tend to be dispassionate and even averse towards nationalistic and regional identity politics strengthens their claims. Moreover the texts they cite are Tamil ones (and not Malayalam ones, which further removes possibility of bias). And these academicians and experts freely interpret a spectrum of ancient foods as curries. It should be noted that Kerala is noted for lack of food chauvinism, and one of the states where people of all religions often enjoy beef, which is a politically loaded issue in many parts of India. https://keralamuseum.org/article/food-culture-in-sangam-age-through-pathupattu/ 36 Subject matter experts such as researchers employed in museums simply call a certain type of food as curry. This is why even certain anccient foods are called curries. And this definition does not include chillies, heat, or colonial influence."
Earliest curry in Southeast Asia and the global spice trade 2000 years ago 2023 Weiwei Wang, Khanh Trung Kien Nguyen, Chunguang Zhao, and Hsiao-chun Hung Historical/
Academic 		"Considering multiple lines of evidence, particularly the newly found spices from this study and their association with Indian-style preparation tools, we may conclude that curry recipes arrived in Southeast Asia with South Asian traders and migrants as contacts intensified during the early centuries CE." Scholars for China, Australia, and Vietnamem who are experts of the subject unambiguously recognise a certain type of food as curry from as early as 2000 years ago. The two points that they note as definitive are the origin in India and the style of preparation. The question of chillies or colonisation is never in the picture. To be noted that they do not refer to this as proto-curry, eventhough this was after the curry from Farmana is widely known and reported on. This further cements the notion that the term proto-curry means the first curry or the first known curry, rather than a separate category of pre-colonial or ancient curries. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh5517 37 International experts recognise curry from ancient time and term it as such. There is no separate terminology or category created for it. The points they emphasize are its method of preparation, its origin in India, and its material and cultural transmission from India.
#KamaalHai hai bologe hi jab pata chalega the oldest curry ke baare mai! 2024 Kunal Kapur Cookbook/
Cookery 		"Brinjal curry is the oldest recorded curry till date" Kunal Kapur is a highly respected and successful chefs who is known for hosting and judging MasterChef India. He also clearly has an understanding about the history and geographical anchorings of food. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C24RBeDrW_0/ 38 Succesful chefs unambiguously recognise the most anicient curry from farmana simply as 'curry'. They don't remark on lack of chillies, and there is no ambiguity about how they understand and define curry.
Chef KEITH SARASIN explains how INDIAN CURRY changed the world! 2022 Keith Sarasin Cookbook/
Cookery 		"...the original curry actually predates European arrival and presence in India by over 4,000 years, so curry was along way, way before any sort of colonization.” Keith Sarasin is an expert chef with deep knowledge of Indian food. He doesn't just cook food, but learns about it. He is a published author. He has been studying Indian cuisine for a decade and travelled extensively throughout India to learn about Indian food. He is also the student of Dr. Kurush Dalal, the well-known food archaeologist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8AyelJo4Fo 39 A non-Indian chef who is an expert at cooking Indian food, after looking at multiple lines of evidence (archeological, philological, etc.) concludes that curry unambiguously predates colonialism, and considers it to originate 4000 years ago. Interestingly his extensive analysis does not mention chillies or heat even once. Which again makes it clear that chillies or heat levels are not even in consideration when people who know about curry are trying to define it.
Curry Around The World 1983 BBC Documentary ""The sauce follows the Indian method: fish sauce and spices cooked together in the same pot. Epidaurus sank onions are followed by pieces of apple, chopped banana, and then more curry powder. Masuka does not claim to cook an authentic curry—it is a French adaptation. The source has been conjured from the spicy fruit mixture and served. It looks like an absolutely French creation but has that little ""junus equal"" on the end. What Helena doesn't realize is that her special creation isn't altogether new. The French made real curry, perhaps learned from their travels east, or if anyone dare say it, from the British. Today's salmon curry represents the new French thinking on the matter. The culinary masters have brought curry into classically French line.""

""The Sri Lankans absorbed the art of curry making from the Tamils of South India.

This kind of crab curry has always been cooked and served on the beach, but to a rather different clientele—it was a traditional meal for fishermen.""

""Bali - The island where Indian traders came long before recorded time. Rice is the main food, and Indian spices are essential flavoring. Hinduism is the religion and has been for 2,000 years.

He is making a masala, gauging what quantities will bring the finest flavors. This is not a conventional curry blended with water; the spices are rubbed into a duck—a method no surprise to many Indians all down the east coast of India, where whole fish are prepared just like this, even wrapped in a banana leaf."" 		Curry again is framed in terms of its Indian origins and the ""method"" rather than ingredients even when talking about a radically altered French version. and in terms of ""art of making"" when speaking on how it got transmitted to Srilankans. rather than in terms of any one ingredient or in terms of colonial influence. Hinduism and Indian traditions reached Bali thousands of years ago. The method of preparing food with spices in banana leaves therefore is likely to be an antique one, as the BBC documentary does not find it familiar. It is interestingt though, that he recognises the food as curry, based on the cooking technique and presumably based on the connection to India as well. Also, as the documentary notes, this way of cooking is still very much extant and popular in India today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nccq5pDNlo 40 Both when talking about European radical adaptation, or various versions from South/Southeast/East Asia, the defmitive emphases are on its Indian origins and in terms of its preparation method rather than on any ingredient or on colonial influence. Dishes that are unfamiliar to the British (and presumably ancient) are recognised as curry based on the cooking technique and presumably the cultural continuity with India."
Country captain 2025 Wikipedia Dictionary/
Encyclopedia/
Definition 		"Country captain is a curried chicken and rice dish, which is popular in the Southern United States." A dish is recognised as a curry even when the term 'curry' is not in it's name by the virtue of how it is prepared ('curried') and where it originates. The core of the definition does not include chilli (or any specific ingredient) nor does it include colonial (or any other non-Indian) influence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_Captain 41 Curry is defined by the method of preparation and its historical origins in India.
Curry powder 2025 Wikipedia Dictionary/
Encyclopedia/
Definition 		""In the United States, curry powder is expected to contain at least these ingredients: turmeric, coriander, fenugreek, cinnamon, cumin, black pepper, ginger, and cardamom.

The 1999 East African Standard (EAS 98:1999) does not define an ingredient baseline. A newer 2017 draft from Uganda does require turmeric, coriander, cumin, fenugreek and mustard."" 		Even as understood in the west and in Africa, curry powder does not contain chilli, tomatoes, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry_powder 42 The definition of curry powder prominently mentions its Indian origins, and does not mention chilli or heat anywhere."
Cook's Info 2025 Cook's Info Dictionary/
Encyclopedia/
Definition 		""A curry is a dish cooked in a spicy sauce that is a mixture of spices.In India, a curry will have about 20 spices crushed in a mortar, then mixed. The spices are then “woken up” by heating them in a bit of fat such as ghee or oil. Curries can be mild, medium or hot, and the spices used will vary depending on whether the other ingredients are meat, fish or vegetables. Mild Curries won’t have peppers in them as the medium and hot ones do; instead, the milder ones sometimes have ground nuts, coconut, etc.

Probably the first documented Curry recipe dates from the 400s BC."" 		Curry is defined by the type of food it is, as characterised by it's cooking technique. Chillies are not central to the definition, and colonialism isn't mentioned in the defining section at all. https://www.cooksinfo.com/curry-dishes 43 Curry is defined in terms of the type of food or preparation it is, and in terms of where it is from. The author, like all other authors, easily comprehends the continuity of curry through time and between places, and infers that curry recipes can be traced back to about 400 BCE."
The Penguin Companion to Food 2003 Alan Davidson Dictionary/
Encyclopedia/
Definition 		"Curry is an Indian category of spicy sauces or dishes transformed for Anglo-Indian purposes." Curry is defined primariy as an Indian category of sauces, and the Anglo-Indian subcategory is mention which makes sense for a British publication. According to Cambridge and Marriam-Webster dictionaries, 'spicy' does not necessarily mean 'hot'. Hence even in Alan Davidson's summary, chillies and colonial influence is not central to the definition of a curry. https://archive.org/details/penguincompanion0000davi/page/22/ 44 Curry is primarily an Indian category of sauces.
The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, 1747 Hannah Glasse Cookbook/
Cookery 		"To make a currey The Indian Way. TAKE two small chickens, skin them and cut them as for a fricasey, wash them clean, and stew them in about a quart of water, for about five minutes, then strain off the liquor and put the chickens in a clean dish; take three large onions, chop them small, and fry them in about two ounces of butter, then put in the chickens and fry them together till they are brown, take a quarter of an ounce of turmerick, a large spoonful of ginger and beaten pepper together, and a little salt to your palate: strew all these ingredients over the chickens whilst it is frying, then pour in the liquor, and let it stew about half an hour, then put in a quarter of a pint of cream, and the juice of two lemons, and serve it up. The ginger, pepper, and turmerick must be beat very fine.” Curry does not contain chillies. Instead it is defined by the style of food it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:To_make_a_Currey_the_India_Way_-_Hannah_Glasse_1748.jpg 45 Heat is not an essential or defining quality in curries.
Pakasastra otherwise called soopasastra or the modern culinary receipts of the hindoos 1836 C V Ramasawmy Cookbook/
Cookery 		Example This is a very interesting book for many reasons. It contains multiple traditional Indian recipes identified as curries. This represents a continuity of curry. It was written by an Indian, in colonial times, in English, but containing curries that are largely absent from British and Anglo-Indian curry menus. The recipes and techniques however are pretty much what is used today, almost two centuries later. This book mentions both chillies and black peppers, demonstrating an organic by extensive adoption of chillies as one of the many seasonings. It is used adjacent to black pepper. https://archive.org/details/dli.ministry.04999 46 Chillies got extensively adapted into regional Indian curries. Most of these are not curries ever eaten anywhere outside of India, and the way these recipes use chillies do not indicate that the foods are particularly hot. They are just one of the many ingredients, used in a modest amount as can be seen in the recipes.

YawnkyDoodle (talk) 00:46, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Useful-looking sources, and a remarkably large talk page entry. One thing here: this article is at the top of a tree of articles about curries (see the various navbars at the end of the article). It may well be that most of the longer additions will go into subsidiary articles. One instance: if there is a lot of new material on History of curry then that redirect could well be developed as a substantial article in its own right, with a "main" link and a brief "summary style" text in Curry's 'History' chapter.
I haven't had time to read all the table entries, but I do notice that care is needed: for instance, Country captain is properly described as a "curried chicken" dish: that does not straightforwardly imply that the dish "is a curry", but rather that it has a (possibly slight) curry-like aspect. The difference may seem small but is significant: in the search for sharp definitions, I am concerned that we may go astray or reignite controversy. "Curried" hints that "curry" might be defined more by example or "type" than by rule, so the "type curry" might be a meat dish with spices including some hot spice and a somewhat thick sauce. A curry a little further from the type might then be non-meat, or with a thin sauce; and a dish still further might have little heat and no sauce (like chicken tikka, say); and a vegetarian dish with mild spices and no sauce might not be a curry at all, or might be a disputable borderline case. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:00, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with your main points that:
- this is a broad list and may benefit from eventually being digested into smaller lists (many of these are already in the references section, albeit not always for the same reasons as cited here).
- The point that you have raised about the definitions of what may be a called a 'curry ' versus a food that is simply 'curried' is a point of intrigue and for sure merits discussion. Personally, I had a narrower understanding of the term (as initially developed by my experiences of the term and the food), but I have since then widened my vision about it. At the time of writing this I have a developed a more egalitarian notion that covers most understandings and versions of this dish, and at a later time I am happy to start a talk thread to amend the lede section (and maybe other sections) accordingly. Some of this stems from differences in perception about the dish itself between Britain and India (and within different parts of India), and some of it stems from differences in how the term 'curry' itself is understood Britain and India (and within different parts of India), and various combinations of these. For this purpose I am using the term 'India' to loosely represent the points of view in various parts of South and South East Asia (and possibly East Asia).
- Overall, this list needs care in a number of ways. I feel this is a good starting point for threads in this and related talk pages, and merits better cleanup and formatting as and when bits and pieces of it get integrated into this and related articles.
- For now I have limited the sources to ones which contribute to broad understandings about the definitions of what a curry is and what role chillies and colonisation may have played, but this list can be expanded (or other lists can be made) for specific sub sections, such as the spice trade and so on.

YawnkyDoodle (talk) 10:54, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing: discussion comments must be brief, or editors will not read them. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:38, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Chicken Tikka Masala Amendments

[edit]

Opening this brief discussion and seek to close this before discussing the next topic, etc.

In the lede section:

  1. This needs to be amended or replaced with a different example: “…as with chicken tikka masala, created by British Bangladeshi restaurants in the 20th century.”
    • The cited source [8] highlights the disputed origins, and it does not directly mention Bangaldeshi restaurants at all: “The origins of chicken tikka masala – a favourite food of the Brits – is widely disputed. Some claim it hails from the Punjab, some from Birmingham and one Pakistani chef – with an eatery in Glasgow’s west end – has claims on the concoction.”
      • Said "British Indian restaurants".

Some of the information I have provided below provides further clarity.

In the ‘United Kingdom’ subsection of the ‘By region’ section:

  • This part needs cleaning up: “Its origin is not certain, but many sources attribute it to British Asians; some cite Glasgow as the city of origin. Others suggest that it derives from butter chicken, popular in the north of India.”
  1. While I am aware of the claims/prevalent belief that chicken tikka masala may have evolved from butter chicken, I cannot find any remarks in the cited source [60] to support this.
    • Cut that sentence, it's not needed here.
  • The following sources and updated information are relevant:
  1. “The British food historians Peter and Colleen Grove even wrote in their book, Flavours of History, that the notoriously hazy origins of Chicken Tikka Masala stemmed from Singh’s recipe for Shahi Chicken Masala.” [Scroll.in Article]
    • Too much for this article.
  2. Indian chefs and food scholars have strongly disagreed with the claims [Telegraph Article]:
    • ...But his claim has been dismissed as "preposterous" by Delhi's leading food historians, although its exact origin remains unclear.
      • Too much for this article.
    • Zaeemuddin Ahmad, a chef at Delhi's Karim Hotel, which was established by the last chef of the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, said the recipe had been passed down through the generations in his family. "Chicken tikka masala is an authentic Mughlai recipe prepared by our forefathers who were royal chefs in the Mughal period. Mughals were avid trekkers and used to spend months altogether in jungles and far off places. They liked roasted form of chickens with spices," he said.
      • Too much for this article.
    • Rahul Verma, Delhi's most authoritative expert on street food, said he first tasted the dish in 1971 and that its origins were in Punjab. "Its basically a Punjabi dish not more than 40-50 years old and must be an accidental discovery which has had periodical improvisations," he said.
      • Too much for this article.
    • Hemanshu Kumar, the founder of Eating Out in Delhi, a food group which celebrates Delhi's culinary heritage, ridiculed Glasgow's claim. "Patenting the name chicken tikka masala is out of the question. It has been prepared in India for generations. You can't patent the name, it's preposterous," he said.
      • Too much for this article.
  3. The person responsible for starting the creation myth has claimed that it is a lie that he just made up one day along with Peter Grove [Sunday Post Article]:
    • “The story goes a Glaswegian diner in a 1970s Indian restaurant complained his curry was too dry, so the Bangladeshi chef added a tin of tomato soup. Chicken tikka masala was born, and became the most popular curry dish in the UK… or so it’s said. Labour MP Mohammed Sarwar even launched an unsuccessful campaign to give the dish EU protected status as a Glaswegian delicacy in 2009. But the story was made up, according to the man who created it. Restaurateur and founder of Tandoor Magazine Iqbal Wahhab said he came up with the story along with late friend Peter Grove after a few bottles of wine. Iqbal, owner of The Cinnamon Club and Roast Indian restaurants, told The Sunday Post that he and Peter made it up because they were fed up being asked about it.”
      • Much too much for this article.

YawnkyDoodle (talk) 01:36, 19 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Despite the confusing title, I see you do mean this article. I've made a small edit, but the massive story you're trying to tell is way WP:UNDUE (far too long, would create gross imbalance) for this article, which needs only a brief mention. The more general point is that Wikipedia articles have to be brief, as talk page comments should be. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:42, 19 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]