الكاري - التاريخ الكوني

Edible

by Colleen Taylor Sen, يارا البدوي (ترجمة), أحمد خريس (مراجعة)

«الكاري» هو أحد المصطلحات واسعة الانتشار، التي يُساء استخدامها. وغالباً ما تستعمل كلمة «كاري» خارج الهند كلفظ شامل يصف أي طبق أو طعام هنديين بشكل عام، مع أنها نادراً ما تُستخدم من الهنود لوصف مطبخهم.

ويجيب كتاب الكاري على سؤال «ما الكاري؟»، بتقديم قصة وصفية وتاريخية مفعمة بالحياة حول طبق له العديد من الصيغ. ففي هذا التاريخ العالمي، تصف كولين تايلور سين بالتفصيل الأصول الأنجلو-هندية للكاري، وكيفية انتشاره حول العالم.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, History, India, Food and Drink, Cooking, Food History

205 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Colleen Taylor Sen is a Chicago-based author and culinary historian. Her articles have appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Travel and Leisure, Food Arts, Chicago Sun Times, Yoga International, The Hindu, and many other publications. She is the author of six books, including Food Culture in India; Curry: A Global History; Turmeric: The Wonder Spice; A Guide to Indian Restaurant Menus; Street Food Around the World: An Encyclopedia of Food and Culture (with Bruce Kraig, and, most recently, Feasts and Fasts: A History of Food in India. Colleen Sen has a B.A. and M.A. from University of Toronto and a Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Reviews

[Abu Hasan محمد عبيد · Rating 4 out of 5]

رغم أني لست من محبي الكاري، بل لا أستسيغه البتة، إلا أن هذا الكتاب نجح في شد انتباهي
قصة الكاري هي باختصار نموذجا للعولمة التي صارت علامة هذا العصر
العولمة التي بدأت بالكولونيالية ومازالت مستمرة في زمن الإنترنت وثورة الاتصالات
هذا الكتاب رحلة في الزمان والمكان، مفعم بعبق الكاري والأطعمة المختلفة المنكهة بالكاري
وهو من الكتب التي يدهشك الجهد البحثي والتوثيقي المبذول فيها لتخرج بهذا الشكل

[Madhulika Liddle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Food historian Colleen Taylor Sen’s Curry: A Global History begins with an explanation of what ‘curry’ is, and then goes on to discussing its origin. Past this relatively brief introduction, she delves into one of the most interesting chapters of the book, the story of how Britain ‘acquired’ curry: the gone-native tendencies of early East India Company ‘nabobs’, their adoption of Indian ways and styles (including food) while in India, and how—with them and their eventual return to Britain after retirement—curry went to Britain…

… and from Britain, to a number of other places as well. In the next chapter, The Colonies: The United States, Canada and Australia, Sen examines the passage of curry from Britain to these areas. The following chapters discuss other ways in which a broad idea of curry has been disseminated across the world, sometimes through the Indian diaspora (in the Caribbean, Mauritius, Sril Lanka and Fiji), as well as in less recent times, by traders, emissaries and missionaries, to areas such as South-East Asia, East Africa, etc. Sen ends her book with observations on the modern-day ‘global nature’ of curry, followed by a bunch of recipes, both old ones (18th and 19th century) as well as modern recipes.

The text is interspersed with reproductions of illustrations, advertisements, and other interesting titbits relating to curry, and Sen uses songs and poems about curry as epigraphs in each chapter. Her writing is good, and there’s plenty here to learn from and to enjoy.

What really stayed with me was the way curry seems to have been happily embraced by people irrespective of native culinary preferences. Also, how ideas about what curries should be like have changed: from the original apple-sweetened curries in 1800s Britain, to the ‘how-much-heat-can-you-handle?’ takeaways from British curry houses today. Or how very diverse cultures have taken the idea of curry and made it their own, adding all sorts of unexpected ingredients to it (one of the more unusual recipes in the book for me was a Fijian curry based on canned fish).

I only had one grouse with what was otherwise a pretty satisfying book: in the recipes at the end of the book, there isn’t a single recipe for a traditional Indian curry. Yes, I get that Sen believes that calling Indian dishes ‘curry’ is an insult to the richness and creativity behind all our many, varied kormas, dopiazas, salans and more. But—also as Sen points out—even Madhur Jaffrey seems to have changed her mind, and named a book of hers The Ultimate Curry Bible (in fact, she’s gone on to write several cookbooks with ‘curry’ in the title). In any case, even a lot of Indians nowadays refer to their curries as curries.

So why not at least one good honest-to-goodness Indian recipe? A murgh makhani, perhaps, or a laal maas? A roghanjosh, a meen moilee, a machher jhol? Given Colleen Taylor Sen’s expertise in Indian food, this omission hit particularly hard.

[Roba Maher · Rating 5 out of 5]

كتاب لذيذ جداً!

[Intesar Alemadi · Rating 4 out of 5]

الكاري .. التاريخ الكوني ..
كولين تايلور سين ..
الهند ..

تاريخ الكاري ومدى إنتشاره منذ إنتقاله على يد المستعمرين وحتى اليوم .. كتاب رائع ويشد القاريء عامة والمهتم بالطهي خاصة إلى عالم الكاري بكل أشكاله البسيطة والمعقدة .. القديمة والجديدة ..
أحببت الكتاب فعلاً ..

في المطبخ الهندي .. لم يكن يستخدم اسم الكاري على أطباقه .. فلكل طبق اسمه الخاص .. قورما وروغان وجوش وفيندالو .. غير أن الهنود اليوم يطلقون اسم الكاري على أي طبق به مرق ..
وتوابل الكاري هو اختراع بريطاني .. وهناك أيضاً أوراق الكاري ..
لكن تعريف الكاري هو الطعام الذي به مرق مع التوابل الهندية .. وتشير الطباخة الهندية مادور جافري .. أن كلمة كاري كانت مهينة لمطبخ الهند ..
أما مزيج التوابل فيطلق عليه الماسالا .. تجد أن الفلفل الحار والكمون والكزبرة يشمل جميع مناطق الهند وولاياتها .. ومن ثم تختلف التوابل الأخرى حسب المنطقة والولاية ..
الغارام ماسالا نادراً ما يحتوي على الكركم .. وهو مرتبط بالمطبخ الإسلامي ..
كانت كل منطقة تتميز بطهي نوع يخصها من الكاري .. لكن بعد الاحتلال البريطاني أصبح طبق الكاري أكثر شمولية في جميع مناطق الهند ..
ظهر الكاري في بريطانيا في القرن الثامن عشر .. كانت تقدم للأروستقراطيبن .. حتى إن الملكة فيكتوريا كانت تحب الكاري الذي يطهوه لها طباخ هندي بالرغم من عدم زيارتها للهند مطلقاً .. في النصف الثاني من القرن الثامن عشر أصبح الكاري طعام جميع الطبقات ..
في أمريكا .. في القرن الثامن عشر انتشرت كتب الطبخ الشائعة أحضرها المهاجرون إلى الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية .. وأول وصفة عرفها الأمريكي هي حساء الكاري بالتفاح وذلك قبل عام ١٧٣٤ .. وأول كتاب طبخ أمريكي احتوى على وصفات للكاري كان في عام ١٨٢٤ .. التوابل والكماليات الهندية كانت تصل للمستعمر الأمريكي الثري عبر إنجلترا والكاريبي وذلك قبل الثورة الأمريكية .. وفي عشرينيات القرن التاسع عشر .. أصبح طبق الكاري في متناول الجميع وفي الحانات والبيوت .. ومن بريطانيا انتقل الكاري كذلك لكندا وأستراليا .. وانتشر الكاري عندما جلب البريطانيون الهنود للعمل في مستعمراتهم .. في مناطق الكاريبي وسريلانكا وموريشيوس وفيجي .. كذلك جنوب أفريقيا .. ويسمون الهنود هناك ملايو كيب .. ودخل الكاري شرق أفريقيا عن طريق بريطانيا وتجارتها .. مثل أوغندا وزنجبار وكينيا والموزمبيق وأنغولا .. إن دول جنوب شرق آسيا هي مجتمعات تتصف بأغلبية إثنية وبوجود أقليات .. في القرن الرابع قبل الميلاد جلب التجار الهنود البهارات والأقمشة إلى الصين .. وقد انتقلت البوذية والهندوسية كديانة والرقص والفن والموسيقا من خلال التجارة المتبادلة .. مع دول جنوب شرق آسيا .. تحديداً في تايلند الكاري يختلف عن الكاري الهندي .. فهم يستخدمون الغالنغال وورق الكافيير وعشب الليمون والفلفل الحار ومعجون الجمبري وصلصة السمك ويستخدمون حليب جوز الهند .. ونادراً ما يستخدمون التوابل الهندية المطحونة .. في ماينمار يعتبر الهنود أقلية .. والكاري لديهم يشبه الكاري الهندي .. أما في أندونيسيا لديهم بعض الأطباق الشبيهة بأطباق الكاري بيد أن الطعام الأندونيسي متأثر بالطعام الصيني .. في ماليزيا وسنغافورة احتفظت الجاليات بأطباقها المميزة وأنتجت كذلك بعض الأصناف الهجينة .. حتى الصين تستخدم معجون الكاري ولكن بشكل بسيط جداً .. في هولندا وبالرغم من ٣٥٠ سنة في قوتها الاستعمارية .. لم يدخل الكاري إليها إلا في عام ١٩٤٩بعد أن نالت أندونيسيا إستقلالها .. وهاجر إليها الكثير من الهولنديين ذوو الأصول الأندونيسية .. أما الفرنسيون فكانوا أقل تقبلاً لأطعمة أمبراطوريتهم .. وأول مطعم هندي تم افتتاحه عام ١٩٧٥ على يد أحد اعضاء وفد حكومي هندي .. دخل الكاري أول مرة اليابان في بداية العصر الميجي عام ١٨٦٨ .. عندما فتحت موانئهم أمام الأجانب مرة أخرى .. وقد شجع الإمبراطور ميجي على تناول اللحم وهو الأمر الذي لم تشجعه البوذية .. وبسبب إفتتان الناس بكل ماهو غربي .. وقد أرادت القوات المسلحة أن تشجع استهلاك اللحوم لبناء بنية الملتحقين بالجيش .. اليوم الكاري أصبح طبق عالمي ..



…………


ودمتم بحفظ الرحمن ..

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

#Binge Reviewing my previous Reads #Indian Food

Colleen Taylor Sen’s Curry: A Global History enters the field of food studies with an object that is at once familiar and elusive: curry. Familiar, because in the global imagination, “curry” is shorthand for Indian food itself, a dish that can be found in London pubs, Tokyo ramen shops, Caribbean kitchens, South African homes, and American supermarkets.

Elusive, because no one in India actually eats “curry” as a monolithic dish; the word itself is a colonial construction, a mistranslation and generalisation of a bewildering diversity of regional gravies, stews, masalas, and preparations. To write a global history of curry is therefore to explore not a single food but a myth, a migration, an invention that has travelled across oceans and centuries. Sen embraces this complexity, and what emerges is a slim but dense book that traces the story of curry from its Indian roots to its worldwide reincarnations.

Sen begins by unpacking the word “curry” itself, showing how it entered English from the Tamil word kari, meaning sauce. But the leap from local word to global category was the work of colonialism: the British, unable or unwilling to grasp the multiplicity of Indian dishes, lumped them together as “curries”. This misnaming, as Sen demonstrates, would go on to shape centuries of culinary imagination. From Anglo-Indian cookbooks of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the jarred curry powders of the modern supermarket, the word “curry” became a container, absorbing everything from kormas to vindaloos to Japanese kare raisu. The irony, of course, is that in India itself, no such overarching category exists; what people cook and eat are specific dishes tied to region, religion, caste, and occasion. Sen handles this irony without mockery but with clarity, reminding us that “curry” is less a dish than a narrative about cultural encounter.

What makes Curry: A Global History so engaging is its geographical sweep. Sen follows curry as it leaves India with indentured labourers, traders, soldiers, and migrants, taking root in new soils. In the Caribbean, curry goat and roti testify to the resilience of Indian indentured workers, who carried their foodways across oceans and adapted them to new ingredients. In Britain, curry became both a nostalgic tie to empire and eventually a mainstream comfort food, leading to the strange hybrid of chicken tikka masala — often touted as Britain’s national dish. In Japan, curry transformed into kare, thickened with roux and sweetened, a staple of school lunches.

In South Africa, it became the spicy Durban curry of Indian communities, inseparably linked to apartheid histories. In Malaysia and Singapore, curry was absorbed into Peranakan kitchens. Each chapter is not just about food but about diaspora, power, and identity. To trace curry is to trace how people remake themselves in new lands while holding on to taste as memory.

Sen also pays careful attention to the role of commerce and commodification. The invention of curry powder was, in many ways, an attempt to bottle and sell India, to translate its complex cuisines into something exportable. The British obsession with curry powders created a market that persists today, where jars of “Madras Curry Powder” line supermarket shelves, claiming authenticity even as they flatten difference. Sen shows how this commercialisation fed into orientalist fantasies — curry as exotic, spicy, dangerous, and desirable — while also democratising access, making curry a dish that could be cooked by anyone, anywhere. This duality — of reduction and expansion — runs through the entire history of curry.

Stylistically, the book is brisk, concise, sometimes almost journalistic. It belongs to Reaktion’s Edible series, which specialises in short, richly illustrated histories of single foods, and Sen honours that format. She does not indulge in sprawling narratives or personal memoirs but condenses vast histories into clear, digestible chapters.

For some readers, this brevity may feel like a limitation — there is so much more one could say about curry in any one geography. But within its compact frame, the book accomplishes much: it introduces readers to the complexity of curry’s identity, it shows the routes of its migration, and it demonstrates how food can become global while remaining contested.

One of the most provocative points Sen makes is about authenticity. What is an “authentic curry”? In India, authenticity is tied to region, caste, ingredients, and even season. In Britain, authenticity may mean something entirely different — the familiar taste of curry-house tikka masala at 2 AM after a night out. In Japan, it may mean the sweet comfort of kare raisu. The more one looks, the more authenticity dissolves into multiplicity. Curry, Sen argues, is perhaps the quintessential postcolonial dish: born of encounter, shaped by power, endlessly reinvented. This insight resonated deeply with me. Too often, debates about food authenticity turn purist, even chauvinistic. Sen invites us instead to see food as fluid, as hybrid, as belonging to many homes at once.

Another strength of the book is its attention to cultural symbolism. Curry is not just eaten; it is written about, joked about, and politicised. Sen notes how 'curry' became shorthand in British novels and newspapers for all things Indian, how it carried associations of heat and excess. She notes how curry houses in Britain became sites of both integration and racism, serving as entry points for immigrant entrepreneurs while also drawing xenophobic scorn. She traces how curry advertisements exoticised the East, turning spice into a commodity. These cultural layers make the book not only a food history but also a cultural study of empire, migration, and identity.

Rereading this in 2025, I found myself reflecting on how curry continues to mutate. In the age of Instagram and food delivery apps, “curry” is still used as a blanket term by people unfamiliar with the diversity of Indian cuisine. At the same time, diasporic chefs are reclaiming specificity, putting labels like Chettinad chicken or Goan vindaloo on menus instead of just “curry”.

The tension Sen identifies — between flattening and specificity, between global recognition and local identity — remains alive. Her book, though first published more than a decade ago, feels strikingly relevant to these ongoing debates.

What lingers after finishing Sen’s book is less the taste of curry itself than the recognition of how food words can travel, expand, and mislead. Curry is not one dish, but a story about colonialism, migration, adaptation, and identity. It is a global invention, and in that sense, it tells us less about what Indians eat and more about how the world has imagined India through food. That is both a loss — of specificity, of authenticity — and a gain, for curry has become a dish that belongs to millions who never set foot in India.

For me, the book sharpened a personal paradox. On the one hand, I bristle when I hear all Indian food called curry. It erases the extraordinary diversity I know and love. On the other hand, I cannot deny the strange pleasure of seeing curry everywhere, from London chip shops to Tokyo cafeterias. It is a reminder of India’s culinary reach, however distorted. Sen helps me hold both these reactions together, seeing curry as both misnomer and miracle, both colonial residue and diasporic triumph.

Ultimately, Curry: A Global History is not about how to cook curry, nor even how to eat it, but about how to think with it. To follow curry’s journey is to follow the entanglements of empire, commerce, migration, and memory. In Sen’s hands, curry becomes not a dish but a lens — a way of seeing global history through a spoonful of sauce.

[Charles Haywood · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short book is an interesting read, even if it’s really just a summary of the different impacts of Indian cooking spices around the world. The story isn’t new, of course—it’s well known that the migration of Indians around the world has resulted in a wide range of hybrid cuisines, some with very little resemblance to actual Indian cuisine. But reading details, such as the huge popularity of something called “currywurst” in Germany, brings home the global impact of what are generically called curries.

The rush of information presented, much with little detail or background, sometimes overwhelms the reader. But it’s interesting. And the reader is exposed to true diversity: such things as the fusion of Indian and Mexican cuisines into “Hindu Mexicans” in the early 20th Century Sacramento Valley (mostly Sikh men marrying local women). This true diversity among human cultures is powerful, and the book shows (though this is not at all the author’s intent) how excellence on a small or great scale can result.

But what is most interesting is not the truism that excellence can result from human interchange. Rather, what “Curry” indirectly shows is how this organic diversity, resulting from the interplay of actual people striving to do and reach their best, contrasts with the false “diversity” pushed today in corporate America and academic America. This false diversity is not organic and does not produce excellence. Instead, it is the forced granting of unearned benefits, at the expense of the deserving, to favored underqualified racial (and other) minorities, producing not excellence, but mediocrity and decay. (Of course, the Indians who are the focus of “Curry” are not granted such favored status, but rather openly discriminated against with other Asians.) All the while, anyone who wants to keep his job and not be called names must bizarrely praise this waste of human capability as the supposed path to excellence. No wonder it’s been nearly as many years since we went to the moon as it was between the moon landing and Kitty Hawk. But at least we met our diversity targets!

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another enjoyable, succinct and informative entry in the 'Edible' series of food histories, 'Curry' is perhaps the best I've written so far thanks to the wide range of information included from around the world. Of course it does take an Indo-centric approach thanks to the origins of the cuisine, however it is not just a story of Indian curries. For example, nestled within the text are small nuggets of Australian, American, Dutch and other countries' cultural history that are quite fascinating.

The author has quite rightly asserted the cultural and social importance of curry in subcontinental cuisine, but also makes a well constructed argument regarding the history of curry in Britain. The argument about the cross-migration aspects of curry's favour seems spot on, and there are some useful observations on how different forms of curry have reflected changing demographic and social trends.

The chapter that deals with America, Canada and Australia is a little skewed, in that perhaps too much attention is given to the North American experience and not enough to Australia (and none to NZ). Whilst I found the anecdotes about Marcus Clarke and Keen's Curry Powder of value, there wasn't really enough made of the faux Indian foods that arose from Anglo-Australian culture (e.g. a fave dish of mine, Kai See Ming, a kind of curried chop suey).

The chapters on African curries was informative, and there is plenty to take from those chapters on curry in South East Asia (notably Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia). The Japanese interest in curry is well discussed, however what stood out for me was the coverage of curry's use in German and Dutch culture. The pages on currywurst give one food for thought, and it sounds like the Dutch curry platters brought back from the colonial experience in the old Netherland East Indies is quite the thing.

In conclusion, if you like food and cultural history with a bit of spice then 'Curry: A Global History' is worth a read.

[Abdullah Alhomoud · Rating 2 out of 5]

كتاب ثقافي وتاريخي يتكلم عن أصل أطباق الكاري من المطبخ الهندي التقليدي قبل مئات السنين إلى طبخات الكاري المختلفة والمتنوعة في دول العالم.

ملاحظة ايجابية:
- الترجمة العربية خفيفة وحلوة.
- فيه بعض الوصفات للكاري الهندي.

ملاحظة سلبية:
- الكتاب بعيد كل البعد عن الترتيب والتنظيم.
- تكرار كلمة "كاري" في كل صفحة ما يزيد عن الخمس مرات.
- تكرار كلمات كمون وفلفل وكركم في كل صفحة على طول الكتاب.
- التسلسل الزمني معفوس.
- لو الكتاب ٢٠ صفحة يصير كتاب جميل.

[Ahmed · Rating 2 out of 5]

يطرح الكتاب كيف انتقل طبق الكاري أو المطبخ الهندي بشكل عام إلى دول أخرى بل وأصبحت من أهم الأطباق لدى العديد من الدول.

بنهاية هذا الكتاب
أكون قد انتهيت من كل الكتب التي اقتنيتها فيما يخص سلسلة التاريخ الكوني
(قد) أقتني ما تبقى من السلسة وعلى الأغلب لن أفعل ذلك.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Looking for a survey of history of Indian food. There is only one chapter in this book about India, the rest is about Britain, which is interesting.

[HAM · Rating 5 out of 5]

جميل أن ترتبط الأحداث التاريخية في ذهنك بمكون لذيذ , كتاب جميل ومشوق .

[Scott Andrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good

[Peter Bath · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting little history.

[Saahil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Curry by Colleen Taylor Sen is about the stories of the spread of Indian food around the world. Quite an informative account of how Indian cooking styles have influenced various cuisines around the world. And over all these years, each of those cuisines have evolved into something that bears little relevance to Indian food.

The author puts it best. "Perhaps the only thing common between an Indian recipe and an internationalized curry is the cooking technique. Spices and a paste of garlic, onions, ginger and sometimes tomatoes are fried in a little oil until they soften. Pieces of meat, fish or vegetables are sauteed in this mixture. Small amounts of water, yogurt or other liquid are then added a little at a time. The amount of liquid added and the cooking time determines whether the dish will be wet or dry. This is the basic technique used in making the dishes called curries."

[Sesana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part of Reaktion's Edible series. This quite brief, and in some ways it bites off more than it can chew. A few years back, I read a book more than twice as long about the history of curry, and it never moved beyond India and, later, Britain. This one tries valiantly to be truly global. In some ways, nice. In other ways, it means it has to be deliberately vague and brief about too much. Still, an enjoyable, quick read, nicely illustrated. If you're really serious about the history of curry or food in general, you'll want to read something else to fill in the gaps.

[Sammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good idea; poor execution.