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/c/café daily chat thread for 31 July 2023
(self.cafe)
Welcome to our virtual third place, The Café.
Come on in and make a new human connection over a cup of coffee (or Teh Tarik). This is a casual community, do whatever you want, share your oyen pics, your frustrations, and even organize a weekend picnic with the community. The world is your oyster.
Rules are simple, be kind and civil with each other. As with any other café, rude patrons will be kicked out.
Depends on how hard you want to fight it. Back in India they'll argue to begin with it refers to a specific type of dish. But in a non-indian English esp in gwailoland, anything vaguely thick stew and south asian is seen as "curry". So if you rajin you can pick a fight along the lines of cultural appropriation kot - simply2 say, dasar org putih etc etc
I mean even kari is not quite curry. Japanese curry uses applesauce. That said, not having curry powder/leaves and calling it curry still is quite tone-deaf
I read that Japanese Curry was brought from British India, was meant to feed the Japanese Navy but somehow popularised amongst the population. Kinda like Korea’s Budaejjigae (army stew)
Regarding curry powder, it’s mostly likely a blend that resembles garam masala and what not. And having said that not all curry will call for specific flavour profile.
India is a huge country with very unique cuisines, if I had to guess locals probably wouldn’t refer to their unique dishes as curry and will just call it by their name.
Yeah, so when I read their complaints about it, even the British Indians, i keep that in mind, because there's another conversation that's actually happening that I'm really just an observer (it's essentially an economic and cultural preservation argument). But outside that, language IS flexible - however much I still sideeye it, Malay CKT is berkuah and Sino-Malay use of jelak instead of muak fits their respective contexts. In America an entree is the main dish but to the French that is so silly because it obviously means a starter course.
I suppose the inciting incident here (calling kurma a curry) depends very much on what you reckon would be the likely result: perpetuated by a global cultural majority (gwailo anglophones) who simply say it's curry, it might lead to other ppl also making the same mistake, frustrating the ppl who originated the cuisine as well as ppl who'd like their Google search to not be corrupted further. If you want to take the power differential reading. That's the only angle to me that answers why you'd feel off about it. If it's just some rando saying a thing that'll not be popularized by other ignorant ppl, and it's just going to stay a silly English thing, then let it beeee