1927: curry: English vs. Indian Mar 25, 2020

While people might think of curries today as being Indian, the oldest England language cookery book is titled "The Forme of Cury" (1390). These two things have nothing to do with each other culinarily. It was written by the the master-cook to king Richard II, and it takes the word 'curry' from the French 'cuire' meaning 'to cook'. Other cookery books had been written at this time and before, but always in Latin or French in that part of the world. Indian 'curry' comes from the Tamil 'kāri' meaning 'sauce' or also 'morsel'.

Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts