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.
The earliest cooking methods in India included dehydrating, boiling, parboiling, braising, steaming, pan-frying, deep-frying, dry-roasting, grilling and baking. Slow-cooking over a low heat came later, around 1500 BC, and can be attributed to the use of cow dung as fuel, as it burned more evenly at a lower temperature.
India’s hot climate meant freshly killed meat had to be cooked immediately, over a gentle heat for a long time to make it soft; it could not be hung up to tenderise as in cooler climates otherwise it would spoil. Cooking pots with rounded bottoms (to give room for fat and spices to accumulate), oil production on a commercial scale and grinding stones all developed one after another, creating the implements and conditions for making a curry.
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.’
(Excerpted with permission from The Philosophy of Curry by Sejal Sukhadwala; British Library Publishing, 2022)
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