Referring to Indian food as “curry” is a racist relic of British colonialism, according to woke academics and food influencers.
The word curry, which is believed to be an anglicised interpretation of the Tamil word ‘kari’, has become the latest target for the iconoclastic woke left.
In a BuzzFeed video posted earlier this year, Chaheti Bansal, 27, called for people to “cancel the word curry”.
“There’s a saying that the food in India changes every 100km and yet we’re still using this umbrella term popularised by white people who couldn’t be bothered to learn the actual names of our dishes,” she said.
Speaking to NBC News last week, Bansal added: “Curry shouldn’t be all that you think about when you think about South Asian food.”
Associate professor of religious studies at the University of Vermont, Ilyse R. Morgenstein Fuerst, claimed that the word is rooted in “white Christian, supremacy”.
“The word curry does not exist in any South Asian language to my knowledge,” Morgenstein Fuerst said, adding: “Curry is one of these words that most historians attribute to the British bad ear.”
“There’s a long history of imagining what we would call Indian food as exotic and sought after,” she continued, claiming that Indians catered to the palates of European colonisers.
Morgenstein claimed that the British wanted food that was spiced but not too spiced.
“They wanted food that was spiced, but not too much. Fragrant, but not smelly,” Morgenstein said.
“And that lack of temperance, in our food, or in our emotionality, is a problem,” she said. “That’s one of the things that is rooted in white, Christian supremacy.”
Food blogger Bansal later admitted that the word ‘curry’ cannot be cancelled altogether as it is often used by indigenous peoples to describe their food.
“My partner is Sri Lankan, I have friends that are Malayali, friends that are Tamil, and yes they use the word curry,” Bansal said, but cautioned: “You shouldn’t just lump all of our foods together under this term.”
The post has been met with derision and mockery in Britian, with stand up comedian and Reclaim Party member Leo Kearse saying: “What’s racist today? Today, the word “curry” is racist, and we’re all going to have to stop using it because some blogger is crying about it.”
Free Speech Union Deputy Research Director Emma Webb added: “If Californian food bloggers want to take on Essex blokes over curry, good luck to them.”
Appearing on GB News on Monday, Indian chef and owner of Café Spice Namaste in London, Cyrus Todiwala said that he doesn’t consider the term curry to be racist. Todiwala went on to point out that it was largely a result of Indian chefs failing to educate people in Britain about the differences between dishes.
‘I don’t consider it racist, I think it’s lack of education’
Cyrus Todiwala, Indian Chef & owner of Café Spice Namaste, says the word ‘curry’ isn’t racist, but ‘I would be happy if British people didn’t call all Indian food curry, and regard it as Indian cuisine’ pic.twitter.com/gXkqSOGiTh
— GB News (@GBNEWS) August 9, 2021
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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