Japanese Curry

Yes, the Japanese eat curry, but it's not like any curry you'll ever get in India or England. It's sweeter and usually thicker, more like a stew. My mom used to make Japanese curry all the time, so I never thought much about it. But lately, I've been learning a lot about Japanese curry and it's really very fascinating.

As I suspected, Japanese curry is a version of English curry. The truth is, there's no such thing as Indian curry. Curry, as most people know it, is an Anglo-Indian invention. It came to Japan around the early 1900s when Japan started modernizing. Of course, the reason they wanted to modernize was to be able to defend themselves against the European and American bullies. And they weren't going to be able to do that until they got a competitive military. And part of being competitive was beefing up its military men. Literally. They began feeding their men beef. But the men didn't like it. They'd been brought up eating fish, if they were lucky, and soy. Beef tasted foul. Smelled foul too. So how does one make beef more appetizing? The Japanese military looked towards the British navy. They fed their guys curry. What a great way to hide the stink of beef! (I have to add that I've read other versions but I think this is the right one.)

Beef, curry, and Western food soon began to spread to the populace at large. There were even restaurants dedicated to the stuff. But like the Japanese curry, all the dishes were catered specifically to Japanese palates. That's why you get the ketchup omelet rice dishes. And why Italian pasta dishes will be garnished with nori (Japanese dried seaweed). Curry, though, seems to have really won the heart of the average Japanese. I've heard that a Japanese housewife will serve curry at least once a week to her family. One of the reasons is that children really love it. I suppose it's a lot like how Italian spaghetti became so popular with American housewives.

Any Japanese housewife worth her weight in salt has her own special recipe. The basic recipe starts off with a stew made of beef, potatoes, carrots, and onions. To this a curry roux is added. Then the special secret ingredient, which can be any combination of Worcestershire sauce, pineapple juice, grated apple, cream, yogurt, etc.

The curry is served with Japanese rice and a side of Japanese pickles. The Japanese pickles really add fun. Oh—don't forget to bring the spoons in glasses of ice water. The icy spoon is supposed to make the curry less spicy.

Most housewives do not make their own roux. You can get store-bought like the S&B Golden Curry Sauce Mix (I've seen this brand in places like Safeway's and Ralph's). Using prepared roux is such a given, it'd never even occured to me to make my own. But then I found a curry roux recipe at Harris Salat's website and thought, why not?

If you're at all familiar with making roux, the recipe is very easy. You just add the curry powder to the roux with some stock. But let's face it: it's so much easier just to break off a cube of S&B and stir. I'll probably continue using S&B. The taste difference between homemade and store-bought wasn't that profound. Homemade roux resulted in a much more buttery dish, but you can always add butter. Of course, S&B contains palm oil, sugar, caramel, MSG, disodium guanylate...