CURRY – A Re-Storyation — By June Chua
artwork by Adam Straus
Have you ever tasted curry? Do you know the spices confined within?
Multitudes.
When ingesting something called ‘curry’ consider how the flavours have been forcibly married
to form this palatable offering.
Resources.
The Portuguese landed on Indian shores during the 15th century in search of spices.
Subjugation.
Exploitation.
Extraction.
They encountered coconut style stews and created a word for them, carel.
A bastardization of the Tamil word kari, meaning to season with black pepper or to blacken.
As if they discovered it.
Then the British came.
Invasion.
Supremacy.
Injustice.
The British seized India in 1858.
The English and their Anglicisms converted karel into curry. They remade it.
Containment.
Control.
Conquest.
Dishes melding ginger, cumin, turmeric—anything deemed Indian—became a trend.
British companies started selling all kinds of curry mixes.
Assimilation.
Appropriation.
Profit.
Most curries have this yellow tint ranging from orangey-red to bright straw.
It’s akin to Gambodge, a pigment artists such as Rembrandt and J.M.W. Turner embraced
when it was first offered by a London shop in the 1830s.
Gambodge was incandescent.
It’s made by boring into the Garcinia tree native to SE Asia and especially, Cambodia. Gambodge.
Once the tree is gouged, it is milked.
The sap dripping for over a year into a hallow bamboo pipe.
Sweet tears dribble
B
I
T
B
Y
B I T
Once solidified, the sap cylinder is removed and shipped.
In Europe, it was cut into brown disks for artists to dilute with water.
Dissolved.
Disintegrated.
Denied.
The pigment had already been used by artists in China, India and Japan for centuries.
The fruit of the tree has long been used for soup, a sour drink, and medicinal purposes.
It was known.
Cherished.
Valued.
Some things become significant only when ‘discovered.’
Curry = a new narrative in a tin.
Making the ‘exotic’ appetizing for British tastes.
Held, concentrated, only to be released by white hands and crafted into something they could absorb.
Once devoured, the muddy liquid is funneled into their bodies
Chewed.
Churned.
Consumed.
In every part of the world where curry exists, memories and histories have congealed.
Beaten down.
Mixed.
Reconstituted.
Worlds lost.
Cleansed from its source.
Origins disappeared.
Histories discarded.
Erased.
Eventually Gambodge was replaced by a cheaper, easier to produce pigment, areolin or cobalt yellow.
It was created by Europeans and is best used in watercolours, not oils.
In Cambodia, trees bearing gouges and years of milking hold witness to the ravages of history.
Their tears transported across the globe.
Monetized.
They have no more to give.
Born in Malaysia on the island of Borneo to Chinese parents, June Chua grew up in the Canadian prairies, first living in a trailer! She pursued journalism and worked for almost two decades at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) . During that time, she made award-winning documentaries which screened around the world and wrote articles for newspapers and magazines. She now resides in Berlin committing occasional acts of journalism and creative writing. She's currently working on a prose-poem collection supported by a literary grant.