Alternate History on the Origin of Japanese Curry • Spoiler Alert - Forgotten Recipe that wasn't from Britain

Curry rice is relatively new in Japanese food culture but is already considered one of her national dishes, up there with ramen, sushi, tempura and other culinary icons.

It is generally accepted that the Japanese learnt how to cook curry from the British. The British, in turn, learned the dish from the Indians.

South Asians have been making curry since over 5000 years ago. The earliest known curry, the remains of a brinjal - mango and spice concoction was found in a claypot among the ruins of the Indus Valley Harappa civilisation (in today's Pakistan) which existed 5000 years ago.

Thousands of years later, the British came to India in 1608 first as traders, then as conquerors - by 1858, British India came under the rule of the British Raj.

The earliest known curry recipe in English was in Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery published in 1747.

There were only two spices in Ms Glasse's curry recipe - a fowl or rabbit stew with peppercorn and coriander seed.

The Hindi word for black peppercorn is "kali". Black pepper is commonly used in Indian spice blends which included other spices like cardamom, cumin, turmeric, etc. Kali or carrie, currey or curry became a short form, a catch-all word the British used for the complex blend of spices and any dish cooked with it.

Alternatively, the term curry might have been derived from "kari", the Tamil word for sauce or relish.

Kali or kari, it is accepted that "curry" came originally from South Asia, not the Middle East or Far East.

The British in India encountered Indian traders selling made-to-order and ready made spice blends. (A tradition that still persists today in India and where there are Indian migrant communities such as in Singapore and Malaysia.)

By 1784, the British were making and trading their own spice blends or "curry powder".

Hindoostane Coffee House, the first Indian restaurant / curry house in Britain opened in London in 1810.

Curry became one of Britain's national dishes, as British as fish and chips but that's a story for another article.

Back in Japan, the Tokugawa shogunate closed the island nation's borders to foreigners to thwart Portuguese and Dutch influence from 1603 - 1867. This (isolationist) 鎖国 Sakoku policy lasted 217 years until the Meiji Restoration began in 1868 (till 1912). 

Foreign influence returned once Japan's doors reopened to outsiders. The British brought many things to Japan, including curry.

British-built Ryūjō was the flagship of the Imperial Japanese Navy until 1881.

In 1870, an Imperial decree ordered the Imperial Japanese Navy be modernised following after the British Royal Navy. Royal Navy Admiral Archibald Lucius Douglas was appointed naval advisor to the Imperial Japanese Navy from 1873 to 1875 - during his tenure, Admiral Douglas laid the foundations for naval officer training and education for the IJN.

Curry dishes made with curry powder, onion, carrot and potatoes were rations onboard Royal Navy ships. The curry dish was cure and prevention against beriberi, an often deadly disease caused by vitamin B1 deficiency.

The Japanese Imperial Navy adopted this practice, serving curry dishes as rations. Later, Japanese schools too began serving curry as the ingredients keep well, the dish easy to make in bulk, students adapted easily to the flavours and enjoyed it with rice. Once served in schools, curry with rice permeated throughout generations of Japanese society.

The earliest Japanese curry recipes came from the cookbook 西洋料理通 Western Cookery published in 1872. It has 110 recipes including one for beef / mutton with curry powder, and another for fowl with curry powder.

In 1908, the Imperial Japanese Navy published the 帝国海军料理物语 Imperial Navy Cooking Reference Book which included a curry recipe.

In Japan, curry is considered yōshoku 洋食, a Western dish as it came to Japan via the British.

Today, curry is ubiquitous in Japan and many consider it one of the country's national dishes. Every prefecture have their own variation, and the Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force still hold the annual Yokosuka Curry Festival at the naval base where navy ships showcase their versions of curry. Friday is still curry day for Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force ships at sea.

Beside this mainstream narrative, there is another version of Japanese curry from the Dutch Indies (today's Indonesia) which is far less well known.

To understand this alternate narrative, we need to go back in time to the 1st and 13th century southeast Asia. 

Southeast Asia straddles the Maritime Silk Route between India / Middle East and China. Traders from India transit and stopover southeast Asian ports bringing with them goods as well as culture, including their cuisine. So, Indian dishes like curry, use of spices, etc were adopted by southeast Asian nations, forming the foundations of Malay, Javanese, Thai, Khmer food, etc. All these cultures have their own curry dishes.

Japanese mercenaries in the Banda Islands in 1600s. They fought under the Dutch flag during the Anglo-Dutch war over the Banda Islands in today's Indonesia.

Japanese presence in the Dutch Indies was small, dating back to the 16th century. Some were traders plying between Japan and Sunda Kelapa (old name of Jakarta during 1500s), others were mercenaries fighting on behalf of the Dutch, while some were ladies working in brothels. Dutch official records counted 614 Japanese living in the Dutch Indies in 1898.

Only a handful of Japanese in Dutch Indies, but they left a legacy known as Kari Japan recorded in Indische Kookboek or Indian Cookbook publish in 1843 in Batavia (today's Jakarta).

This recipe predates the Japanese cookbook Western Cookery published in 1872 as well as the opening of Japan in 1868 (under the Meiji Restoration). This Kari Japan dish was created when Japan was still under the Tokugawa Shogunate's 鎖国 Sakoku, closed door isolationist policy.

It's a mild soupy curry of chicken, cabbage, radish, green bean, young green pea, bamboo shoot, and onion, boiled with nutmeg, cloves, nutmeg mace, pepper, salt, soy sauce and lime in chicken stock.

The curry is eaten with butter pan fried chicken patty (frikkadel) spiced with coriander, pepper and cumin as well as aromatics like chopped parsley and spring onion.

The curry and frikkadel are eaten with boiled rice.

The presence of frikkadel and butter reveal a strong Dutch imprint. The use of radish and bamboo shoot reflect its Japanese soul (far from home).

There was no quartet of potato, carrot, onion and curry powder usually used in British inspired curry.

This Kari Japan from the Dutch Indies (1843) that predated the Meiji Restoration (1868) is seldom spoken or written about today. This form of peppery soupy unthicken curry is not found in today's Japan (at least I have never came across it in Japan or anywhere else). But, thanks to the detailed recipe in Indische Kookboek we can recreate the dish today.

Who is Tony Johor Kaki

 Sources & Citations

Special thanks to De Tempoe Doeloe Koken. It is from his YouTube channel that I first learned about Indische Kookboek and Kari Japan. I screenshot a few scenes from his YouTube channel to illustrate this article.