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Tamil culinary terms in English
This site is about Tamil cuisine one of the most flavorful and famous cuisine in India. The world associates India with the most flavourful and spicy food - Curry. This word "Curry" originated from the Tamil word "Kari". Check out dictionary or wikipedia site for more info on etymology.
These days we use the word "Kari" in compounded words.
For example
kaikari which means vegetables,
kari kuzhambu which means mutton curry - here the word kari refers to the meat.
Other words from Tamil language which are used to denote a food item in English are given below:
1. Congee - In Tamil language, it is "Kanji" (sounds like Japanese script form "Kanji"). Kanji is a plain rice porridge. This is really a healthy food. Kanji is a prominet food of ancient Tamil people. Even now, in villages, people have Kanji on daily basis. We have a recipe page for making kanji - congee.
2. Mango - In Tamil language, it is "Maangaai". This word went to Portugese as "manga" and then to English as "Mango"
3. Mulligatawny - It is an English soup originated from Tamil words milagu thanni. Milagu means Pepper and Thanni means Water. Transliteration is pepper-water. This is similar to our Rasam. Check out the recipe for Rasam.