The Forme of Cury

[drdee]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forme_of_Cury

[2mol]

If you're into historical recipes, I can't recommend the "Tasting History" channel on youtube enough. It intersperses replicating the recipes with a whole load of historical context and nuance. "The Forme of Cury" has made some appearances on it as well.

https://www.youtube.com/@TastingHistory

[jpm_sd → 2mol]

Also highly recommended - the British Food History Podcast (and companion blog), with the aptly named Dr. Neil Buttery. Here's the episode about Forme of Cury.

https://britishfoodhistory.com/tag/forme-of-cury/

[rwmj]

"curry" meaning "cooking" https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/curry

There is a (disputed) story that curry was used as a dismissive way to refer to Indian food ("just cooking"), which then became used to refer to Indian food.

[Brian_K_White → rwmj]

Could this be where "to curry favor" comes from? Where curry, in it's "to cook" form basically means "to make"? So like "to cook up some favor" as "to generate favor"

[karatinversion → Brian_K_White]

Wiktionary has a different etymology: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/curry_favor#English

[tptacek → rwmj]

Curry used in the sense you're using it is derived from the Tamil word for "sauce".

[64operator → rwmj]

It's just a contraction of cookery, much like Wooster is a contraction of Worcestshire. Just throw out the unneeded, middle syllables.