Sunday, January 31, 2021

Curry leaves in India

India is rightfully called as the “Botanical garden of the world”. It is the land of several medicinal plants and herbs that are traditionally used to cure ailments. Murraya koenigii, is one such plant, also called the curry leaf. It belongs to the family Rutaceae.

The species name commemorates the botanist called Johann Konig. The genus Murray commemorates Swedish physician and botanist Johann Andreas Murray who died in 1791.

In India, curry leaves have been used in traditional Ayurvedic medicine since ancient times and are believed to have anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties. Ayurveda is an ancient Indian medical science, the origin of which can be traced back to the Vedas, which are the oldest available classics of the world.

The importance and the use of curry leaves as a flavoring for vegetables is described in early Tamil literature dating back to the 1st to 4th centuries AD.

Its use is also mentioned a few centuries later in Kannada literature.

The small, shiny, pungent leaves are still closely associated with South India where the word 'curry' originates from the Tamil 'kari' for spiced sauces. An alternative name for curry leaf throughout India is kari-pattha.

The leaves are used in similar way to the bay leaf in western countries and are employed in fresh, dried and powdered forms.

Curry leaf trees are naturalized in forests and abandoned land throughout the Indian subcontinent except in the higher parts of the Himalayas. From the Ravi River in Pakistan its distribution extends eastwards towards Assam in India and Chittagong in Bangladesh, and southwards to Tamil Nadu in India.

They were then spread by Indian migrants and are widely cultivated in home garden across Asia.
Curry leaves in India