Since I am quite amused by all the confusion going around, I decided to do a concise (albeit biased) clarification about "Curry".

The East India Company (The British masquerading as traders) first docked on the southern shores of India and were immediately struck by:

1. The *awesome* South Indian cuisine.
2. The multiple layers of gold that women wore.
3. Everything else, including how gullible the natives were and how twisty the language was.

They decided to use their devious stratagem to buy enormous quantities of spices for cheap, and rob the gold and diamonds.

However, what they couldn't do was master the language. In particular, they had trouble wrapping their tongues around the word: Karuveppilai, the Tamil word for what is now (and quite inaccurately) known as the "Curry leaf". They also had trouble understanding the locals who called any side vegetable/meat accompaniment as "Kari". It didn't help matters any that every South Indian dish they ever had was either seasoned with Karuveppilai or had some powdered version of the Karuveppilai in it.

Using their tendency to clip short every vowel, and their total bewilderment with the language, they shortened the entire idea of a spiced dish to "Kari". Some Spaniards on the ship to England decided to spell it phonetically as "Curry". So voila, a new word was born.

When they proceeded further north into India, they came across another totally different type of cuisine - dominated not by the revered Karuveppilai, but Coriander ("Dhania" in Hindi, "Cilantro" in Spanish, "Kothamalli" in Tamil).

But by this time, the trade name "Curry" had curried favour up and down the length of the common(stolen)wealth. The seasoned business acumen that the British had acquired, stealing the wealth of natives around the world, warned them about the dangers of changing the name of a popular product in their home and overseas markets.

They decided that, since coriander was also a green leaf, and learning the names of the new spices involved trying to comprehend another wild language (Hindi), they wouldn't bother renaming the new North Indian spices (called "masala" by the natives). The easy solution was to just mix it all up in a bottle and rebrand the whole concoction as "Curry Powder". So essentially, the "Curry Powder" is about as Indian as Guano is a culinary delicacy.

And there you have it. The "History of Curried Confusion: Confounding the Western World, since 1600".

If you ever go to the heart of the subcontinent and ask for "Curry Powder", unless you are in a westernized supermarket, you are bound to get blank stares. Consider yourself warned.

If you want to get Karuveppilai here in the US, the best place to look would be an authentic Indian Store. South-east Asian stores seldom have it. The reason being that they don't cook with Karuveppilai, it is an acquired Indian taste.

Here in Buffalo, the places to go would be:

Super Bazaar
3218 Sheridan Dr
Amherst, NY 14226
(716) 835-4770

Spices of India
438 Evans St
Williamsville, NY 14221
Phone: (716) 633-4800

I really haven't seen it elsewhere. Just to give new meaning to the phrase "green with envy", here's a photograph of my stash. :)