Curries originally emerged in India, where Kari (கரி) originally meant a spicy sauce with fresh herbs and stewed meats with which to flavor one’s portion of rice. The use of many ingredients in modern curry paste, such as cumin, fennel, ginger, garlic and turmeric, has been dated back to as early as 2600 BCE.  Much later, the Columbian Exchange of plants from the Americas would bring in other staple ingredients to curry-making, such as chillies and tomatoes. The British Empire and other colonial powers would eventually generalize all related watery dishes used to flavor rice as being a form of “curry.”