Topic: Off-topic replies

[Peripatetic Phil]

Sub-thread :  "Why do some refer to the base sauce as 'garabi ?' (from 'Is it possible to over-cook a base ?')

What a load of bollocks!  This is a curry forum, not a roast dinner forum.  Ask any Indian what gravy is and they'll tell you its curry sauce. (In so many words)  What gets me is that the handful of white guys using this word realise that not only does it sound odd in English to pronounce the vowel like you would in hay (gray-bee), it also sounds like you're taking the piss. So its changed to the sound like in have (grab-bee).    And there ain't nowhere in the world people pronounce gravy like navvy.  Savvy?

It is not at all clear to me, Frank, which part you regard as 'b@ll@cks'.  I think that you would agree that in the Bengali language, there is no "v" phoneme, the nearest phoneme being "b" (no IPA available, so I use the nearest English equivalent); and I think that you would also agree that in Bengali there are no initial consonantal clusters, so the "gr" of "gravy" could not occur in any native Bengali word.  So, for a L1 Bengali speaker, given the English word "gravy", the nearest that most can manage is "garabi". [1, 2]

This is no different to an English L1 speaker being asked to pronounce (for example) the Polish word "wydawnictwo" ("vee-dav-neats-tvo") -- as English does not contain the "tstv" consonantal cluster, the closest that most L1 English speakers will get is "vee-dav-neats-vo" or "vee-dav-neast-vo" and they will even /believe/ that that is what their Polish interlocutor is saying, so strange is the sound "tstv" to English ears.

Now if you ask an L1 Bengali speaker who is familiar primarily with BIR cuisine what "gravy" is, he or she will almost certainly describe curry base; ask an L1 Bengali speaker if he (or she) could "pass the gravy" at an English dinner party, and he or she will almost certainly not look for the curry base but will pass the meat-juice-based gravy as intended.  But ask that same L1 Bengali speaker what it is that he or she has just passed, and the probability is very high (from the linguistic considerations outlined above) that he or she will say something similar to "garabi". [1, 2]

Livo :  there is an earlier usage by CBM in May 2009
** Phil.
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[1] Of course I exclude trained Bengali linguists and those who may have Bengali as L1 but who were brought up in an environment (such as Britain) where they are exposed both to the "v" phoneme and initial consonantal clusters while still acquiring their spoken language skills.

[2] I offer no opinion as to whether the second "a" of "garabi" is long or short when spoken by an L1 Bengali speaker; there is no a /priori/ reason why it should not be long (as in "Navy") but it might be felt better to render it as short "a" (as in "batter") for reasons of euphony.

[livo]

Thank you Phil, my search was by no means thorough, but I think we can conclude that CBM is most likely the creator of this new word, which for all intents and purposes is curry gravy.

I recall poor old Ms Hill trying to get our 1st Form class to master the "uvular rrr" required to speak French.  We had some very wet lessons and eventually settled on counting to 10 in French and singing Frere Jacques or whatever it was, for a whole year.  Personally I could never get the gender thing with some things being female and others male even though they were clearly neither.

[DalPuri]

I knew I should've used brackets around the word curry.  :
Phil, I don't care if there is no v in Bengali. We all know what they're trying to say, and the word is gravy. To say otherwise, is to mock them.

[Peripatetic Phil]

/No-one/ is mocking ("them", or anyone else, Frank); we have simply adopted the common Bengali pronunciation of "gravy" as a convenient single word for "curry base".  As I've said before in this context, it is hard to imagine a less likely group of people who would deliberately mock the speech of people from the sub-continent -- we are not lager-swilling louts who go into a BIR in order to have a fight :  we love BIR food, and we love the people who produce it.

** Phil.

[livo]

I like lager. Not keen on fighting though. 

Until someone comes up with a better explanation, I'll attribute responsibility for the use of this word, to CBM, in it's presently discussed form, and other than its use as a proper noun, ie Garabi, being a place or surname.

Whatever it is, I know that when I buy a curry, I get too much garabi and not enough under-developed poultry.

[littlechilie]

http://youtu.be/eAQe42FnVks Ali's explanation of the word Gravy/Garabi, please play @1:30 I'm making Ali's Gravy/Garabi at half scale today, so will post it up later with my thoughts on the gravy.if I get time!

[Peripatetic Phil]

I recall poor old Ms Hill trying to get our 1st Form class to master the "uvular rrr" required to speak French.  We had some very wet lessons and eventually settled on counting to 10 in French and singing Frere Jacques or whatever it was, for a whole year. 

This very topic arose (in all places) in Amsterdam, where I was a part of a multi-lingual conference delegation.  Some L1 English speakers including myself were discussing the correct (French) pronunciation of Simenon's hero Maigret.  Some argued for 'May-Gray, others for May-'Gray (stress on first or second syllable being the only difference), so we asked Mme. Siebenmann, an L1 French speaker, which was correct.  "Neither !", she said., emphatically.  "But surely, Madame, it must be one or the other ?".  "Non, it is May-GRay" (where the significant difference was the uvular R in the second syllable).  To Mme. Siebenmann, stress placement was less important (though she did use 2nd-syllable stress) than the correct uvular-"R" phoneme.

** Phil.

[chewytikka]

A load of the usual Blah Blah

Mountains out of mole hills again DP, Not Curry Sauce at all, Bangladeshi BIR Onion Gravy.

For all the members that have never been in a Bangladeshi BIR kitchen, but like to post there opinions.
Fast forward one of my old videos to 6.40 as I ask my Sylheti mate Naz, about the

[livo]

LC & Chewy, thanks for posting the links and I think that they both say exactly what others here have been saying, ie; "Gravy and Garabi, it is the same stuff".  "it is onion gravy, it is just how the people say it... sort of a slang word really, that will do it".

[Gav Iscon]

And just to reiterate the above posts from Chewy and LC, I've just been to see a friend of mines father who started cheffing at the beginning of the 80's and is now an owner.

What do you call the big pan of sauce you use to make curries with Abu? 
Garabi.
When I explained the argument he said,
I suppose you could say gravy but we say ga-ra-bi.
So its not offensive?, for which he just laughed, looked at me strangely and asked if I would like a drink.