Curry is a generic description used throughout European, American and Asian culture to describe a general variety of spiced dishes, best known in Asian cuisines, especially South Asian cuisine. Curry is a generic term, and although there is no one specific attribute that marks a dish as "curry", some distinctive spices used in many, though certainly not all, curry dishes include turmeric, cumin, coriander, fenugreek, and red pepper. The word curry is an anglicised version of the Dravidian word kari. It is usually understood to mean "gravy" or "sauce", rather than "spices". [1] In most South Indian languages, the word literally means 'side-dish', which can be eaten along with a main dish like rice or bread.