This has to do with with the mixture of honeys and apples being associated with Vermont in Japan, though I’m not quite sure how wildly known that is or why.
It’s because there was a book called “Folk Medicine: A Vermont Doctor’s Guide to Good Health” that kicked off a health fad called the “Vermont health system” in Japan. It included drinking apple cider vinegar and honey. The curry then appropriated the name for its health connotations.
I hope this isn’t rude, but how did you know that?
I was curious too, did a web search, and found this:
Awesome! Thank you!
I’m a huge fan of this style of curry, and went down a rabbit hole a few years ago learning lots of stuff about Japanese style curry.
Thank you! I’ll have to give it a try.
TIL! Blows my mind as just yesterday I was buying some more S&B Gold at the store and was really curious about this brand. Cool insight.
You can get a similar vibe out of golden curry by peeling and pureeing a couple apples. I add them after the onions get soft and fry some moisture out of them before the water and tubers go in.
Just not my vibe, prefer spicy.
I should try it once but when the recipe says “add honey” I hear “add hot sauce”. Apples sound crazy.
Like how KFC is associated with American Christmas in Japan?
https://www.timeout.com/tokyo/things-to-do/whats-the-deal-with-kfc-and-christmas-in-japan
TIL if you want Kentucky Fried Chicken, go to Japan.
the default country syndrome strikes hard again, today it got even me!
OP’s mind is gonna be blown when they discover there are multiple different types of rice, too.
That’s not the point. Vermont Curry is from Japan.
Chinese fortune cookies came from a Japanese person in San Francisco!
Or different types of coffee.
And different types of syrup
If the cheese and syrup have taught me anything, it’s that everything made in Vermont is better.
Switzerland and Canada respectively disagree.
I’ve had real Canadian maple syrup and it’s better than New Hampshire’s but not better than Vermont’s. Sorry, not sorry.
I’ve not actually had real Swiss cheese, though. Just the cheese we have here in the states that we call Swiss cheese, which is really just a single type of Swiss “invented” cheese but since it’s not actually made in Switzerland doesn’t really count. Because it’s based on bacterial cultures, it really does matter where it’s made. Wisconsin cheese is very good, but I can’t think of anything better than extra sharp Vermont cheddar. Ideally, I’d have both on the same board. 🤤
I agree, Canadian maple syrup slaps and is easier to find. Vermont maple syrup slaps just a little bit harder but I can’t usually find it in the Midwest.
Cheese from protected origins aside, it’s actually pretty common for cheeses to be made in a fashion where the specific origin doesn’t matter in the modern world. For repeatability the bacteria involved for a certain style will often be isolated and artificially introduced into the dairy to ensure different batches have uniform characteristics. This also ensures the changing conditions don’t result in the cheese suddenly being different.
As a result it’s perfectly possible to use bacterial cultures from anywhere to make cheese somewhere else.When it comes to Swiss cheese specifically, not even Switzerland claims that Swiss cheese needs to come from Switzerland. It’s usually accepted that it refers to Swiss-style cheeses. Switzerland would like the terms Emmentaler or Gruyère to be specific to Switzerland.
That very few countries agree with that request is a different matter.
In any case, “real Swiss cheese” makes about as much sense as “real Italian cheese” in reference to mozzarella.Its funny right because I agree with everything that you say, but its also just patently wrong. There is a kind of reductionist in modern technocratic thinking that we can just atomize things to their parts, and so long as we reconstitute them correctly, the thing we make is the same as the thing we destroyed.
Take Belgian beer as the example. I can and have bought Belgian yeasts and made beer with them. I’ve bought “New Belgian” beer, and bought Belgian style ales and beers from breweries all over the planet. There is one decent one coming out of the hitochino brewery in Japan and a few of the better breweries on the west coast of the US that are close, but still, no cigaro.
Drink these beers and compare them with a Belgian from Belgium. They simply don’t. Its like a childs 5th grade attempt at art compared to a master work. Comparison? There is none.
The idea that we can atomize things and reconstitute them and that they’ll be the same because we made it from the sum of its parts is a kind of toxic consumerism that disconnects people from being able to hold real identity to places and people; that its all transferable. You own nothing, not your identity or geography or anything. We can just chop it up into pieces and remake it if we know its constituent parts.
But its not true. Only a proper Belgian is a Belgian.
Lot of things there.
First, your preference in beer isn’t scientific or particularly relevant to cheese names. Would your opinion be counted by someone who preferred a new Belgian beer as opposed to one from Belgium?
Personal preference isn’t a measure of quality.Second, the notion that we can isolate the important parts and use them to make it again is literally how they make a cheese like emmentaler in Switzerland in a factory setting. Not all Swiss cheese makers are using ancient traditional techniques. The big makers are using the same modern techniques as anyone else, and they don’t leave the bacterial culture up to chance environmental factors because modern food production facilities are kept close to sterile.
Third, protected origins are a thing. Switzerland doesn’t care about “Swiss cheese”, it’s literally the name for the technique of preparing cheese. It could have trivially ended up being called “alpine cheese”, or “mountain cheese”. It’s defined by it’s bacterial cultures, preparation style, and aging conditions. That’s where there are multiple “Swiss cheeses” from Switzerland. The names of the proper cheese is what Switzerland wants to be protected, not the technique.
Fourth, food isn’t magic. Being possessive of a term for something from a place is fine, it’s fine for things to be associated with a location, but to say that the location itself imbues the product with an intangible property you can detect is magical thinking.
There’s also Golden Curry, but there’s no gold in it.
Are you implying you need to have Vermont in Vermont Curry?
If you’re celebrating Vermont cheese, you need to get out to Wisconsin. I’m a Minnesotan so it does pain me to say that they’re better than us at something, but Wisconsin cheese lives up to the hype.
Once you’ve had Crowley cheese people tend to stop looking. There was a place in town that had a Crowley pizza that was wicked good.
Then again I also think Four Fat Foul is pretty much the best soft cheese you’re going to get this side of the Atlantic, and it’s made in NY.
I don’t know if that hold true here judging by the picture on the box. It looks like brown gravy.
Vermont curry isn’t actually from Vermont. It’s a Japanese style curry, rather than an Indian style, so it’s a different spice composition.
Add tumeric so it looks like the usual yellow. 🤷🏻♂️
This isn’t made in Vermont though. It’s Japanese.
Not to be confused with Vermont Carry, which is Constitutional or “permitless” carry of handguns.
Indiana and Florida too
Why does it always need to be about best or most popular?
Maybe this tastes good in its own way, hits the spot in its own way, and that doesn’t diminish Indian/Thai/etc curry in any way.
Then again, I do favor Thai curry over Indian curry, which I’ve been told makes me a monster no one should listen to…
It is actually a Japanese product. It is Japanese style brown curry with some maple syrup, honey, and apple, or at least those flavors, added to it.
I will get curry with you.
To Vermont!
I do favor Thai curry over Indian curry, which I’ve been told makes me a monster no one should listen to…
What? Why, though???
I also prefer Thai curry, because Thai food is incredible. I mean, so is Indian food, but everyone has their own favorite flavor profiles.
Indian curry is also a very vague description. There are so many types of curry of Indian origin and they’re all so different from each other.
Why are you a monster? Thai curry is fucking delicious!
There’s people who argue about pineapple on pizza and it’s ridiculous.
Food is food. And there’s no wrong way to eat it!!!
Except people who put mustard on their fries
Similar to Green Mountain Salsa. Nothing says authenticly Mexican like Vermont Salsa
Better than NEW YORK CITY!
Fun fact: In Super Troopers, there were several jokes about Thorny being Arabian, Mexican, etc because of his personal life growing up in Vermont and people were uh uncertain.
Anyone that has seen the movie and is from a small town in any state can relate.
Ok but when I think apple and honey Vermont does come to mind
And now enjoy apple honey curry
It’s really good. We buy Montana and Otago curry from the same brand. I always found the names funny, though.
I’m tired and out of the corner of my eye that initially looked like ‘Voldemort curry’
Or the longer name: Curry that must not to be named.
Voldemort Curry: “The curry of choice for Turfs”
Man, VT has become so freaking precious about itself. I’m biased, I grew up there in the 80s and GTFO as soon as I could. I heard a thing in Brave Little State – a whole episode no less – about the so called “VT wave,” which they do in every rural community from Georgia to Montana ffs.
Vermont is cool and all, for reasons, but not for all the reasons some folks think they are.
VT curry my ass. Fuckin VT needs to get over itself. </rant>
It would be better if the people who think it’s cool weren’t there.
Oddly enough, they don’t seem to sell this in the EU or UK (though some Asian groceries near universities have a mix in similarly coloured packaging made for the Chinese market by House’s PRC subsidiary), though they sell other House and S&B curry mixes. I wonder if Vermont Curry might contain an ingredient that’s banned in the EU or something.
Pizzafication
I don’t like any curry do I have no dog in this race. That said, even if know that this is dumb.
