In a new series, our writers explore how food shaped Australian history – and who we are today. Curry occupies a grey area in Australia: sometimes exotic and other, sometimes ordinary, often a bit of both. Advertised in Australia as early as 1813, curry powder was a familiar ingredient for British colonists, developed in British India through a process of “negotiation and collaboration”. Curry powder was a food of empire. For the British colonialists who moved to Australia, curry powder was an “agent of transformation”. In a new country with unusual animals, these spices could render the unfamiliar into the familiar, as in “Iguana” tail curry and curried wattle bird.