Chutney

• 1. Introduction

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  Chutney, a condiment of the Indian subcontinent, can get its sourness from ants. In the state of Odisha, a version called chaprah chutney is made with red ants, chili, garlic and ginger. The ants carry their own acid, and the formic acid they contain turns the mixture sour without any help from vinegar or lemon. In 2024 this chutney received a geographical indication tag, a formal recognition tied to its place of origin. It is a startling place to begin, because most people picture a jar of sweet mango preserve on a British supermarket shelf. Yet that jar and the ant chutney belong to the same family. This documentary asks how one humble category of food could stretch from a crushed paste of leaves to a bottled export, and who carried it across oceans. It also asks why a dish that is eaten in small spoonfuls has left a mark on language, trade, music and television.

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• 2. A Name Meaning To Lick

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  The Hindi verb chāṭnā means to lick or to taste, and the word chutney grows directly out of it. The Hindi form is caṭnī and the Urdu form is chaṭnī, both rooted in that verb. In South India the same kind of side dish goes by the name pachadi. That term is written in the scripts of Telugu, Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam, as well as in Devanagari. Roughly translated, a pachadi is a pounded or crushed plant. Both names point to a simple physical act, whether licking a taste off the finger or pounding something into a paste. The food historian Pushpesh Pant has taken that thought a step further. He suggests that basic chutneys may have been among the very first foods that hunter-gatherers prepared. By crushing seeds, fruits and berries into a paste, they could make raw or cooked food easier to enjoy. Nobody can prove that guess, but written records of chutney do appear surprisingly early.

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• 3. Fresh Or Preserved

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  A plate of rice in India is rarely eaten alone, and a spoonful of chutney is one reason why. Chutneys serve as spicy relishes, taken in small quantities alongside plain staples. A typical Indian meal combines a meat dish, a dish of pulses, rice or bread, a yoghurt relish such as raita or dahi, and a homemade chutney. Within this wide field, chutneys fall into two broad groups. The first group is fresh preparations that must be eaten right away. Fresh coriander chutney is the simplest example. It is just the green leaves ground up with flavourings such as green chili, lemon juice, salt, cumin and black pepper. Cooks grind the flavourings for these fresh chutneys anew each day, using spices like chili and ginger and herbs like coriander and mint. The second group is the preserves, which are bottled and kept until needed. These contain fruit cooked with sugar and vinegar, flavoured with garlic, cayenne pepper and ginger. The difference is mostly about time, and in a sense the cook decides whether the chutney lasts an afternoon or a season.

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• 4. Regional Pantries

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  Coconut chutney is the most widely used chutney in South India, and Karnataka is known for its own version. Western India favours a blend of herbs and coconut, and also likes garlic chutney. In North India the preferred base is unripe mango. Chutneys made purely from herbs appear in both the West and the North, while tomato chutney is eaten in every part of the country. Kashmir has a more unusual range, with chutneys built from sour cherries, pumpkins, radishes or walnuts. Bangladesh adds its own variety. There chutneys may be sweet or spicy-hot, and they draw on a broad list of fruits and vegetables. Cooks often add lemon juice, tamarind or vinegar, since the acid helps the chutney keep. The spice shelf includes asafoetida, coriander, cumin and fenugreek, alongside herbs such as green coriander and mint. Some chutneys have also been valued for more than flavour. One made from dried fish has been thought to soothe a person who is suffering from malaria.

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• 5. Courts And Kitchens

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  Around 1516, the traveller Duarte Barbosa wrote about a scene in the far south of India. In his Book of Duarte Barbosa, chutney is served to the raja in silver dishes, alongside curries and sauces. About a decade later, the Krishnamangal, ascribed to Krishnadasa Kaviraja, described chutney prepared in Bengal for a worship setting. There it accompanied dishes including greens and soups. So by the early 16th century, chutney already moved between royal tables and religious occasions. The kitchens of the Mughal court took it further. They prepared feasts with many dishes, and the chutneys among them used ingredients as varied as dried fruits, rose petals and saffron. One story says that the physicians of the emperor Shah Jahan, who reigned from 1628 to 1658, urged him to eat chutneys made with herbs and spices to help his digestion.

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• 6. From The Raj To Britain

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  Salt meat and dry ship's biscuit were the daily diet of sailors in the 17th century, and chutney made that diet easier to bear. In the time of the East India Company, British travellers in India noticed the many pickles, known as achar, and the chutneys. Sailors found the preserve-like kinds a useful companion on long voyages. Individual travellers and merchants brought quantities home, and cooks in Britain soon began to copy them. During the British Raj, Britons in India made many chutneys in the Anglo-Indian style. Sweet ones cooked mango with sugar, vinegar and spices. Major Grey's Chutney is the best-known example, supposedly created by a 19th-century British Army officer adapting Indian cooking to Anglo-Indian taste. Its ingredients include mango, raisins, vinegar, lime juice, onion and tamarind extract. The formula was sold to the major food maker Crosse and Blackwell, probably in the early 1800s. In 1896, Edward Palmer founded Veeraswamy & Co. in London, importing chutneys, spices and curry pastes from India. British cooks also adapted what grew nearby. Apples, marrows and onions replaced Indian limes, mangoes and tamarind, with dried sultanas added. Mustard powder and horseradish took over the heat that chili had supplied. Chutney came to be eaten with hard cheese or cold meats. A report in 1998 on the European ethnic foods market said that Britain had spent £7.7 million on mango chutney alone in the previous year.

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• 7. Around The World

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  During the 18th century, chutney travelled from Britain to the American colonies and then across Europe. In the 19th century, British merchants brought indentured Indian sugar workers to the Caribbean, and some of them settled there with their cooking. In Trinidad and Tobago, chutneys are mostly made from green mangoes, coconut or tamarind. Malaysian cuisine uses Indian pickles and chutneys such as mango chutney. In South Africa, Cape Malay cooks make a mildly spicy version called blatjang. They cook apricots, mangoes or peaches with vinegar, brown sugar, onions, garlic and spices. Australia had its own commercial product by the 1950s. An advertisement then promoted "Tiger Chutney. Pawpaw and Mango, made by the Indian Condiment Co." In 2024, chutneys as a class ranked 41st on the Taste Atlas list of the 100 Best Dips in the World. Coriander chutney placed 47th, green chutney 48th and mango chutney 49th. The condiment even has a day of its own, World Chutney Day, which is celebrated every year on the 24th of September.

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• 8. Chutney On Screen And Stage

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  In Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad, the word chutney describes a kind of music and dance rather than a food. It grew from the North Indian sthai-antar structure, in which a refrain alternates with verses, and it is played at a rapid tempo. These countries have large Indian diaspora communities where chutneys are still eaten, and the music symbolises that community's cultural identity. The condiment has appeared in storytelling as well. A 2016 Hindi short film called Chutney follows a timid wife as she begins to spar with her husband's mistress, with an excellent chutney in the background. In 2024, a Tamil-language comedy drama series called Chutney Sambar took its name from two contrasting condiments that together make a meal tasty. The Hindu called it "a delectable watch", crediting the interplay of contrasting characters who run two different food outlets. In both the film and the series, the pairing of sharp flavours and clashing people turns out to be the point.

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