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What is chutney?In the American South, people think of chutney as a delicious, savory condiment made from fruit, vinegar, sugar and spices, to be served on meats, cheeses, special meals and sandwiches. However the history of chutney didn't start here. The chutney diaspora began hundreds of years ago in India, where Indians named chutney "Chatni", a Hindi word that translates to "for licking" in a Kentucky Fried Chicken sort of way.
Chutney evolved as the tradition spread from India to England and onwards throughout Europe and the New World.
While Indian chutneys are delicious additions to curries, most Southern cooks wouldn't want to serve them on ham, roasts and cornbread. Usually freshly prepared as opposed to cooked, Indian chutneys don't contain vinegar or added sugar. They can be as hot as the sun, and their consistency is often runny, unlike the sweet, sticky, jam-like chutneys of the South.
In the South, just as in the rest of the world, people tended to make chutney from local fruits. New Zealanders might make kiwi chutney and Hawaiian cooks could whip up Pineapple chutney, but in the American South, our specialties involve peaches, plums, and green tomatoes, which of course are technically fruits. Rhubarb is not technically a fruit, but its flavor is certainly fruity so we like to call it chutney.
Anyway, back to the story. Rural, southern families would collect all the bruised, fallen fruit and slowly cook them down with vinegar, sugar and spices. It was a wonderful way of not wasting perfectly good fruit, and, thanks to the vinegar, their chutneys were naturally preserved, enabling families to enjoy fruit throughout the winter.
Many Civil War Re-enactors like to wear scratchy woolen trousers and eat hard tack in a cold tent. We prefer to stay at home and enjoy chutney and Virginia Ham like Americans have done for generations.
So there are literally thousands of kinds of chutney and thousands of ways of using chutney in your cooking.
Please check out our recipe book, think of your own use for chutney, and continue the tradition!
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