Return to the Sauce

A staple of Indian cuisine for millennia, chutney had dramatically transformed by the time it made its way into Phylis Maunder’s kitchen in Wee Waa.

The word ‘chutney’ comes from the Indian ‘chatni’ (sometimes spelt chutni), which means ‘to be licked.’ When the British staff of the East India Company (EIC) tasted chatni in the 1600s, they were instant devotees. Indian Chatnis are sweet-sour condiments made from herbs and spices with distinct regional variations. Made fresh on the day they’re eaten, they add a tangy punch to simple dishes like rice or dal and balance the flavour profiles of more complex dishes.

Chatni ingredients can include fresh ginger, chilli, pepper, mint and coriander, ground to a paste on a flat stone or in a mortar and pestle with either garlic, tamarind, lime or coconut and chunks of fruits like unripe mango. The Indian cooks who worked for the British adapted the recipes, toning the heat and spices down and adding more sugar for the Anglo palate.

When the men returned to Britain, the pots of mango preserves they took home with them served as references for further adaptation. Tart apples, unripe peaches and melons replaced the unripe mango, and the sugar ratio increased. In the 19th century, chutney recipes adapted to the British palate started appearing in cookbooks; it was one of the few recipes that featured garlic, which was frowned upon in Britain. Ingredients were heavily sweetened and passed through a sieve to achieve the consistency of jam.

When chutney arrived here with the colonial settlers, it was far from its Indian origins geographically and conceptually. Its popularity has not waned and the Country Women’s Association continues to hold chutney competitions to this day. While it’s not chatni, palates have shifted, and the sieve is no longer necessary. Today’s judges look for balanced flavours, uniformly sized fruit chunks and the consistency of drop from the spoon.

We have no way of knowing which criteria Phylis’ winning jar of chutney met, but one thing we can be sure of is that the judges at the 1975 Wee Waa Show relished it.