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Chapter 4: The Idiot’s Guide to Chutneys, Relishes, Pacchadis, Thuvaiyals, Thokkus–and Chammanthis
Since Rushdie’s of no help, I have no choice but to stake my own claim to definition–and to history.
I dare to propose that the chutney is no metaphor for history. It is a snapshot capturing of the fleeting present. It’s not fundamentally about preservation or about essences, though preservation is involved and essences are invoked. It’s about intensification–the combination of diverse tastes into a unified relishable experience. The chutney poses the question of degree: how much of each? For how long?
It plays with the following distinctions:
- Raw/Cooked
- Ground/Cooked down into pulp
- Cooked lightly/ Cooked till no moisture remains
- Coconut-based/ Fruit or vegetable-based
- Yogurt-based/Chilli-based
- Seasoned/ Unseasoned
- Seasonings blended in/ Seasonings poured on top
- Smooth/Chunky
- Eaten with rice/Eaten with idlis or dosas
Each distinction is a conceptual tool by which abstract notions are formed into propositions that end up on your plate. And there may be others.
So, then, the Idiot’s Guide (as in, written by one, not necessarily for one):
- Chutney: Catch-all term to describe a ground-together condiment that accompanies Indian snacks and light fare (from dosas to samosas), rice-based dishes or plain rice (also in India), and meats (in the West). Chutneys typically combine spice, sourness, and sweet tastes, in varying proportions. They can be fresh (coconut chutney), lightly cooked (tomato/thakkali chutneys), or more picked (Major Grey’s and other commercial chutneys). In Tamil country, chutneys are typically fresh (even when cooked, very lightly so), and on the thinner side, texture-wise. Usually eaten with dosas and idlis, or other tiffins and light fare.
- Chammanthi: A drier chutney from Kerala, literally a marriage of ingredients (“chammanthi” is a localization of the Sanskrit “sambandhi,” which refers to relatedness by marriage). Usually, but not necessarily, coconut-based. Can also be dry enough to be a podi, or spice-mix powder.
- Gojju: Kannadiga term for the saucy base in which vegetables are cooked–but in its drier form (as in pulihora gojju, or the tamarind spice concentrate that’s mixed with rice to make tamarind rice) is akin to a thokku.
- Pacchadi: Yogurt and chilli-based chutneys, possibly involving coconut use, always featuring a vegetable or fruit. In Tamil, thair pacchadi and Telugu perugu pacchadi.
- Thokku: Chutney made of mango or tomato or other sour fruit like cranberries, cooked down to remove all moisture so that it is very nearly a pickle. Usually flavored with green chillies or red chilli powder and roasted-ground fenugreek seeds (which lend a slight bitterness).
- Thuvaiyal: Usually non-coconut-based, but making use of vegetables such as chayote /chow-chow, eggplant, even cabbage and roasted lentils. Usually lightly cooked and ground. Usually eaten with rice.
If I had to pick one type to stand in for all others, it would be the chammanthi. Just think of it. Ingredients related by marriage. Affines, carefully gathered and attended to–for though we can take blood for granted, relations by marriage are so much more fragile. Easily mis-matched and thrown out of sync in taste and attitude. But if they are well chosen, then their harmony is absolutely matchless.
Devil on my shoulder interjects: But–trouble is, chammanthis can also be dry enough to be just spice-powders…
Me: Arrêt! Enough!
Have other versions and definitions to share? Add to the list and tell me how you chutney!
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Absolutely wonderful essay on the mystery of “chutney”! “Chutney” displays the lovely tension between India’s almost Germanic love of naming and its studied cavalierness to the use of those names in practice. Combine that psycho-linguistic conflict with the ambiguities inherent in its internal diversity — and those created deliberately in chauvinistic displays of difference — and its small wonder that we all talk past each-other.
Loved it! :-D!
I would also add our particular quirks for the word Chutney/ Chammanthi.
Folks from South Malabar would use the tern ‘Sammanthi’. If it is a ‘thick-non-watery texture’ it would be ‘Unda-Sammanthi’. Not dry but acheiving that balance in moistness which gives ‘shape’. Whereas ”Thekkaru’ ( Southerners ) would use the term with “Ch’!!!! :-D!
And for the Pacchadi’s there is also an in between version, the ‘Parekku’/ ‘Parukku’. This version usually adds a pinch of mustard. In doing so, it highlights the freshness and the fact that it will not ‘keep’ for long. This will be an uncooked version without any tempering.
Whereas the Pacchadi can be with cooked or raw vegetables folded into the coconut based sammanthi. It also has tempering.
I LOVE the coconut graters! Both of them. And this discourse on chutney is fascinating and enlightening. And revealing. Language, understanding, history, and the amendment of them all by travel, colonisation, memory….
You’ll have to come shopping with me sometime on the East Coast road where traders make fortunes off our collective nostalgia. We’ll rummage and find you one of those old graters to sharpen and put into use again 🙂
Deal!
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I spent an entire hour late in the afternoon relishing your chutney series, Deepa! I was posting moringa leaves rasam on my blog and wanted to link to your blog for some rasam definitions, because for me you’re my rasam guru! And what were the odds that I ended up on your chutney essays! I just saw “How do you chutney”, and that was enough inclination for me to jump into the boat and sail into chutney land. I’ve forever been trying to unravel chutneys, and the more I’ve read, honestly the more confused I’ve been and still got more intrigued! Is it serendipity that writing one such essay has crossed my mind often? Blessed to know you. 🙂
Soooo nice to find you’ve been on here, Lopa! No surprise at all that the task of writing such an investigative and elucidatory essay on chutney crossed your mind, too — we’re interested in food categories, aren’t we? I wonder if you’d be interested in a collaboration on this. I mean, my own knowledge has widened and lord knows my pictures here need some updating… I was taking new photos of the same chutneys and having similar thoughts this weekend — now that’s more than serendipity, that’s the universe sending signs! xoxx
A collaboration sounds utterly fabulous!
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My parents migrated to Trinidad and Tobago during the latter part of the 19th century from what was then called the United Province (I think it’s now part of present-day Uttar Pradesh and spoke Bhojpuri…sad to say I can’t speak any of it). My mom made coconut chutney to go with khichari, during the ‘dry season’.
She first roasted the coconut in the chulha (clay oven) and then crushed, and ground it on the ‘Sill and Lorrha’ (not sure if that’s the right spelling but it’s the hand-grinding stone…I think it’s called an Ammikkallu in the South). She’d then the other ingredients: chilli peppers, garlic, onion, culantro, Cuban oregano, and salt, and mix it all together.
Yes, I know the silbatta (it goes by other names, too) and the amikkal, which are still used here though less and less (blenders are common). Your mum’s recipe sounds lovely, especially the cuban oregano/ karpooravalli addition if I got that right. That must have made it very distinctive. I shall have to try! Thanks so much for taking the time to comment and share!
Thank you. I came across your blog quite by accident and am glad I did…the recipes are quite an eye-opener as, being so far from India, both in time and distance, the ingredients used in the cooking back home were very basic.
But there’s magic from those basic ingredients, as I’m sure you know well. After that of course the edible world and human creativity are vast, but what people often managed with simple daily things continues to strike me as remarkable!
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