A new cookbook places chutney at the centre of the table

Do you know of a chutney prepared with tamarind blossoms in Marathwada? Or, one that is made with pomegranate-like seeds of the prickly water lily plant in Manipur? You may have heard of Odisha’s GI-tagged kai chutney made of red weaver ants. But did you know versions of it exist across India’s indigenous communities—as chigli chutney in Karnataka, chaapda in Bastar and kreshma chutney in Assam?

Pickles and preserves, chutneys and relishes may be considered as accompaniments, but a typical Indian meal is incomplete without these flavour pairings. Chutney: A Compendium of Stories and Recipes, curated and edited by Rushina Munshaw-Ghildiyal, is a deep-dive into India’s vast and varied condiment culture through an exhaustive compilation of chutney recipes.

The book has its roots in 2017 when the Dehradun-based culinary chronicler and author realised that unlike international food observance days, India hardly had anything similar for its diverse food traditions. She came up with an Indian Food Observance Day, or IDOF, calendar and included a ‘Chutney Day’.

There are over 200 recipes to cook, and crowdsourced from around 140 contributors. It features recipes by home cooks, professional chefs such as Viraf Patel, Anahita Dhondy, Nalini Sadhu, Nilza Wangmo and Aketoli Zhimomi, as well as food writers, and cookbook authors Preeti Deo (Paat Pani), Sheetal Bhatt (Silent Cuisines) and Pushpesh Pant to name a few. In an interview with Mint, Munshaw-Ghildhiyal talks about the idea behind documenting chutneys, the research that went into compiling the book, and the many people who contributed the recipes. Edited excerpts:

You wrote a book about an accompaniment. What was the motivation behind documenting chutneys?

It began with the IFOD calendar dedicated to Indian culinary concepts like ‘Dal Divas’, ‘Subzi Tarkari Din’, ‘Chai Pakoda Day’, and more. [For the book] I chose chutney specifically because of a chance conversation with my nephew, who was born and brought up in Australia, and for whom chutney was just ‘that spicy green stuff at Indian restaurants’. I realised the frustrating stereotypes that chutney carries, which is partly due to the homogeneity of menus in Indian restaurants at home and abroad.

I believe the real custodians of Indian food are in the home kitchens. I wanted to draw the vast proposition that chutney actually is by exploring the history, evolution, and mapping the incredible diversity.

What were some offbeat recipes that you chanced upon from that time?

In 2017, we collaborated with the students of the Sheila Raheja Institute of Hotel Management, Mumbai, to document traditional chutneys. One recipe that stood out was kashk bademjan by a student named Zahra Mirjalili. It was the adaptation of a dish by the same name in Iran, that uses rehydrated kashk, or dried pellets of yogurt, for sourness. While the Irani community in Mumbai does not have chutneys, this offering is a unique one that fits the concept. In 2021, we did a series of ‘Chutney Day Lives’ on social media, through which I came to know about Assamese botas from Kashmiri Barkakati Nath. They are named so because they are made on the silbatta. Kashmiri pulled out her mother-in-law’s 75-year-old silbatta and ground a variety of chutneys, including a fermented mustard seed chutney called kharoli or kahudi.

In the book, you’ve mentioned you pestered chefs, walked into restaurants and even got chatting with an immigration officer for recipes. Tell us more.

The research for the book has been multipronged—equal parts academic and archival, with documentation of oral testimony and storytelling. I remember meeting a blogger from Mizoram, who goes by Mizohican, about a decade ago at a pop-up in Mumbai. I went looking for him and requested him to share chutneys from his home state. I scoured the internet and met chefs like Nikesh Asem from Manipur and Aketoli Zhimomi from Nagaland, and also content creator Chasoom Bosai of ‘Arunachal Pallet’. I discovered a restaurant called Arunachali Sajolang in Safdarjung Enclave in Delhi and pestered owner Anne Miji for recipes. There were also instances like meeting Chaudhry ji, an immigration officer at the Delhi airport, who on finding out we were writing this book, held court for fifteen minutes, spontaneously sharing Haryanvi chutney recipes.

What is your favourite chutney from the book?

My mother’s ‘Spice of Life’ — a chilli-garlic-tomato chutney, which can transform a simple Monaco biscuit snack or rescue a dull school lunch.

Book details:

Book: Chutney: A Compendium of Stories and Recipes

Author: Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal

Published by: A Perfect Bite Consulting

Price: ₹3,500

Number of pages: 522