Not long ago I mentioned an old family recipe for “Kashmir Chutney” in a thread about ‘The Third Condiment Mystery’ (Chemistry - 5 June 2025). During the Xmas holiday season, I decided hunt out and check that recipe from a box of ancient family papers in my brother’s possession.

To my considerable surprise, the hand-written recipe I unearthed was clearly titled “Cashmere Chutney”.  I had always been under the impression that this condiment was called “Kashmir Chutney” and that Cashmere was a type of Himalayan goats wool normally used for making sweaters and shawls !

The explanation seems to be that Cashmere was once the normal anglicization for the Himalayan areas now known as Kashmir and Ladakh from the 17th century up until the beginning of the 19th. In the Napoleonic period however, shawls and garments made from a fine wool known as pashm in that area became fashionable imports into Europe. Within a few decades, the name ‘Cashmere’ had become firmly attached to these woollen products, and an alternate Sanscrit based word ‘Kashmir’ was being used to refer to the general geographical area.

The decisive change came in 1872 when the British Raj in India decided to adopt a new grapheme-based system for transliterating Indian place names. It was called the Hunterian system, and was perfected by Wiliam Wilson Hunter, the Director General of Statistics in India. Thereafter ‘Kashmir’ became the official geographical name used in all government documents and maps - which provides a useful dating clue as to when our family’s chutney recipe was first written down.

https://grokipedia.com/page/Hunterian_transliteration

For anyone who is curious, the recipe for “Cashmere Chutney’” is as follows:

Cashmere Chutney                      

1lb Cooking Apples                          1lb Demerara Sugar

1/2lb Raisins---------------------- 1/4lb Sultanas

1 Onion only -------------------- 3 Ripe Tomatoes (med size)

1oz Salt                                            2 oz Root Ginger preserved

1/2 Dessertspoon Mustard             1 Lemon Fruit & Rind

3/4 pt Vinegar                                 1/4 oz Red pepper

Method

Put all ‘ingredients’ through mincer and boil for half an hour (N.B. except Ginger which is bruised & tied in a muslin bag & boiled with rest.)

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by toucana
respacing recipe ingredient list

40 minutes ago, toucana said:

Not long ago I mentioned an old family recipe for “Kashmir Chutney” in a thread about ‘The Third Condiment Mystery’ (Chemistry - 5 June 2025). During the Xmas holiday season, I decided hunt out and check that recipe from a box of ancient family papers in my brother’s possession.

To my considerable surprise, the hand-written recipe I unearthed was clearly titled “Cashmere Chutney”.  I had always been under the impression that this condiment was called “Kashmir Chutney” and that Cashmere was a type of Himalayan goats wool normally used for making sweaters and shawls !

The explanation seems to be that Cashmere was once the normal anglicization for the Himalayan areas now known as Kashmir and Ladakh from the 17th century up until the beginning of the 19th. In the Napoleonic period however, shawls and garments made from a fine wool known as pashm in that area became fashionable imports into Europe. Within a few decades, the name ‘Cashmere’ had become firmly attached to these woollen products, and an alternate Sanscrit based word ‘Kashmir’ was being used to refer to the general geographical area.

The decisive change came in 1872 when the British Raj in India decided to adopt a new grapheme-based system for transliterating Indian place names. It was called the Hunterian system, and was perfected by Wiliam Wilson Hunter, the Director General of Statistics in India. Thereafter ‘Kashmir’ became the official geographical name used in all government documents and maps - which provides a useful dating clue as to when our family’s chutney recipe was first written down.

https://grokipedia.com/page/Hunterian_transliteration

For anyone who is curious, the recipe for “Cashmere Chutney’” is as follows:

Cashmere Chutney                      

1lb Cooking Apples                          1lb Demerara Sugar

1/2lb Raisins---------------------- 1/4lb Sultanas

1 Onion only -------------------- 3 Ripe Tomatoes (med size)

1oz Salt                                            2 oz Root Ginger preserved

1/2 Dessertspoon Mustard             1 Lemon Fruit & Rind

3/4 pt Vinegar                                 1/4 oz Red pepper

Method

Put all ‘ingredients’ through mincer and boil for half an hour (N.B. except Ginger which is bruised & tied in a muslin bag & boiled with rest.)

What do you eat it with? Or rather, what was its culinary purpose back when the recipe was written?

39 minutes ago, exchemist said:

What do you eat it with?

A spoon, probably. 😁

39 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Or rather, what was its culinary purpose back when the recipe was written?

I would say as a topping for rice or a side dish with something like curry. Non Hindu Westerners also use it with meat dishes, as a sweet/piquant topping.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by TheVat
Blirghrt

19 minutes ago, TheVat said:

A spoon, probably. 😁

I would say as a topping for rice or a side dish with something like curry. Non Hindu Westerners also use it with meat dishes, as a sweet/piquant topping.

Yes like many of my countrymen I use mango chutney as a condiment with Indian food. I’ve sometimes wondered how authentic this practice is. And this chutney is rather different.

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

What do you eat it with? Or rather, what was its culinary purpose back when the recipe was written?

As far as I can recall the chutney was placed on the dining table in a cut glass decanter with a stopper, and was mainly consumed with cold cuts of meat served with hot vegetables - e.g  the usual Boxing Day repast. Some ppl also liked to add a dollop to their biscuits and cheese -  if taken as a third course.

It’s basically quite a sweet-tasting apple chutney with a pervasive tang of root ginger.

The recipe that I found is written in my mother’s hand, but I strongly suspect that she herself copied it out from an older recipe written by one of her own paternal aunts who was an excellent cook. Quite where she originally got it from is anyone’s guess. At least one of my distant relatives on that side of the family was a clipper captain who sailed the world in the second half of the 19th century - so the recipe could well have come  from the Raj.