It’s fall in Humboldt County and apples and pears are in abundance. What to do with the excess (as in, what’s left over after the deer and bears eat their fill)? When I first tried preserving my fruit harvest in the 1980s, the American cookbooks I found did not address fermentation and fruit pickling very well, but the Humboldt County Library had some rather old British cookbooks. These were among the earlier Western cookbooks to reference making chutney — a thick, spicy fruit sauce used as a condiment that originated in India — or fruit relishes from apples, pears, and other fruits such as currants and gooseberries. This opened up a new world of pickling and canning for me that has lasted for 40 years. Since finding these recipes, I have been making fruit chutney from local fruits and offering them as holiday gifts for friends and neighbors. In late fall, you will find me outside on the deck, sweating, fighting off yellowjackets and peeling, coring, and chopping up apples and other fruits.
The fruit most often used in traditional Indian chutney is the mango. British colonists returning from India adapted chutney to the fruits they could grow in England and these adapted recipes were the first that I used as the basis of most of my chutneys. Then I started to adapt the English recipes to fruit I could grow in Fieldbrook: apples and pears, pineapple guava (feijoa), peaches, blueberries and plums.
While any apples will do for a chutney base, I grow highly flavored apple varieties, such as Ribston Pippin and Cox Orange Pippin, that retain their texture through cooking and processing. My favorite apple to use is the Waltana, a late-season apple bred by Albert Etter of Ettersburg, who is often described as Humboldt County’s Luther Burbank because of his seminal work breeding strawberries adapted to the West Coast. Etter later crossed known apple varieties to produce new ones like the Waltana, an excellent storage apple that is firm-fleshed, sweet-tar, and juicy. Its name comes from Etter’s brother and sister-in-law, Walt and Ana, and it grows happily in our Humboldt coastal climate.
Chutney recipes generally call for fruit, vinegar, sugar and spices. I always include onions, garlic and fresh ginger, too. For me, chili flakes or my favorite Huy Fong Chili Garlic Sauce is mandatory to raise the heat of the chutney but, if you are giving them as gifts, be thoughtful in how much heat you add.
Chutney made from local apples is one of the autumn rewards for all the hard work of planting, weeding, watering and pruning that we gardeners have been doing for the last seven months. Now it’s time to relax on the porch, soaking up the sun’s warmth (or getting drizzled on). Enjoy the fall colors, including the last of the fruit still hanging on the trees, and think about how lucky we are to be living so close to nature in such a beautiful place.
Pete’s Apple Chutney Recipe
Makes approximately 6 pints.
Ingredients:
3 quarts apples, peeled, cored and chopped
2 cups onions, chopped
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups apple cider vinegar
2 cups golden raisins
¼ cup pickling spice
2 teaspoon red pepper flakes or 1-2 tablespoons chili/garlic sauce
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1-2 teaspoons curry powder (optional)
Combine all ingredients in a large pot and cook for about 1 hour, until apples and onions are soft and the sauce tastes yummy. The chutney can be canned in pint jars using a hot water bath process.
Pete Haggard (he/him) has taught pickling and fermenting courses for the UC Master Food Preserver Program. He writes with editorial assistance from Jane Monroe (she/her), who is a retired biologist. Pete and Jane are the coauthors of the upcoming book ReWilding: How to Create a Pacific Northwest Native Garden.
This article appears in ‘Doing its Part’.