How do you know if a chutney you are thinking about would be considered a pickle?
That's a very good question, and one to which I don't believe there is a definitive answer. For me, having made them for over 20 years, there are national, etymological and culinary differences, perhaps, but the lines of separation between one and another are blurred.
Chutney originally came from India ;
chatni, in Hindi, means "to lick", so it's a condiment which is, let's say, finger-lickin' good. Basically fruit cut into small pieces and conserved in sugar, vinegar and spices.
Pickles have been made for thousands of years; from ancient Mesapotamia, 2,400BC, where cucumbers were preserved in brine. In the middle ages, the word in Dutch and German meant "brine", but in middle English, it came to mean a spicy sauce. Fast forward to the 18th-19th century, and pickles (ie. pickled cucumbers, gherkins) arrived in the USA with the Dutch and German immigrants. Piccalilli ( the word
probably derived from the Spanish "picadillo"), which was originally an Indian pickle, first appeared in the UK in the late 18th century; Branston pickle (a mixture of fruit and vegetables in a sweet, vinegar-based sauce) first appeared in the UK in 1922.
Somewhere along the road, the words chutney and pickle (in the UK) became confused. A quick look at the top 5 supermarket "pickles" products in the UK reveals mostly things like dill, hamburger pickles, gherkins, pickled onions and beetroot, sauerkraut, kimchi - and Branston, Ploughman's and fruit pickles. Far more like a chutney, IMHO, but there you go.
Then, just to confuse the plot even further, there are Indian
achaar, a hindi word which translates in "pickle, relish", and which, in some cases, also include oil to preserve.
These days we've got relishes, jams, onion marmalades, pepper jellies; many with sugar
and salt
and vinegar.
I'm inclined to think chutneys are cooked fruit and/or vegetables cooked with sugar, vinegar and spices ( something like a sweet & sour jam or marmalade) and pickles as something preserved in brine.
