Apple Chutney, 1946: A Guest Blog.

I was delighted to receive an email from Colleen in Sarasota, Florida - English-born but a long-time resident of the States, married to an American of Italian heritage, and with a sister in Sydney, Australia. You are a truly global citizen, Colleen.

With Colleen's permission, I give you her snippet of family culinary history. Here it is:-

I have my mother's old Official Handbook of the National Training School of Cookery, Buckingham Palace Road, SW, in London where she enrolled after serving as a District Commander in Q.M.A.A.C. in the first World War. In the back of my mind, I have the feeling she referred to it as Berridge House, but I could be wrong.

What I want to offer you today is the text of a handwritten letter to my mother from a lady in Devon dated Nov. 10, 1946:

"Dear Madam,

As a resilt of my advertisement in the Herald & Express of homemade chutney for sale I had a visit of an inspector from the Food Office. He told me I was overcharging, the price allowed only being 7d for 10oz container irrespective of quality. Yet, grocers are selling chutney for 1/10 a jar and such rubbish that it is not fit to eat. As you can understand from this I am not now able to sell my chutney. Instead I pass on my own recipe and it is well worth making while there is still apples in the shops.
With good wishes,
Yours faithfully
(Miss) E. Abr....(not legible)

Apple Chutney:
7 lbs apples
2lbs onions
1 lb. gran. sugar
2 tbsp salt
2 tbsp curry powder
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp mustard (dry)
2 pints best malt vinegar (Parsons)

Thanks Colleen for being my Sunday Guest Blogger. If any other readers would like to contribute a Sunday post, please email me! It could be fun.