Chutneys, Salsas & Sambols

We’re sitting in a small busy restaurant at lunchtime in Ahmadabad (in India’s Gujarat state) or Kochi (formerly Cochin, in Kerala); or we’re listening for the arrival of the meal-service person as we’re being rocked along in the train heading south to the city of Chennai (formerly Madras); or we’re in a stone house in a Nepalese mountain village at the end of the day with the aromas of supper bubbling from the cookfire. In each case we’re hungry, looking forward to whatever the meal might be. And when it comes, in even the humblest situation, it always includes a chutney or a sauce or a chile paste (or maybe two or three), a small, often colorful dollop of intense flavor. On the street, at a stall selling between-meal snacks, such as pakoras (battered deep-fried vegetables) or idlis (freshly steamed rice breads) or kachoris (deep-fried filled breads), or dosas (savory crepelike breads), or any number of others, it’s the same. The food, often freshly fried, hot and steaming, comes with a splash of bright green coriander chutney or a drizzle of tamarind sauce, or a dash of coconut chutney spiked with green chiles.