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Green Tomato Sauce
Cut up two gallons of green tomatoes; take three gills black mustard seed, three table-spoons dry mustard, two and a half of black pepper, one and a half allspice, four of salt, two of celery seed, one quart each of chopped onions and sugar, and two and a half quarts good vinegar, a little red pepper to taste. Beat the spices and boil all together until well done.
A late-season green tomato relish of the sort every Ohio kitchen made when frost threatened the vines. The proportions are sound; what the original leaves out is the scale, the spice grind, and how to keep it.
- A gill is half a cupThree gills of black mustard seed is 1 1/2 cups. Every measure after "three table-spoons dry mustard" is also tablespoons: 2 1/2 tbsp black pepper, 1 1/2 tbsp allspice, 4 tbsp salt, 2 tbsp celery seed.
- Two gallons of tomatoesThe wording leaves it unclear whether the measure is taken before or after cutting; either way, roughly 12 to 14 lb of green tomatoes. A quart of sugar is about 1 3/4 lb; a quart of chopped onions is about 4 to 5 medium onions.
- "Beat the spices"The instruction implies the pepper, allspice and celery seed were most likely whole and were pounded, in a mortar or similar. Crush them coarsely rather than using pre-ground spice, which will cloud the sauce and lose its edge over a few weeks in the jar.
- Black mustard seedBrassica nigra is rarely sold now; brown mustard seed is the standard substitute and is very close in heat. Yellow seed will work but gives a milder, blunter sauce.
- Vinegar strengthNineteenth-century cider vinegar was inconsistent. Use a commercial 5 percent vinegar so the finished sauce is reliably acidic; cider vinegar suits the sweetness, distilled white gives a sharper result.
- "Until well done"Simmer uncovered until the tomatoes have collapsed and the liquid has reduced to a thick, spoonable relish that no longer weeps water on a cold plate. At this volume expect 1 1/2 to 2 hours, stirring often near the end because the sugar will catch.
- Salt and the water it drawsFour tablespoons of salt on 12 lb of tomatoes is modest by preserving standards. Many printed recipes of the period for green tomato pickles and relishes salt the cut tomatoes overnight and drain them first, which shortens the boil considerably and concentrates the flavour; this one does not.
- Keeping itThe original gives no keeping instructions at all. Refrigerate the finished sauce and use it within a couple of months, or follow a current tested water-bath process for tomato relish if you want it shelf-stable.
- YieldHard to predict, since the finished quantity depends entirely on how far the mixture is reduced; the pan starts with some 12 quarts of ingredients. Halve everything unless you have a preserving pan that holds at least 12 quarts.
Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping (1877) came out of Ohio church-fundraising circles and reflects a household economy in which nothing on the vine was wasted. Green tomato relishes, chow-chows and "sauces" appear in nearly every American community cookbook of the period for a plain reason: tomatoes ripen unevenly and the first hard frost ends the argument, leaving a bushel of hard green fruit that will not ripen properly indoors. Sugar, vinegar and a heavy hand with mustard and allspice turned that liability into a winter condiment for cold meat and beans. The vocabulary is worth noting too: in the 1870s "catsup" and "sauce" meant any spiced, vinegared, long-boiled preserve, tomato being only one option among walnut, mushroom, cucumber and grape.