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Vinegar (Select small tomatoes discard)
Select small tomatoes; discard the first slice from the stem end, then cut the rest of the tomatoes in thin, even slices, cover with salted water (one cup to one gallon), and let stand over night. Also cover the onions, cucumbers, and peppers separately, with salted water.
The peppers should be cut in good-shaped pieces of equal size, but the onions and cucumbers should be left whole. In the morning, drain, rinse in cold water, and drain again; then pack in fruit jars, mixing the spices, onions, and red peppers here and there among the vegetables. Fill the jars to overflow with scalding hot vinegar and seal at once. These are very crisp when first opened, but grow softer on standing. The combination of colors makes attractive looking jars.
Chow-chow (two quarts) I large cauliflower 18 small cucumbers 1 pint pickling onions (small) 6 small green peppers 2 small red peppers 1 quart vinegar 2 tablespoonfuls mustard 1 tablespoonful turmeric 1 cup salt Peel the onions, let cook ten minutes in boiling water, then drain. Separate the cauliflower into flowerets and let soak in salted water half an hour. Put the onions in one bowl, the cauliflower, cucumbers, and peppers in another. Add the salt to three quarts of water and let boil ten minutes; skim and pour it over the vegetables in the two bowls and let stand over night.
Pour off the brine and put the vegetables together in a preserving kettle. Mix the mustard and turmeric with half a cup of water and pour it over the vegetables; add the vinegar and let heat to the boiling point; let simmer one hour, then seal in jars.
Two related recipes run together here: a layered jar of mixed vegetables in hot vinegar, and a proper cooked chow-chow. Both assume the open-kettle method of sealing, which is the one part of the procedure modern practice has abandoned.
- Sealing method"Fill the jars to overflow with scalding hot vinegar and seal at once" is open-kettle canning, standard in household books of this period and no longer recommended for shelf storage. For pickles kept in the cupboard, follow a current tested procedure with a boiling-water canner; the recipe as written suits refrigerator pickles, eaten within a month or two.
- Vinegar strengthHousehold vinegar of the period varied widely. Use commercial vinegar labelled 5 percent acidity, and do not dilute it further — the vegetables themselves shed a good deal of water into the jar.
- The brine is a soak, not a preserveOne cup of salt to a gallon of water is roughly a 6 to 8 percent brine, depending on the salt, used overnight to draw water out so the pickles stay crisp. It is discarded, so the finished pickles are not as salty as the quantity suggests. Rinsing and draining thoroughly matters, or the chow-chow will be inedible.
- Pickling onions"I pint pickling onions" is measured by volume, about 10-12 oz of small boiling onions. The recipe peels them first and then boils them ten minutes before the overnight brine, which stops them staying raw and harsh.
- Mustard and turmericDry mustard powder, not prepared mustard. Slurrying both with half a cup of cold water before adding prevents lumps; turmeric is here for the yellow as much as the flavour, and it will stain wooden spoons and plastic permanently.
- Simmering an hourAn hour of simmering will leave cauliflower and cucumber soft. If you want them with any bite, 15-20 minutes is closer to modern taste — though the author is honest that even the quick-packed jars "grow softer on standing."
- Kettle materialA "preserving kettle" should be stainless steel or enamelled. Bare aluminium, copper or cast iron reacts with the vinegar and can discolour both the pan and the pickles.
- YieldThe chow-chow is given as two quarts. The mixed-vegetable jars have no stated yield; judge by how many jars your vegetables fill, and allow about a cup of hot vinegar per pint jar.
Chow-chow belongs to the family of mustard-and-turmeric mixed pickles that is often said to have reached English and American kitchens by way of the Anglo-Indian table, alongside piccalilli, to which it is closely related; the name is generally traced either to the pidgin English chow for food or to French chou, cabbage, but neither derivation is settled. By the time this book appeared, chow-chow was thoroughly domesticated in the United States, appearing in Pennsylvania German, Southern and New England versions that shared little beyond vinegar, mustard and whatever the garden gave up at the end of the season. That is really the point of both recipes on this page: they are end-of-summer housekeeping, a way to use small tomatoes, unripe peppers and cucumbers too little for slicing, and the author's note about the "combination of colors" making "attractive looking jars" shows how much a well-stocked shelf of preserves was meant to be looked at as well as eaten.