Home › Village Receipts › Spiced Tomatoes
Spiced Tomatoes
Four pounds of ripe tomatoes, two pounds of sugar, two and one-half pints of vinegar, one teaspoon of cloves, two teaspoons of cinnamon, salt to taste. Cook until thick.
— Mrs. Norman Traver
A sweet-sour spiced tomato preserve of the sort kept on the pantry shelf and served in a small dish alongside meat. The measurements are complete; only the method is left to the cook.
- The hinge: reduce it slowlyTwo and a half pints of vinegar plus the water in four pounds of tomatoes is a great deal of liquid to drive off. Expect two to three hours at a bare simmer in a wide, heavy, non-reactive pan, stirring more often as it thickens, or the sugar will scorch on the bottom.
- Weights, not volumesFour pounds of ripe tomatoes is roughly a dozen medium globe tomatoes, or eight to ten large ones; two pounds of sugar is roughly 4 1/2 cups. Two and one-half pints is 5 cups. Weigh the sugar rather than measuring it — the ratio is what sets the preserve.
- Vinegar strengthThe receipt says only "vinegar"; cider vinegar is the likely household default but is not specified. Vinegar strength was less standardised than it is now, so use a modern vinegar at 5 percent acidity and do not substitute anything labelled "reduced acidity."
- SpicesOne teaspoon of cloves and two of cinnamon are best read as ground, which is how household spice was commonly sold by the late nineteenth century. If you use whole spices instead, tie them in cloth and lift them out at the end, since whole cloves left in for hours turn medicinal.
- Skins and seedsThe receipt says nothing about peeling. Skins will separate into curls during the long cooking; a 30-second dip in boiling water and a slip of the peel first gives a smoother preserve.
- Salt to tasteStart with a scant teaspoon and add at the end. Salt tastes stronger as the volume drops, and there is no way to take it back out.
- Yield and keepingFigure something in the range of four cups finished, depending on how far you reduce it. As written this is a fresh preserve, not a canned one: cool it, jar it, and keep it in the refrigerator, where it will hold for several weeks. If you want shelf-stable jars, follow a current tested tomato-preserve or chutney procedure with its own processing times.
- ServingThick and jammy rather than pourable, it belongs with cold ham, roast pork, boiled beef or sharp cheese — closer to a chutney than to ketchup.
Sweet spiced tomatoes belong to the large family of nineteenth-century American "sweet pickles" — fruit or vegetables cooked down with sugar, vinegar and warm spice to make a relish that cut the fat of plain roasted and boiled meat. Tomatoes came late to that tradition, and are often said to have been distrusted in the American kitchen until the middle of the century, and by the time cookbooks like this one were compiled they had gone from suspect to superabundant: a garden's worth ripened at once and had to be dealt with in a week. The receipt's form is typical of village and church compilations, where a contributor's name carried the authority that method and timing did not.