Celery Spices

A tomato-celery relish of the kind that filled the back of the pantry every September. The original assumes you know what "cook until done" means and that Slade's spices sit on your shelf; neither is true now.

• The hinge: cook it down, uncoveredThirty tomatoes plus celery and onions release an enormous amount of liquid, and the commonest fault is pulling the pan off the heat too soon. Simmer uncovered, stirring often so the sugar does not catch, until a spoon drawn through the pan leaves a track that fills slowly rather than instantly: probably 45 to 90 minutes depending on how juicy the tomatoes were.
• Slade's mixed spicesD. & L. Slade Co. of Boston sold packaged ground spice blends widely in the early twentieth century; the brand is long gone. Three teaspoons of a ground pickling-spice blend, or your own mix of cinnamon, allspice, clove, mustard and a little ginger, does the same work. Whole pickling spice tied in cheesecloth is milder and easier to remove.
• "3 small cups sugar"A genuinely ambiguous measure. A "small cup" may mean a teacup rather than a standard measuring cup, in which case the total is well under 3 cups; there is no way to fix it from the text. Start with about 2 cups and taste against the vinegar near the end of cooking.
• Thirty tomatoesAssume ordinary garden slicers, so roughly 8 to 10 lb. Peeling is optional for texture, but the skins do not soften in the grinder and will show as flecks.
• The grinderA hand-cranked meat grinder on its coarse plate. A food processor pulsed in short bursts is the equivalent; run it too long and you get purée rather than relish. Grind each vegetable separately and drain off tomato juice if you want a shorter cook.
• Vinegar strengthHousehold vinegar then was commonly cider vinegar at around 4 to 5 percent acidity. Use 5 percent cider or white vinegar; do not substitute a low-acid specialty vinegar, since the vinegar is carrying both the flavor and the keeping quality.
• Yield and keepingExpect roughly 4 to 5 pints. The recipe gives no sealing or processing instructions at all, so treat what you make as a fresh refrigerator relish, good for a few weeks in covered jars. For shelf-stable jars, follow a current tested boiling-water-bath procedure rather than this text.
• ServingMeant as a condiment beside cold meats, sausages, baked beans or a plain cheese sandwich, spooned out by the tablespoon rather than served as a vegetable.