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Sweet Tomato Pickles
8 Pounds Peeled Tomatoes 4 Pounds Powdered Sugar mona Cloves and All- 1 Ounce each Cinnamon, Cloves and Allspice Boil one hour and then add a quart of boiling vinegar.
A sweet spiced tomato preserve of the kind eaten with cold meat rather than a brined pickle. The proportions are sound; the instructions assume a cook who already knows what a preserving kettle looks like.
- The garbled lineThe phrase "mona Cloves and All-" is a printer's or scanner's duplication of the spice line that follows it. Read the ingredients as tomatoes, sugar, one ounce each of cinnamon, cloves and allspice, and a quart of vinegar.
- Powdered sugarIn this period "powdered sugar" means finely granulated sugar, not the cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar sold under that name today. Use ordinary granulated sugar, 4 lb to 8 lb of tomatoes.
- Peeled tomatoesWeigh after peeling. Blanch thirty seconds in boiling water and slip the skins; small firm plum tomatoes hold their shape best over a long boil. Ripe but not soft is the target.
- The spicesAn ounce each of three spices is a great deal if ground, and ground spice will cloud the syrup and settle as grit. Tie whole cinnamon stick, cloves and allspice berries in muslin and lift the bag out at the end.
- The hour's boilThe recipe does not say at what point the spices go in; taken at face value, the tomatoes and sugar boil for the full hour before the vinegar is added. Stir often, as the syrup thickens and catches easily near the end.
- Vinegar lastAdding a quart of boiling vinegar at the finish keeps the sharpness bright rather than boiling it off. The recipe gives no further cooking time once it is in. Use a vinegar labelled 5 percent acidity — period vinegars varied a good deal in strength.
- Yield and keepingThe recipe gives no yield, and it will vary with how far the tomatoes reduce. It gives no sealing instructions at all, so treat it as a refrigerator preserve, good for several weeks; for shelf-stable jars follow a current tested water-bath process for tomatoes rather than guessing from this text.
- ServingSweet, dark and clove-heavy, it belongs beside cold ham, roast pork or a sharp cheese, not on toast.
Sweet spiced tomato preserves ran through American cookbooks from the mid-nineteenth century onward, when the tomato was still handled as often like a fruit as a vegetable — put up with sugar and warm spice in the same manner as peaches or plums. Cinnamon, clove and allspice with sugar and vinegar is the standard "sweet pickle" formula of the era, applied in turn to peaches, pears, crabapples, watermelon rind and, here, tomatoes, all of it aimed at using a glut before it spoiled.