Home › Pickles › French Pickles
French Pickles
One peck green tomatoes sliced, six large onions sliced; mix these and throw over them one tea-cup of salt, and let them stand over night; next day drain thoroughly and boil in one quart vinegar mixed with two quarts of water, for fifteen or twenty minutes. Then take four quarts vinegar, two pounds brown sugar, half pound white mustard-seed, two table-spoons ground allspice, and the same of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and ground mustard; throw all together and boil fifteen minutes. - Mrs. Wm. Mappin, Mason Co., Ky.
A late-season green tomato pickle of the chow-chow family, written in the shorthand of a cook who already knew what she was doing. The quantities are enormous by modern standards and the final assembly is left unstated.
- A peck of tomatoesA dry peck is 8 quarts, roughly 12-13 lb of green tomatoes. With six large onions this fills a very large preserving kettle; halving or quartering the whole recipe is sensible unless you have a 12-quart pot.
- One tea-cup of saltA teacup in this period is usually reckoned at about 6 fl oz, though period usage varied, so figure roughly 3/4 cup. Use plain pickling or kosher salt; iodised table salt can cloud the brine and darken the vegetables.
- The missing instructionThe final assembly -- The recipe's 'throw all together' is ambiguous: it may mean only the vinegar, sugar, mustard-seed and spices, or it may include the drained vegetables. If the former, the tomatoes and onions need to be drained after their 15-20 minute boil and added to the spiced sweet vinegar for the final fifteen-minute boil; the first liquid is presumably discarded.
- Vinegar strengthNineteenth-century cider vinegar varied widely in acidity. Use a commercial vinegar labelled 5 percent so the finished pickle is reliably acid; the sugar and spice will mask a good deal of sharpness.
- White mustard-seedThis is the pale yellow mustard seed sold today as yellow mustard seed, milder than brown. Half a pound is about 1 1/2 cups, which is correct for a batch this size and gives the pickle its characteristic crunch.
- Ground spicesTwo tablespoons each of allspice, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and ground mustard will make a dark, opaque, muddy-looking syrup. If you want a clearer pickle, tie whole allspice, cloves, cinnamon stick and bruised ginger in a spice bag and fish it out after boiling.
- StorageThe recipe gives no storage instruction; period practice would have been a stone crock in a cold cellar. Treat this as a refrigerator pickle, keeping it cold and eating within a couple of months. If you want it shelf-stable, follow a current tested water-bath processing schedule for pickled green tomatoes rather than improvising a seal.
- Yield and servingA full batch gives roughly 7-8 quarts. It is a relish rather than a side dish, cut fine and served with cold meat, ham, beans or fried fish. The flavour improves after two or three weeks.
"French pickles" was a common American name in the later nineteenth century for a sweet-spiced mixed pickle of green tomatoes and onions, closely related to the chow-chows and piccalillis of the same books; the "French" seems to have signalled refinement rather than any actual origin across the Atlantic, much as "French dressing" and "French toast" did. The dish exists because of the frost. Every kitchen garden ended the season with bushels of tomatoes that would never ripen, and pickling them in vinegar and brown sugar turned a total loss into a winter's worth of relish for salt pork, beans and cold meat. The Dixie Cook-Book, compiled in the 1880s, is largely a book of such contributed receipts, each signed with a name and a county, and Mrs. Mappin of Mason County, Kentucky, is writing for readers who would have understood a peck and a teacup without being told.