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East India Pickles
Mrs. Ellas.
One half peck sliced green tomatoes, one half peck sliced white onions, twenty-five small cucumbers, two cauliflowers cut in small branches; sprinkle salt over these plentifully and let stand twenty-four hours, and then drain well; mix half a cup of grated horse-radish root with half an ounce of turmeric, (get at drug store), half an ounce of each of ground cinnamon and cloves, one ounce of ground pepper, one pint of ground mustard seed, one pint of brown sugar, two bunches of chopped celery. Put this mixture into a porcelain kettle in layers with the vegetables. Cover with cold cider vinegar, and boil slowly for two hours. The turmeric gives the pickles the yellow colour peculiar to East India pickles, and in taste and appearance they cannot be distinguished from the genuine.
— Mrs. Ellas's Chow Chow
Two quarts tomatoes, two white onions, half dozen green peppers, one dozen cucumbers, two heads of cabbage, all chopped fine; let this stand over night; sprinkle a teacup of salt in it. In the morning drain off the brine, and season with one tablespoonful celery seed, one ounce turmeric, half a teaspoon cayenne pepper, one cup brown sugar, one ounce cinnamon, one ounce allspice, one ounce black pepper, one quarter ounce cloves, vinegar enough to cover, and boil two hours.
Two related mixed pickles from the same contributor, both built on the nineteenth-century pattern of salting vegetables overnight and then boiling them in spiced vinegar. The quantities are large enough to have been meant for a winter's supply, so the first decision is how much to scale down.
- A half peckA peck is 8 dry quarts, so half a peck is 4 quarts — roughly 6 to 7 lb of sliced green tomatoes, and about the same of onions. The two recipes together fill a very large kettle; a quarter of either quantity is enough for most households.
- Porcelain kettleThis means an enamelled cast-iron or steel pot, specified because vinegar and turmeric attack bare iron, copper and brass. Stainless steel or enamel is right; do not use aluminium or an unlined copper preserving pan.
- Turmeric from the drug storeThe recipe tells the cook to buy turmeric at the drug store, where spices and colourings were among the goods sold. Half an ounce is roughly 1½ to 2 tablespoons of ground turmeric; the full ounce in the chow chow, about 3 to 4. If your turmeric is freshly bought, you may prefer to start with less.
- Ground mustard seedA pint of ground mustard seed is a volume measure, not a weight — around 8 to 9 oz of powder. This is what gives the pickle its body and heat. A full pint of fine mustard powder will make the mixture very hot, so taste as you go if you scale the recipe down.
- Two hours is too longBoiling cucumbers and cauliflower for two hours reduces them to pulp. Modern mixed pickles are simmered 20 to 45 minutes, until the vegetables are tender but still distinct.
- The salting stepThe overnight salting is not optional. It draws water out of the tomatoes, cucumbers and cabbage so the vinegar is not diluted. Drain thoroughly and, if the vegetables taste harsh, rinse once briefly — a teacup of salt to that volume is generous.
- Vinegar strengthUse cider vinegar labelled 5 percent acidity. Old farmhouse cider vinegar varied widely, and the safety of any vinegar pickle depends on the acid, so do not dilute it with water to soften the flavour.
- StorageNeither recipe says what to do with the finished pickle. Treated as a refrigerator pickle in clean jars it keeps for weeks. If you want shelf-stable jars, follow a current tested water-bath process for pickles rather than simply capping the hot jars as the period assumed.
- YieldBoth are large batches. Expect something on the order of 10 pints or more from the chow chow, and considerably more again from the East India pickle; the exact figure depends on how much the vegetables cook down.
The Home Cook Book (Toronto, 1877) was compiled from recipes contributed by named local women and sold for charity, which is why so many entries carry a signature like Mrs. Ellas's. Both of these belong to the Anglo-Indian pickle tradition: British households in India acquired a taste for achar, and by the mid-nineteenth century commercial bottled "India pickle" and "piccalilli" were staples of the British and North American table, with turmeric doing the double duty of flavour and that unmistakable yellow. The contributor's boast that her version "cannot be distinguished from the genuine" is aimed squarely at the imported bottled article. "Chow chow" is generally traced to the pidgin-English use of chow for food or mixed odds and ends, and by this period the name simply meant a chopped mixed pickle in mustard and vinegar — a way of using the tail end of the garden, green tomatoes and all, before frost.