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Green Tomato Pickle
Mrs. Joseph Saulter.
Cut half-peck of green tomatoes and six large onions into thin slices; let them remain in salt and water over night; then pour off the brine and put them in a preserving kettle with four tablespoonsful of sugar, four of the best mustard, two teaspoonsful of ground cloves, two of cinnamon, one of cayenne pepper, and one of curry powder, and let them simmer for one hour; then put them in stone or glass jars.
This is a nineteenth-century chow-chow of the plainest sort, and its instructions are missing the one thing that made such pickles keep. Read the points below before you consider putting it up.
- There is no vinegarMustard pickles of this type rely on vinegar for both flavour and acidity; this version lists only sugar, mustard, spices and the vegetables themselves. Green tomatoes and onions are low-acid, so an hour's simmer leaves a product with no barrier to Clostridium botulinum, which thrives in exactly this sort of sealed, moist, low-acid environment. Whether the omission is a typesetting loss or an assumption that the cook knew better, the recipe as printed cannot safely be made.
- The jars are not processed"Put them in stone or glass jars" is the whole of the preservation method. There is no boiling-water bath, no headspace, no seal, no storage temperature and no keeping time. Modern practice for any home-canned pickle calls for a tested acid ratio and a timed water-bath process; use a current recipe if you want green tomato pickle on a shelf.
- The overnight salting is unmeasured"Salt and water over night" gives neither the salt weight nor the water volume. Some period books call for a brine strong enough to float an egg, but the strength intended here is genuinely unknowable, and most of the salt goes out with the poured-off brine.
- Half a peckA peck is a quarter bushel, roughly 12 to 13 lb of tomatoes, so half a peck is about 6 lb of sliced green tomatoes -- a substantial batch against only four tablespoons each of sugar and mustard. The seasoning is very lean by modern standards even setting the safety question aside.
- "The best mustard"This most likely means dry mustard powder of good quality rather than prepared table mustard in a jar, though the recipe does not specify; on that reading, four tablespoons of powder is what is intended.
- Curry powder in 1877The curry powder of the period was a mild commercial blend heavy on turmeric, coriander and fenugreek, closer to what is now sold as "mild madras" than to any regional Indian masala. One teaspoon in 6 lb of vegetables is a background note, not a dominant flavour.
- The preserving kettlePreserving kettles were wide pans, variously of copper or brass (sometimes unlined), tinned, or enamelled. Bare copper reacts with acid; stainless steel or enamelled cast iron is the modern equivalent.
The Home Cook Book was compiled in Toronto in the 1870s from contributions by named local women, sold in aid of the Hospital for Sick Children, and it became one of the most widely circulated cookbooks in Canada -- the format, with each receipt credited to its donor, is why this one carries Mrs. Joseph Saulter's name. Green tomato pickle belongs to the large Victorian family of chow-chows and mixed mustard pickles, which existed for a practical reason: a northern garden was routinely caught by frost with pounds of tomatoes still hard and green, and pickling was one of the ways to use them -- they were also fried, or made into mincemeat and sweet preserves. The inclusion of curry powder alongside cloves, cinnamon and cayenne reflects the reach of the British colonial spice trade into ordinary Ontario kitchens.