A Love Affair With Southern Cooking_ Recipes and Recollections - Jean Anderson [227]
1. Place the artichokes, peppers, onions, and brine in a large nonreactive kettle, cover, and soak at room temperature for 3 hours. Drain in a cheesecloth-lined colander, then bundle in cheesecloth and squeeze as dry as possible. Return to the kettle, discarding the cheesecloth.
2. Wash and rinse 6 half-pint preserving jars and their closures and submerge in a large kettle of boiling water.
3. Bring the sugar, vinegar, mustard seeds, and turmeric to a full rolling boil in a large nonreactive saucepan, then boil uncovered for 1 minute. Pour over the relish and mix well.
4. Lift the preserving jars from the boiling water one by one and pack with relish, leaving ¼ inch head space at the top. Tip: To avoid spills, use a wide-mouth canning funnel. Run a thin-blade spatula around the inside of the jar to release air bubbles; wipe the jar rim with a clean, damp cloth, then screw on the closure.
5. Process the jars for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath (212° F.). Lift from the water bath; complete the seals, if necessary, by tightening the lids, then cool to room temperature.
6. Date and label each jar, then store on a cool, dark shelf several weeks before opening.
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MOUNT OLIVE PICKLES
The farmers around Mount Olive, North Carolina, found themselves in something of a pickle in 1926.
That year had been a very good one for cucumbers in the small town some sixty miles southeast of Raleigh—perhaps a bit too good. There was a glut of cucumbers on the market. What to do?
The town’s Chamber of Commerce decided to go into the pickle business. A company was formed that grew, vat by vat, and eventually transformed Mount Olive into “The Pickle Capital of the South.”
Today the company buys 120 million pounds of choice cucumbers and peppers from nine states as well as Mexico and India. Walk into any supermarket in the South today and you’ll see arrays of Mount Olive pickles, peppers, and relishes.
The company also conducts an annual “pickle drop,” an idea stemming from the reputed skills of American bombardiers during World War Two. They were so accurate, it was said, that they could drop a bomb into a pickle barrel.
This inspired Pickle Packers International in Chicago to invite people to drop pickles from a skyscraper into a barrel on the sidewalk—the winner getting a year’s supply of pickles.
In 1999, the Mount Olive company, describing itself as “The Pickle and Pepper of the Millennium,” decided to stage its own version of a pickle drop every New Year’s Eve.
Over the years the festivities have grown and hundreds attend. A marquee mimics the Times Square event, a band plays the Pickle Polka, and the crowd sings “Auld Lang Syne” while a lighted, three-foot-long plastic pickle is dropped from a flagpole into a redwood vat at the appropriate time.
The appropriate time happens to be seven p.m., which is midnight Greenwich Mean Time. And where does all this take place? At the corner of Cucumber and Vine.
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On a hot day in Virginia, I know nothing more comforting than a fine spiced pickle, brought up trout-like from the sparkling depths of the aromatic jar below the stairs of Aunt Sally’s cellar.
—THOMAS JEFFERSON
CUCUMBER STICK PICKLES
MAKES ABOUT 6 PINTS
Some years ago when I was sleuthing out some of the South’s best home cooks, I was told to look up Mrs. Ivan Dishman of Sugar Grove, North Carolina; that’s up in the Blue Ridge not far from Boone. Better known as “Miz Nannie Grace,” she was famous for her pickles and relishes and was kind enough to share several old family recipes with me. For these pickles she said she “just grabbed cucumbers out of the garden as they matured.” The ones to use are the little Kirbies or pickling cucumbers, which are rarely waxed. For Mrs. Dishman’s special relish, see Blue Ridge Sweet Red Pepper Relish.
22 Kirby cucumbers, each about 5 inches long (approximately 5 pounds)
3 quarts boiling water
1 quart cider vinegar
3 cups sugar
3 tablespoons pickling salt
2 teaspoons celery seeds
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
¾ teaspoon mustard seeds