A Love Affair With Southern Cooking_ Recipes and Recollections - Jean Anderson [231]
7. Process the jars for 15 minutes in a boiling water bath (212° F.). Lift from the water bath; complete the seals, if needed, by tightening the lids and cool to room temperature.
8. Date and label each jar, then store on a cool, dark shelf several weeks before opening.
BLUE RIDGE SWEET RED PEPPER RELISH
MAKES 10 TO 11 PINTS
“My mother used to make this relish and her mother made it, too,” Miz Nannie Grace Dishman of Sugar Grove, North Carolina, told me years ago when I interviewed her for a Family Circle article. “It’s still the family favorite,” she added. “We eat it on hot dogs and hamburgers but it’s real good, too, on pinto beans and green beans.” For years, Mrs. Dishman and her daughter Brenda put up hundreds of quarts of pickles and relishes, fruits, and vegetables, nearly all of them homegrown. Mrs. Dishman always chopped the vegetables “real fine” for her pepper relish. “But,” she continued, “if you like prettier jars, cut them right coarse.”
12 large red bell peppers, cored, seeded, and moderately coarsely chopped (about 4½ pounds)
12 very small yellow onions, moderately coarsely chopped (about 2 pounds)
12 small Golden Delicious apples, cored, peeled, and moderately coarsely chopped (about 4 pounds)
3 quarts boiling water (about)
2½ cups cider vinegar
2½ cups cold water
2½ cups sugar
4 teaspoons pickling salt
1. Place the peppers, onions, and apples in a very large nonreactive kettle, add just enough of the boiling water to cover them, and let stand uncovered at room temperature for 10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, wash and rinse 11 one-pint preserving jars and their closures and submerge in a large kettle of boiling water.
3. Combine the vinegar, cold water, sugar, and salt in a medium-size nonreactive kettle and bring to a boil over moderate heat. Reduce the heat to low, stir until the sugar dissolves completely, then simmer uncovered for 5 minutes.
4. Drain the vegetable mixture well and return to the same kettle. Pour in the hot vinegar mixture, set over moderate heat, and bring to a full rolling boil. Set off the heat.
5. Lift the preserving jars from the boiling water one by one. Ladle in the hot relish, leaving ¼ inch head space at the top of the jar. Run a thin-blade spatula around the inside of the jar to free trapped air bubbles; wipe the jar rim with a clean, damp cloth, then screw on the closure. Repeat until all the jars are filled. Tip: To avoid spilling or dribbling relish down the sides of the jars as you fill them, use a wide-mouth canning funnel.
6. Process the jars for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath (212° F.). Lift from the water bath; complete the seals, if needed, by tightening the lids, then cool to room temperature.
7. Date and label each jar, then store on a cool, dark shelf several weeks before opening.
She remembered (as one remembers first the eyes of a loved person) the old blue water cooler on the back porch…among the round and square wooden tables always piled with snap beans, turnip greens, and onions from today’s trip to Greenwood.
—EUDORA WELTY, DELTA WEDDING
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TIME LINE: the people and events that shaped Southern Cuisine
1998
A Chattanooga microbrewery (Big River Grill and Brewing Works) takes top honors for its Iron Horse stout at the World Beer Cup Competition in Rio de Janeiro. That same year its Sweet Magnolia brown ale wins a gold medal at the American Beer Festival.
The James Beard Foundation names Frank Brigsten, chef-proprietor of Brigsten’s in New Orleans, Best Chef in the Southeast.
The AmRhein Wine Cellars open at Bent Mountain in the Roanoke Valley. Within five years, its Virginia-style