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By Root 650 0

that is because there is not all that much to ruin. One year I made plum-lavender chutney and it was okay. Another year I made cranberry chutney; another year, pear chutney; another year, apple. Also: banana. It was always pretty good, but nothing special. One year I had my father bring me all of his green tomatoes before he ripped out his summer garden and I made green tomato chutney. I was so proud of my thrift, turning green tomatoes into jars and jars of chutney. I made some crostini with goat cheese and fried green tomatoes and green tomato chutney. These crostini were stellar. That took care of half a jar of chutney. I had a dozen or so more. I brought my father a jar and made him taste it. He agreed that it was very superior chutney. “You can put it on sandwiches, eat it with meat,” I said.

“Thanks!” he replied.

Yet he didn’t seem as delighted as he’d been when I gave him the boxed set of Sopranos DVDs. When I looked in his refrigerator months later I saw the chutney where I had left it, untouched.

Don’t kid yourself. If you ever want to be invited to another dinner party, you really need to bring a bottle of wine.

Make it or buy it? Neither

SWEET-HOT PICKLE RELISH

This is adapted from The Book of New New England Cookery by Judith and Evan Jones. It’s sweet and hot and adds zest to every hot dog.

Make it or buy it? Make it.

Hassle: I don’t love “finely” chopping anything, but this a relatively simple canning project with a big payoff.

Cost comparison: It costs a dollar a cup to make this relish. Vlasic: $2.40 per cup.

4 cups finely chopped pickling cucumbers, 8 to 10

2 cups finely chopped onion, about 2 large onions

2 cups finely chopped red bell pepper, about 2 large peppers

¼ cup kosher salt

2 cups cider vinegar

3½ cups sugar

1 tablespoon celery seeds

1 tablespoon mustard seeds

¾ teaspoon cayenne pepper

1. Mix the cucumbers, onion, and bell pepper with the salt in a large bowl and add enough cold water to cover. Let rest, covered, overnight at room temperature.

2. In the morning, drain the vegetables.

3. In a large pot, bring the vinegar, sugar, celery seeds, mustard seeds, and cayenne to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add the vegetables and simmer for 10 minutes.

4. Pack immediately into sterilized canning jars, place the lids on the jars, loosely screw on the rings, and boil for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath. Remove from the water to a clean dish towel and wait for the pop of the lids sealing. Store sealed jars in the cupboard. Refrigerate after opening.

Makes 4 pints

BANANA KETCHUP

Until the mid-twentieth century, ketchup was any smooth semisolid condiment, concocted from ingredients ranging from green walnuts to oysters, mushrooms, and cranberries. But most of us will never know what green walnut ketchup tastes like because there is really only one kind of ketchup in the world today: tomato.

Just about every preserving manual and chef’s cookbook touts a recipe for a wondrous tomato ketchup that will supposedly ruin you for Heinz forever. I’ve made the ketchup from The River Cottage Cookbook and Cindy Pawlcyn’s Mustards Grill Napa Valley Cookbook, and while they were estimable dipping sauces, they were not ketchup. Heinz is ketchup and if you miss by an inch you miss by a mile. Buy the ketchup.

Tomato ketchup, that is. The banana ketchup from Helen Witty’s Fancy Pantry misses by a mile and therein lies its charm. It’s not trying to be anything but its own spicy, fruity, homely brown self. This freckled condiment improves pork or chicken sandwiches, and, of course, a burger.

1 cup golden raisins

¾ cup chopped onions, from one medium onion

4 garlic cloves, peeled

One 6-ounce can tomato paste

2⅔ cups cider vinegar

3 pounds overripe bananas

1 cup dark brown sugar, packed

1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus more to taste

1½ teaspoons cayenne pepper

½ cup light corn syrup

4 teaspoons ground allspice

1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

1½ teaspoons freshly