Green Tomato Preserves

Source: Martha McCulloch-Williams, 1913

History

"Green Tomato Preserves" is recorded in Martha McCulloch-Williams's "Dishes & Beverages of the Old South" (1913). It calls for medium tomatoes — "smooth, even, meaty, just on the point of turning but still green" — pared very carefully with a sharp knife, with the eyes cut out and care taken not to cut into a seed cavity. Four pounds of fruit take six of sugar. The peeled tomatoes lie in clear lime water for an hour, are rinsed, then simmered ten minutes in strained ginger tea before the syrup is made separately, half a cup of water to the pound of sugar.

The lime water is a firming step, and the ginger tea a flavouring one; together they turn an unripe fruit into a preserve rather than a pickle. The historical record does not document a specific earlier origin for this particular recipe.

"Dishes & Beverages of the Old South" is a mixture of recipes and plantation reminiscence. McCulloch-Williams was a white writer born near Clarksville, Tennessee, who grew up on a plantation before the Civil War, and the book's affection for that world goes unexamined in it: its dedication is "to our Mammys," and much of the cooking it records is the work of enslaved and formerly enslaved Black women it does not name.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Take medium size tomatoes, smooth, even, meaty, just on the point of turning but still green.
  2. Pare very carefully with a sharp knife. Cut out eyes, taking care not to cut into a seed cavity.
  3. Weigh — to four pounds fruit take six of sugar.
  4. Lay the peeled tomatoes in clear lime water for an hour, take out, rinse, and simmer for ten minutes in strained ginger tea.
  5. Make a syrup in another kettle, putting half a cup water to the pound of sugar. Skim clean.
  6. Put in the tomatoes, add the strained juice of lemons — three for a large kettle full — and simmer for two hours, until the fruit is clear.
  7. Cut the lemon rind in strips, boil tender in strong salt water, then boil fresh in clear water, and add to the syrup.
  8. Simmer all together for another hour, then skim out the fruit.
  9. Boil the syrup to the thickness of honey, and pour over the tomatoes after putting them in jars.
  10. It ought to be very clear, and the tomatoes a pale, clear green.
  11. Ripe yellow tomatoes are preserved the same way, except that they are scalded for peeling, and hardened by dropping in alum water after their lime-water bath.
  12. The same process applied to watermelon rind after it is freshened makes citron.

View on Foodymology