tomatoes Archives - OLD LINE PLATE

Chilli Sauce

September 29, 2016January 13, 2019

There’s a lot of tempting 19th century options for tomato preservation. In addition to catsup, tomatoes were preserved spiced, in piccalilli, chow-chow, or stewed and strained into “soyer.” Tomatoes have one of the highest concentrations of naturally-occurring MSG, and these sauces and pickles all provided ways to add some umami to meals throughout the winter.

I settled on “Chili Sauce” or “Chilli Sauce” which, despite its name, is not really a hot-sauce fore-bearer. Bell peppers generally comprised the “peppers” component. Even swapping them out for jalapenos, the end result doesn’t carry much heat.

According to a 1994 article in the Hartford Courant (CT), “chili sauce seems to have surfaced in New England in the last half of the 19th century… How it got the name remains a mystery… especially because the original product had no chili peppers in it.” Writer Bill Daley wrote that the sauce was would have featured into the diet of seafarers during long voyages, and was used by generations of “Yankee cooks” to “jazz up winter menus,” finding its way into and onto “roast beef, lamb chops, cod cakes, baked beans, eggs – nearly everything – with this blend of tomatoes, peppers, onions, vinegar and spices.”

An 1880 Minnesota cookbook “Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping” lists Chili Sauce among the many sauces worthy of a Christmas dinner:

“Christmas Dinners. Clam soup; baked fish, Hollandaise sauce; roast turkey with oyster dressing and celery or oyster sauce, roast duck with onion sauce, broiled quail, chicken pie; plum and crab-apple jelly; baked potatoes in jackets, sweet potatoes, baked squash, turnips, southern cabbage, stewed carrots, canned corn, canned pease, tomatoes; Graham bread, rolls; salmon salad or herring salad, Chili sauce, gooseberry catsup, mangoes, pickled cabbage; bottled, French or Spanish pickles; spiced nutmeg-melon and sweet- pickled grapes, and beets; Christmas plum-pudding with sauce, charlotte-russe; cocoa-nut, mince, and peach pies; citron, pound, French loaf, white Mountain and Neapolitan cakes; lady’s fingers, peppernuts; centennial drops, almond or hickory-nut macaroons; cocoa-nut caramels, chocolate drops; orange or pine apple ice cream; coffee, tea, and Vienna chocolate.” —Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping [Buckeye Publishing Company:Minneapolis MN] 1880 via foodtimeline.org

Apparently it was a heyday for sauces, “Commercial relishes and condiments were introduced around this time, and the public developed quite a taste for them. By the 1880s, [James] Farrell said, there was a proliferation of chopping gadgets on the market for do-it-yourselfers,” wrote Bill Daley.

A biography of H.J. Heinz describes Heinz’ systematic “studying” of sauces at the 1876 Philadelphia Exposition. He encountered Tabasco but sensed that the market wasn’t ready for it.

“At the same time, Eugene Durkee or New York and William Railton or Chicago introduced pepper sauces known as ‘Chilli’ sauce. These very mild and thick sauces in hexagonally shaped bottles and cathedral square shaped bottles fascinated Heinz. The thicker, mild, ketchup-like product found a larger market in the north. Heinz introduced his as ‘Chili’ and found a large market that remains to this day.”- H.J.Heinz, A Biography, Quentin R. Skrabec, Jr. 2009

My mom uses Heinz’ Chili sauce to make cocktail sauce. Beyond that, I don’t know many uses for it. I was a little stumped at what to use my own Chilli Sauce for, with its 19th century cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and allspice. So far, some has made its way into some barbecue sauce. I guess I have all winter long to see what else I can “jazz up” with it.

Recipe:

“Twenty-four ripe tomatoes, eight onions, six peppers, eight coffee cups of vinegar, eight tablespoons of sugar, the same of salt, one tablespoonful of cinnamon, one of allspice, one of nutmeg, and one of cloves. Boil all well together and seal while hot. This is superior to tomato catsup.”

Source: Mrs. Charles H. Gibson’s Maryland And Virginia Cookbook

2nd Annual Eastern Shore Tomato Tasting

August 30, 2016January 13, 2019

Jack’s Market, Hebron

As I hopefully made clear last year, the results of the “Eastern Shore Tomato Tasting” are in no way definitive. Taste and quality can vary from year to year, day to day, and tomato to tomato.

Why bother, then? For fun.

This year I roped in some assistance from Kit Pollard, local food writer and author of the Mango & Ginger blog, as well as Erik Morgan, a Maryland pal who is a chef at Aldine in Philadelphia, and occasionally presents enviable culinary artistry on Instagram.

The usual panel of anonymous friends was also present, plus a baby who hated all of the tomatoes.

Not much has changed along Tomato Alley, with the exception of last year’s nameless stand now identified as Cosquay Farms. (A historical Maryland farm in fact!)

Demonstrating the fickle nature of this endeavor, Wrights Market was this year’s favorite – last year it was second from last. S & H and Oakley’s continue to be strong contenders. Oakley’s was an early favorite, but the variety between tomatoes took them down a peg.

Wright’s Market, Hebron

A few notes on the tomatoes..

Cosquay Farms:

“[The] only one that has an aroma.”

“Attractive, rich red. Smells ‘like a tomato.’”

“Not much aroma.”

Oakley’s Farm Market:

“Super sweet!”

The Farmer’s Wife:

“More flavor. Good texture.”

“Light mottling on the inside, good deep red. Nice bite.”

“Pleasant, lingering tomato musk.”

Wright’s Market:

“Very red! Good amount of goo. Tart! Mild sweetness, good lingering umami.”

“Tangy! Interesting.”

“Acidic but lots of flavor.”

“Tomato-ey”

Wright’s Market, Hebron

Tomato Catsup

September 23, 2015January 13, 2019

What does one do if they have too many tomatoes and no plans for an afternoon? Must be time to make a condiment.

Catsup, Ketchup… most people think tomatoes when they think of ketchup. In truth, the Tomato is a newcomer to the ketchup game, with previous recipes involving anything from walnuts to mushrooms to cucumbers.

I had hoped to make one of those sooner or later but the tomatoes became a pressing need before I got the chance.

With the assistance of a preserving-experienced friend, we worked from various recipes – primarily Mrs. B.C. Howard’s. Since I’ve already written all about her, we’ll have to focus on the ketchup for a bit.

The original aforementioned catsups derive from Chinese fish sauce variants dating to the early 1700s. Mushroom catsup in particular is called for in many of my old recipes as part of meat flavoring or as a component in sauces. Apparently tomato catsup hit the scene about a century after those sauces.

By the time of the 1881 publication of this recipe, tomato catsup had even been available in bottled form for over forty years. However, it seemed to experience a surge in popularity in the early 1900s – so much so that public health concerns were raised.

Books about ketchup report a number of companies bottling the condiment in Maryland. One brand, Fort Cumberland Catsup bottled in Cumberland, Maryland raised the ire of the FDA in 1914 for peddling “a filthy, putrid, and decomposed vegetable substance to wit decomposed catsup.” The catsup was destroyed by the US Marshall.

Over time the ketchup market has come to be dominated by consistency, ushered along by fears of benzoate and the new era of food purity.

A 2004 article for the New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell explores the aftermath of this consistency. Even today as “artisinal” versions of foods from Triscuits to mustard have become ubiquitous in our kitchens, ketchup remains on the fringe of the zeitgeist.

Our ketchup-making neither affirmed nor refuted the supremacy of the thick, sweet ketchup made by Heinz and their imitators. What we made was a 19th century seasoned, somewhat thinner product with a LOT of vinegar-y zip. I think I would have preferred cider vinegar instead of white, but the vinegar bite is not a weakness. This ketchup will combine nicely with some fruit for a bar-b-que sauce, and makes a good alternative for hot dog lovers who are not too fond of ketchup. After letting it mellow for a week or two we tested it on hot dogs and it was described as a “mustard-like ketchup.”

Mrs. Howard calls for tomato ‘catsup’ in “Bouilli,” “Beef-Steak with Tomato Catsup,” “Brown Sauce” and “Liver” so this may not be the last you see of this ketchup.

Recipe:

1 peck tomatoes
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons salt
1 pint vinegar
½ tablespoon cloves
½ tablespoon allspice
2 cinnamon sticks
1 bunch thyme & parsley
2 garlic cloves

Take
a peck of tomatoes and squeeze through a thin piece of muslin so that no
seeds get through. Add a dessert spoonful of cayenne pepper, two
table spoonfuls of salt, one pint of vinegar, half a tablespoonful of
cloves and allspice mixed, two sticks of cinnamon about three inches in
length a bundle of thyme and parsley tied together and two cloves of
garlic chopped as fine as possible. Simmer for four hours, steadily and slowly.
After filling the bottles with catsup, put two inches deep of sweet oil
in each bottle. Rosin the bottles the more effectually to exclude the
air. [Modern cooks follow canning procedures]

Recipe from Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen By Mrs. B. C. Howard