I grew up knowing what chow chow was, but some people don’t. The reason I knew was because once a year, my grandmother would carefully pick out all the ingredients and spend a whole day canning many quarts of it. For those that don’t know, chow chow is a great sweet, hot pickle relish that goes great with great northern beans and cornbread. It is quite a bit of work, if you don’t feel up to making the recipe, look in your local grocery store near the pickle relish. You might just find a jar of it!
For this recipe, you will need 5 green bell peppers, 5 large red bell peppers, 2 large green tomatoes, 2 large sweet onions, 1/2 head of small cabbage, pickling salt, sugar, white vinegar, mustard seeds, celery seeds, and turmeric.
The peppers, tomatoes, onions, and cabbage need to be finely diced. If you have a food processor, this might work best. My grandmother sat at the kitchen table for what seemed like hours dicing everything then running it through a meat press. It was very important to her that each ingredient was very small and I am sure much of that love came through in the taste. Once you get everything diced, add the green peppers, red peppers, onion, and green tomatoes to a large Dutch oven. Add 1/4 cup of pickling salt, cover, and store in the refrigerator overnight.
The next morning, rinse the mixture and return it to the Dutch oven. Add 1 cup of water, 3 cups of sugar, 2 cups of white vinegar, 1 tablespoon of mustard seeds, 1 1/2 teaspoons of celery seeds, and 3/4 teaspoon of turmeric. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer for 3 minutes.
You will need a sterilized ladle, a sterilized funnel, and eleven hot, sterilized half pint glass jars. Fill each jar, leaving about a 1/2 inch from the top. Remove the air bubbles and wipe the jar rims. Cover with metal lids and screw on bands. Once they are all filled, sit all the jars in boiling water for 15 minutes. This will yield 5 1/2 pints.