Too bad I'm old enough to remember 50 years ago. :)

It sounds more like Green Tomato Relish, often called Chow Chow by my generation in the south, since it is really the coarse texture that makes it a chow chow rather than a relish. Chopped green tomatoes, onions, and peppers (sweet or hot or a mix of both), vinegar, and mustard seed.

There are many recipes for Green Tomato Relish and these previous threads offer some additional recipes. Some recipes include brown sugar but are too sweet for me, some include turmeric but we don't like the yellow color, and some include other spices (as long as they are dry spices you can use 'to taste'.)

The one we use is linked below but we modify it a bit by leaving out the cornstarch and mustard and using mustard seed and celery seed instead. And we sub a few jalapenos for some of the sweet pepper (keep the total amount of peppers the same). We use cider vinegar in ours for a more mellow taste but you can use any vinegar as long as it is 5%.

Hope this helps.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP - Green Tomato Relish

Dave, you are my hero!!! I've never heard of Chow Chow except for him going on about it half my life. When I googled, I found out it really is a southern thing but every recipe I've shown him he turned up his nose and said it was wrong. All the recipes I found under "Chow Chow" called for cabbage and even though he was a boy at the time (and probably paid about as much attention as my two boys!), he said he was sure she didn't use cabbage. I figured it wouldn't be anything exotic since they were a typical rural depression-era family with 8 kids and a farm but I needed somewhere to start.

I'll show him this recipe tomorrow and hopefully give it a try in the next few days. I'll let you know how it goes!

Do you know if this recipe is something that can be eaten fresh if I scale it down a little? It would be easier if I could just make a small batch and see how he likes it first. Then when I get the recipe right, I can make him a big batch and can it for him. I'm sure I'd need to let it sit in the fridge for a day or two to let the flavors blend well...or would I? I'm completely new to all this!

Sure you can make it for fresh eating if you just give it a few days to flavor up good in the fridge. That way you can adjust the taste as needed too. Ask him if your Grandma used to slap it on bologna or ham sandwiches and mix it into potato salad or deviled eggs? That's pretty common uses here.

Dave

btbarbara,

Its funny you should post this now. My grandparents in N.E. Alabama always grew a garden big enough for a dozen families. After raising their family during the depression, they made sure that they had enough put by to last a couple of years. My grandmother's chow chow was loved by her children and most of the grandkids. I never liked it (I was a picky eater). The last year she canned was in '92 and she died in 2001.

Recently I was given an old notebook of hers that was obviously used for anything that came to mind. Recipes clipped from labels or newspapers, addresses, phone numbers etc. There are a couple of dozen handwritten recipes that I immediately recognized as being a regular part of her meals. I was suprised at first because she rarely cooked from recipes. I suspect that as she got older,she started making notes for herself.

Among the recipes was a list of ingredients. After conferring with her surviving children and a neighbor that helped her can, we determined it is her chow chow recipe. Her children are all in their 80s and none of the other grand or ggrand kids can. So, I've been tasked with making up a batch for them. I'm going to follow the Ball recipe for chow chow in terms of processing time. I haven't done it yet but here are the ingredients if you would like to try it.

10 lbs green tomatoes
10 lbs onions
3 lbs brown sugar
1 qt vinegar
1 box spice (equivilent today is 2oz pickling spice)

Good luck

I have a question which is more gardening related: Some of the canning recipes like the one above call for lots of onions. In my neck o' the woods, onions I grow have never proven to be real keepers. I could (and have) in the past frozen them so I had them on hand...but I'm wondering how some of these recipes developed (especially in the south) with so many onions :)

Are you growing short day varieties as we have to in the south? Planting in the fall not the spring? Using plants, not sets (sets are all long day varieties)? Yellow Granex is a great short day variety and a good storage onion. White Bermuda (Crystal Wax) is another.

It's the sweet varieties that don't store well.

Dave