Sweet Tomato Relish/Ode to Fannie Farmer

I made four pints of Sweet Tomato Relish yesterday.

I hadn't made any relish in a year or two, due to lack of tomatoes in my garden, but this year I have a bumper crop, so I figured I could use a few green tomatoes for the relish.

I've used this particular relish recipe for probably 35 years. It comes from my beloved Fannie Farmer cookbook, the cookbook I bought my first year of teaching (1968) when I discovered, much to my horror and amazement, that I didn't know how to cook.

I'd grown up watching my mother cook and bake, day in and day out, and I'd forgotten to take note, I guess.

So I bought a Fannie Farmer cookbook, and it helped me stay alive those first years on my own.

I still use this cookbook a lot, although I have fancier and prettier ones now. But it's this one which contains the Sweet Tomato Relish recipe that I like, and the meatloaf recipe that Ken likes, and many other good, practical, no-frills-or-exotic-ingredients recipes.

I never think to buy mixed pickling spices, so I always have to mix my own and put them into a cheesecloth bag. The spices include celery seed, cinnamon sticks, ground mustard, whole cloves,...and the recipe for this comes from my Joy of Cooking book, which isn't nearly as old as my Fannie Farmer, but it's far from new, too.

The green tomatoes are chopped and put through a food grinder; onions and green peppers are added, then some sugar and salt. That's about it.

The mixture simmers for an hour or so, put into canning jars, processed in my small pressure cooker at 5 lbs. pressure for 10 minutes, and voila! A tasty relish for hot dogs, hamburgers, baked beans, or whatever floats your boat.