Piccalilli

Piccalilli

By

Leo de Natale

September is a transitional month. Schools re-open, well at least some do in the era of the plague, apple picking, and fall harvests begin. For my wife and me it is green tomato season. It is a time for a nostalgic return. It is piccalilli time.

        My maternal grandparents were Slovak immigrants.  After World War I, that Eastern European area was renamed Czechoslovakia but the two cultures, Czech and Slovak were quite different.  They had the same language but little else in common.

My grandmother Anna Shuko didn’t speak a lick of English when she arrived in the United States in 1905. She learned the rudiments of language and writing. She was a peasant but an intelligent one. She was adept at many things, especially cooking. Out of necessity, she could cook various dishes. Potatoes were a staple and my mother grew up eating fried, boiled, sautéed and baked potatoes. Many immigrants did likewise. Potatoes were an inexpensive and important food.

       She was an incredible cook.  She learned to make apple strudle from scratch.  A bowl of water and flour were the dough ingredients.  She’d knead the dough until paper thin and stretched across the kitchen table.  It was all day process.  Carefully she rolled the ingredients – apples, nuts, spices and butter – into the dough.          

      Several hours later, the strudel was baked and covered with confectionary sugar.  Strudel’s aroma was mouth watering.   She was adept at many dishes – plum dumplings, potato pancakes and many Eastern European foods.  There was one food that was a family favorite.

        She brought a family recipe from Slovakia to her new country.  It was a green tomato relish that in English is called piccalilli, and served with many meat dishes.  It was a favorite with our meals.  My parents and siblings loved piccalilli.

As I child I would watch Grandma Shuko and my mother prepare this simple but elegant dish.  It was a combination of green tomatoes, shredded cabbage, onions, and green and red peppers.  Preparation was messy-especially the cabbage shredding.  What made this recipe so fascinating were  aromatic spices – turmeric, celery and mustard seeds- and white vinegar, sugar and water.  Salt was added to the vegetables for blanching.  It was an overnight process.
      The following day the spices and liquids were boiled and then poured over the vegetables.  Brought to a boil, the mixture cooked for 30 minutes and was ready for canning.  My favorite memory was the redolent aroma in the kitchen.  The vinegar and spices emitted a tantalizing smell that created an indelible olfactory memory.

Before dishwashers arrived, mother and daughter would sterilize glass Mason jars and rubber gaskets with boiling water. Metal racks made for the express purpose of canning were immersed in the water. The piccalilli was ladled into the pint jars and sealed with the gaskets and glass lids. The evanescent scent would last for about a day. The smell was something I looked forward to each season.

Although preparing the relish was time consuming it was worth the effort.   The piccalilli was always present when the family ate  pork, hamburgers or hot dogs. 

My grandmother was a petite, sweet lady with a twinkle in her eye. At 5’ she was tiny and was dwarfed by  my grandfather’s 6’ frame.  She possessed a great, sometimes ribald, country humor and was loved by many, especially her old Slovak friends. When she died in 1963  many mourned her death. 

Grandma was gone but my mother decided to perpetuate the autumnal ritual.  We enjoyed the relish.  So did friends and family who’d feast on such meals as roast pork and sauerkraut. Piccalilli greatly enhanced the food.  My father, who was first generation Sicilian-American especially loved it.  Sometimes a jar was empty by meal’s end.

In  December, 1998, my mother died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism following a surgical procedure.   The death was shocking and, like Grandma Shuko, she,too, was loved and missed by so many friends and relatives, especially my wife Kathy.  My mother was very fond of her.

The death of a parent starts a lengthy grieving process. During the following August, we realized green tomato season was approaching.  My wife and I  decided to continue the legacy and cook at least one batch as a memoriam.  In mid-September, with recipe in hand,  we drove to a local farm stand and purchased a small moutain of tomatoes and other necessary vegetables.  We also bought the spices and vinegar and began our labor of love.

And labor it was.  Kathy minced the vegetables.  I was assigned the task of the most labor-intensive ingredients:  cabbage and onions.  Shredding cabbage is the messiest job.  I shred one pound of cabbage.  Force was needed when using a grater. Cabbage leaves would fly across the kitchen.  A 15-20 minute chore seemed endless but finally the last portion had been shred.  I was sweating and several knuckles were painfully scraped.  I had learned the hard way one must be deft when using a grater.

Next was the most dreaded activity: slicing and dicing three large onions.  The onion’s acrid smell caused immediate tearing.  With watery eyes, I cleaved the first onion.  I needed frequent breaks to combat the tears.  My first instinct was to turn my head away, an inadvisable action when wielding a razor sharp knife.  Somehow, I survived the three onions.  The recipe had a specific layering order: tomatoes, then cabbage, celery, onions and peppers.  Between layers, salt was added to blanch the vegetables.  The ingredients were placed in my mother’s oversized pot — it was at least 65 years old. The pot was covered and left overnight.  The cooking took place the following day.

Now came the easy and fun part – mixing the spices with the water, vinegar and sugar.  Bringing it to a boil, we added the liquid to the vegetables and heated until boiling.  This was the first time piccalilli was made without my mother.  I closed my eyes and the familiar smell surrounded us.  It was as if my mother in the kitchen.  Kathy and I were crying.  Yes, Momma, you’re still with us.

After 20 minutes, the relish was ready for canning.  We fortunately used our dishwasher for sterilization.  We ladled out the sweet-smelling ambrosia into Mason jars and sealed it the metal canning caps.  Over the next hour we’d hear a ping! as the lids popped and guaranteed sterility.  Once cooled, we hand-washed nine jars – they were quite sticky.  I grabbed a label maker and produced labels stating “Mary de Natale’s Piccalilli, 1999”.

The following year we continued the tradition and the preparation was a bit easier.  Another nine jars.  By the third year the preparation was taking even less time.  We pushed the envelope and made two batches.  Green tomatoes are usually sold only until early October.  Each year the process was streamlined.  Two batches became three.

For my wife and me making piccalilli has become a rite of passage.  For an hour every year, the sweet/sour aroma envelopes us.  We just finished our four batches.  The labels read “Mary de Natale’s Piccalilli, 2020”.  Yes, Momma, we feel your spirit and we still miss you.  Dovidenia, mamicka.