Today's Case:
Sour Chow Chow
Re: Chow chow
From: Terrie
To: Phaedrus
Date: 4/28/2024, 4:58 PM
On 4/28/2024 2:00 PM, Terrie wrote:
Hello. My name is Terrie. I love spending hours on your site.
Years I have looked for a recipe my aunt made from her Appalachian garden.
It was a sour chow chow. No sugar or very very little. Almost fermented tasting,
but canned. Cabbage, red pepper, corn ,green tomatoes, banana peppers, maybe
onions.
I am hoping you can find it. Thank you soooo much.
Hi Terrie,
I'm glad you enjoy the site!
Terrie, the first thing that I did was to search for any chow chow recipe called "sour chow chow." I had no success finding any recipe at all with that name. There are some recipes for "sweet and sour chow chow," but they are nothing like your description. Next, I tried searching by your list of ingredients. There are gazillions of chow chow recipes with cabbage, red peppers, green tomatoes, sugar, and onions. Adding corn to the search list reduces it a bit, as does adding banana peppers, but. It is more difficult to narrow down a search than it used to be. It is particularly more difficult without a unique name for the recipe or dish. If all I have is a list of ingredients, Google and Bing send me every site that has those ingredient terms on the same page, and even some that don't have all of them on the page.
I will post this and ask for reader input. I will ask that they stick to your ingredient list and not send just "good" or "favorite" chow chow recipes. Any additional clues you can think of might help. Chow chow usually has vinegar as an ingredient: white vinegar or apple cider vinegar? What about spices? Many chow chow recipes call for pickling spices or individual spices. Mustard? Celery seed? Allspice? Any memories about those? Where did your aunt live? Appalachia covers a large area. An ethnic connection might be helpful, as well.
Your best bet might be to try to recreate the relish yourself. Look at the recipes below and these on my site:
12-02-2005
08-22-2003
Start with one of them and add the other ingredients that you remember. Maybe you can get close to your Aunt's chow chow.
Phaed
Chow-Chow Relish
8 c. cut corn
1 c. chopped onions
1 c. chopped green sweet pepper
1 c. chopped red sweet pepper
4 c. chopped cabbage
2 tbsp. mustard
1 tbsp. mustard seed
1 tbsp. celery seed
1 tbsp. salt
4 c. vinegar
1-2 c. sugar
1 tbsp. turmeric
Boil corn 5 minutes. Cut from cob. Measure. Peel onions; remove seed from peppers.
Chop and measure cabbage, onions, and peppers. Mix all ingredients with 1 cup water.
Simmer 20 minutes. Bring to boiling. Pack, boiling hot, into Ball jar; seal at once.
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Chow Chow (Green Tomato Relish)
1 peck green tomatoes
5 lbs. onions
5 lbs. sugar
5 red hot peppers
1 pkg. pickling spices
1 qt. cider vinegar
Slice and soak tomatoes overnight with 1 cup salt. In the morning drain and rinse
once. With meat grinder, grind tomatoes, onions, peppers. Add sugar. Wrap spices
in a cheesecloth and add to mixture. Add enough vinegar to almost cover. Cook
uncovered low heat 4 hours. Use juices from tomatoes and onions. Fill sterilized
canning jars and seal. Makes 7 1/2 quarts.
