"A Love Affair with Southern Cooking"
Sometimes, it’s just one recipe.
Jean Anderson compiled 200 recipes for A Love Affair with Southern Cooking: Recipes and Recollections. Many were little-known but much-loved specialties of small communities—such as Surry County Sonker, from a small part of North Carolina’s Piedmont foothills—a fairly standard, pie pastry-based fruit cobbler with a terrific name. Reading Anderson’s book should make even the most devoted Yankee long to sink teeth into Southern fried okra or brown sugar pie (Anderson traces her lifelong love of Southern cooking to this pie, served to her five-year-old self in the basement cafeteria at Raleigh, N.C.’s Fred Olds Elementary).
But for all the gems I know the book holds, I rarely open it outside of the middle of September. Because that is when, at the state farmers market in Raleigh, summer squashes and fall apples start competing for space. And that means it’s time for Blue Ridge Relish.
How I first found this recipe, I have no idea—presumably from the library’s new books shelf around the time of its publication in 2007, since I’m always a sucker for great Southern recipes. Born and raised in Raleigh, I nevertheless have nary a drop of Southern blood, with a mother from Connecticut and a father from Nebraska. I like some New England foods, and many Midwestern recipes, but to my palate, none beat the vast repertoire of the South.
The idea of putting the relish on hot dogs and hamburgers, yes, but also a bowl of pinto beans appealed to me; I love a good bowl of beans or field peas but find I rarely make them as tasty as those in good meat-and-three restaurants. And at that point in our lives, with two small children, we went often to Bon’s restaurant—run by the daughter of the famed “Mama Dip”—for veggie plates (where mac and cheese counts as a veggie). My plate always included a bowl of creamy, porky black-eyed peas, pintos, or Dixie Lees (Bon was, I think, vegetarian or maybe vegan, but she still knew how those peas should taste). So if I could up my game with a topping of a vinegary mix of peppers, onions, and apples—well, time to copy a recipe.
Attributed to Nannie Grace Dishman of the unincorporated Sugar Grove, North Carolina, it produces 10 to 12 pints of relish from about four pounds each peppers and apples, two pounds onions, cider vinegar, sugar, and pickling salt. That’s it. No fancy spices or seeds, no supreme crunch; you get just slightly soft, sweetly tangy vegetables mixed with basic Golden Delicious apples. Twelve pints feels like a lot coming out of the canner, but they’ll barely hold a stomach til the next September.
In the photo albums I used for years to hold clipped and copied recipes, I had this recipe without its full source, and it took several years to connect it to Anderson’s book. I found a used copy for sale and discovered all else it held. Anderson, who is in the James Beard Hall of Fame, also adored Southern food as an outsider born in Raleigh to Yankee parents. She traveled widely, and wherever she wandered seemed to persuade all she met to share their recipes. And she didn’t just love Southern food; her writing included the 1,300-page, award-winning Doubleday Cookbook, and books on the food of Portugal and Germany. She lived to 93, dying in 2023—four years after publishing her final book that connected Southern potters to recipes made or served in their creations.
From the farm where I pick blueberries and blackberries, an email came this week with news of a sudden glut of summer apples. A little later, emails will come with the much-anticipated sign-up to pick up paper containers of fresh figs, and once again, the canning pot will start to bubble over jars of relish and lemony fig jam—steaming the kitchen but forecasting an end to summer’s oppressive heat, and with it time to renew my love affair with Anderson’s books.
Blue Ridge Sweet Red Pepper Relish
Slightly adapted from A Love Affair with Southern Cooking
My notes:
Chop the vegetables as large or small as you prefer. I usually use a straightforward yellow onion, but mixing in some Vidalias would not be a bad idea.
I rarely use the Golden Delicious apples Anderson calls for, preferring to select something slightly more tart that will soften but hold their shape. These change most every year, depending on what the farmstand recommends. Pink Lady, Jonagold, McIntosh, and Mutsu have all had their turn in the canner.
If you hate the thought of canning, these could just get stored in the fridge—but I’d cut the recipe in half in that case. Note that these are best if not opened for several weeks after canning.
Makes 10 to 12 pints
4 1/2 pounds (about 12 large) red bell peppers, cored, seeded, and chopped into ½-inch pieces
2 pounds (about 12 very small) yellow onions, chopped into ½-inch pieces
4 pounds (about 12 small) Golden Delicious apples, cored, peeled, and chopped into ½-inch pieces
3 quarts boiling water
2 ½ cups cider vinegar
2 ½ cups cold water
2 ½ cups granulated sugar
4 teaspoons (1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon) pickling salt
Put peppers, onions, and apples in a large pot and add just enough boiling water to cover them. Let stand, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Drain well and return to the pot.
Meanwhile, wash and rinse 12 pint jars and their tops and rings. I boil the jars in the canner as it comes to temperature and keep the tops and rings hot in a small pot of water kept below a simmer.*
In another saucepan, bring the vinegar, cold water, sugar, and pickling salt to a boil. Reduce heat to low and stir until the sugar dissolves completely, then simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes.
Pour vinegar mixture over the pepper mixture and bring to a full rolling boil. Remove from the heat.
Using a funnel and jar-lifting tool (or, in a crunch, regular tongs), lift and drain the jars back into the canner; put the jars on a towel on the counter next to the peppers. Ladle the hot relish in, leaving ¼ inch of headspace at the top of each. Run a thin rubber spatula or plastic knife (metal is OK but the others are preferred) around the inside perimeter of the jars to release trapped air bubbles. Use a wet paper towel to wipe off the rims, then top with lids and rings, screwing the rings on until just finger-tight (do not screw them on too firmly).
Return the jars to the canner, bring to a full boil, and boil for 10 minutes. Lift the jars out onto a towel to cool completely. Check the lids for a seal before storing. Store on a dark shelf for several weeks before opening.
*If you rarely can, remember a few things:
—You can use any tall pot that has enough space to cover the jars well with water—they should always be covered by at least an inch of water. If you don’t have a rack for the bottom, put a tea towel under the jars.
—Never put a hot jar, empty or full, straight onto a counter; protect the jars from cracking by putting them on a towel.
—Don’t screw the rings on too tight—just “finger-tight.”
—If you like, let the jars stand in the hot water after turning the heat off for 5 minutes before removing them—this can help avoid any bubbling-out if you didn’t leave enough headspace. (With jams, this also helps avoid all the fruit floating to the top.)
—Before storing, tighten the rings if needed and check the seals by pressing on the lid. If it depresses/pops back up at all, it’s not sealed and should be stored in the refrigerator.