...you should have seen me doing the happy dance. I made some homemade relish, and put in canning jars today. Everyone of the jars sealed: all twelve! I am so happy I had to do the dance. Sorry you were not here to see. Dishes washed, kitchen cleaned up, and sparkling jars, filled with fresh pickle relish sitting on the countertop.
Everything about the recipe makes me think of grandmothers. I have a big pot, sitting high on my pantry shelf, where I have to get out the step stool to get it down. Belonging to my Benson grandmother, who made a gazillion batches of jelly, pickles, jam, relish in it. Spent days of her life, peeling, dicing, slicing, chopping all the fruits and vegetables to make good things to eat, spoon on biscuits and spread on sandwiches. Hours standing over the steaming, simmering pot stirring to get the ingredients to the perfect point of melding flavors and appropriately seasoned. The art and practice of preserving as done by people who depended on what they could grow and save to feed their families.
And grandmother Rosa was the one who said the relish was so good she often had it for her evening meal, spooned onto cold biscuits. I've never actually tried it, though I do know honey or jam would be nearly as good on one cold and leftover as a hot steaming one from the oven. But she swore by the relish as the accompaniment to her evening snack of biscuits. Grandmothers will not likely steer you wrong, so now that I have twelve sealed, beautiful jars of relish to enjoy for months to come, in the unlikely event there should be a biscuit left around long enough to get cold, I will give it a try.
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