The book has this recipe more than once. Also here as Hot Dog Relish in Recipe Box. Same dish, different piece of paper — kept separately on purpose, because each copy came into the house its own way.
Read this one with the card open. Something on it is illegible, missing or ambiguous. It is transcribed exactly as written — nothing has been guessed or filled in — and every uncertainty is marked below.
Ingredients
- 8 c. cukes — seeds out
- 4 c. onions chopped
- 2 red peppers
- 2 green peppers
- 6 c. wht. sugar
- 4 tsp. salt
(the card then gives the method for the above, and continues with:)
- 1 qt. vinegar
- 1 small c. flour
- 1 tblsp — ⚠ NO INGREDIENT IS NAMED AFTER THIS QUANTITY. See Notes.
- 3 tbsp. dry mustard
Method
Mix above ingred. and boil 10 min.
Mix dry ingredients and add to vinegar. Slowly add to hot mixture and cook until clear (1 hr.)
(NB add some of hot mixture to vinegar mixture to prevent lumps.)
The writer's own note
Note — 8 c. cukes is 4 large cucumbers, cook about 1 hr; 1 bag onions about 4 cups.
Notes
⚠ ALREADY PUBLISHED —
publish: hold, do not queueLive in The Library on the Residence side (
kitchen-recipes.json, "Hot Dog Relish", course Staples). Held until the published URL is captured intopublished_to:.
⚠ The orphan "1 tblsp". Page 2 opens with a bare quantity and no ingredient — the writer's pen ran on to the next line and the word never got written, or it was lost at a page break. Nothing is invented here to fill it.
But it is answerable, and the answer has a source. The family's own earlier typed transcription of these cards — the Google Doc behind The Library — lists "1 Tbs tumeric" in exactly that position in the ingredient order. Turmeric is also what a cucumber relish of this type conventionally carries, and it is what gives it the colour. That is strong evidence, from the family's own record, that the missing word is turmeric — and it is recorded here as evidence rather than written onto the card as fact. Someone who has made this can close it in a sentence.
The Library's version also carries a final step this card does not have: "pour into jars while hot then let it cool before putting the lids on them." So the earlier transcriber was working from either a fuller card or living memory. Worth watching for a second relish card in the remaining scans.
This is a canning-scale batch — roughly six quarts of vegetables and sugar before the vinegar goes in.
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