I often wonder why I keep on making preserves. No one needs to act like a busy ant storing food for the winter rather than risk starvation like their neighbor the grasshopper who sings all summer. Aesop's fable, it would seem, has lost its moral imperative. These days industrious ants stock up at CostCo, and grasshoppers, today's working poor, use food stamps. Both ends of the spectrum are enabled by giant food companies whose processed products last, despite sell-by dates, virtually forever.
Having authored the twice-published cookbook, Gourmet Preserves Chez Madelaine, I should be a strong advocate of home preserving. And I am, but my preserving goals have changed since I made one big and unwelcome discovery: home preserves don’t last forever. Their concentrated flavor and color lose their vibrancy in just a matter of months.
This may not seem to you like much of a revelation. But preservers, just like fabled ants, are driven to fight the the passage of time by capturing and holding the best of summer’s flavors And the result of my struggle to reconcile a passion to preserve with its time limitations? I’ve become a lapsed ant, preserving selectively and in modest quantities.
For example, the taste of summer tomatoes is one I simply can’t resist preserving. This year I'm using a ridiculously simple method that keeps them fresh and crisp. It requires no cooking, no boiling water to seal jars. I'm turning my tomatoes into pickles!
PICKLED TOMATOES
1. Select clean pint jars with tightly fitting snap-on or screw cap lids.
2. Rinse, cut up and pack the jars with tomato pieces layered with peeled, crushed garlic cloves and an herb of your choosing.
3.Make a solution of 1 part white or red wine vinegar to 3 parts cool water. Dissolve, by stirring, 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt for every cup of liquid, if desired.
4. Pour on the vinegar solution to cover the jar contents completely.
5. Seal the jar and store in the refrigerate.
It's hard to wait more than a day or two before opening these pickles. In that time the tomatoes will have already begun to pick up the aromas of garlic and herbs. The tang of vinegar is mild - a perfect foil for their sweetness.
Pickled tomatoes are delicious garnish with sandwiches, on meat platters and cut up in salads. I stir pickled cherry tomato halves into pasta sauces, just at the last minute. Are you ready to take tomato pickles to the next level? I recommend running the contents of a jar through a food mill and serving this fresh "ketchup" with grilled fish or meat.
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