So this is an old, old recipe belonging to whole human family.

END-OF-GARDEN PICKLES

Vegetables:

Green tomatoes*, cut in half or quartered if large Carrots, peeled and cut into strips Cauliflower, separated into small florets Baby onions, peeled, or larger onions halved or quartered Green peppers, cut into broad lengthwise slices Garlic, two peeled cloves per quart jar Medium-hot peppers, two small whole peppers per quart

You can also add unpeeled and unwaxed small cucumbers, zucchini, or lightly cooked green beans, though we never did. The hot peppers add adventure and zest, but if you prefer to save your tears for really sad occasions, why not?

Amounts and proportions depend on what vegetables you have and how many quarts you plan to make. You don’t have to have green tomatoes, and other things can be bought in a grocery store. But you do need a variety of vegetables, and you have to have onions and garlic, or you won’t have world’s best pickles. You will have world’s so-so pickles, and that would be a shame.

Armenian-Persian-Bulgarian Brine

To one quart of water add 1/4 cup pickling salt (salt that isn’t iodized), and one cup of white distilled vinegar. Bring mixture to a boil. This is enough brine to cover two quarts of mixed pickles, with a little left over.

Processing

Follow canning instructions in a good, standard cookbook. Or, if you plan to eat them right away, pack vegetables into clean quart jars, pour over them hot brine, and keep pickles covered in refrigerator. Some of more impressionable vegetables, like zucchini, will be ready to eat in only two or three days. ________

* The green tomatoes for this recipe should be at least thinking of getting ripe. A tomato demonstrates its thoughts along this line by getting a white overlay on top of green.

Go STEAMIN’ DOWN THE TRACKS WITH VIOLA HOCKENBERRY, a storytelling cookbook -- and find Montana country cooking, nostalgic stories, and gift ideas -- at Janette Blackwell’s Food and Fiction, http://foodandfiction.com/Entrance.html -- or visit her Delightful Food Directory, http://delightfulfood.com/main.html

TOMATOES MARYLAND

Break into bits 2 slices of stale bread. Add to 4 cups canned or fresh tomatoes, peeled and quartered, with half an onion, chopped, and about 2/3 cup brown sugar. Salt lightly.

Bring mixture to a boil and simmer gently for 3 hours, stirring occasionally.

My notes say, “It does need three hours to cook, even with pan lid off most of time. Perhaps some of thin tomato juices could be poured off at beginning, shortening cooking time.”

Tomatoes Maryland is kind of sweet side dish American cooks like to serve with chicken or pork. I was going to say, “cooks from regions other than Northeast.” Then I remembered applesauce with pork, cranberry sauce with turkey, mint jelly with lamb, and baked beans with salt pork. Not to mention pancakes and syrup with sausages cuddled up close. And mincemeat pie, that ultimate mixture of meat and sweet. (And, yes, real mincemeat, as opposed to a packaged mix, does contain meat.)

I will add that some people of Grandpa’s generation did eat diced raw garden tomatoes for breakfast, just as one would eat strawberries, with sugar and cream. You see, it was safe to eat them raw with sugar and cream, because tomatoes then ceased to be a vegetable and became a fruit.

And actually those old-time breakfasters were right. Fresh vine-ripened tomatoes are good with sugar and cream. Let’s face it, most things are good with sugar and cream. And of course tomatoes really are a fruit.