Fanny Farmer
While on the phone with a friend, I hear “Do you have fanny farmer?” After repeating this twice, I still couldn’t figure out what it meant (or barely what he was saying). Turns out, there is a cookbook from the Boston Cooking School, circa early 1900’s by Fanny Farmer. It has a Chili Sauce recipe that is very similar to what his grandmother used to make: “I made it a couple of years in a row about 20 years ago. The key is the nutmeg and cinnamon.”
The whole book is available online. Bartleby.com chose the 1918 edition because it was the last edition of the cookbook authored completely by Farmer. They have several sections on preserving »
This classic American cooking reference includes 1,849 recipes, including everything from “after-dinner coffee”—which Farmer notes is beneficial for a stomach “overtaxed by a hearty meal”—to “Zigaras à la Russe,” an elegant puff-pastry dish.
I was brave and decided to try this new chili sauce. More importantly, Shirley’s on holidays and let me pick her ripe field tomatoes. Soo happy! I let it cook down in the crockpot most of the day because I needed to pop out to run errands. After about 6 hours, it smelled divine and was a thick texture. The use of pie spice flavours was interesting so I opted to use a cider vinegar (since it didn’t specify) but I would use plain white next time. Not bad but a bit too tart. I jarred it in pints to mix with grape jelly for meatballs. That would be a good sweet-sour sauce over hot rice and a side of lentils. Very filling and easy to whip together.
Since everything in it, except the spices, was grown locally, I labelled this “Fanny Farmer’s Flamborough Harvest Chili Sauce” – corny, but I thought it was cute 🙂
Chili Sauce
- 12 medium-sized ripe tomatoes
- 1 pepper, finely chopped
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 2 cups vinegar
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons each: salt, allspice, grated nutmet, cinnamon, clove
Peel tomatoes and slice. Put in a preserving kettle with remaining ingredients. Heat gradually to boiling-point, and cook slowly two and one-half hours.
Note: I packed this in 1 pint jars and processed in boiling water for 15 minutes.
