My Aunt Katherine was the oldest person I remember meeting – and the first funeral I ever went to. Katherine was my Great-Aunt Dolores’ mother-in-law. Mother to Uncle Tommy, she was born in new Jersey 1n 1882. She passed in 1956 when I was a wee tyke of 4. I have vague memories of her, but one thing clearly stands out: I guess I was a bit of an impatient kid and she said to me “When a string is in a knot, patience will untie it.” Aunt Dolores and Uncle Tommy never had kids, and my Mom said I was the grandchild Katherine never had…
Fast-Forward 70 years and I have her recipe for Chili Sauce – written out by my mom since the paper Katherine wrote it out on has long since disintegrated.
Being the patient person I have become in my dotage, I converted the recipe to the 21st century… the instructions are still a bit vague, however…
Aunt Katherine’s Chili Sauce
Katherine Cusick Billingsley
- 3.2 kg / 7 lb ripe tomatoes
- 250 g / 9 oz small bell peppers
- 150 g / 5 oz onion
- 100 g sugar
- 475 g vinegar
- 18 g salt
- 2 g each ground ginger, allspice, and cloves
- 2.5 g ground cinnamon
Boil tomatoes, onions, peppers, and sugar until thick.
Add vinegar, salt, and spices and return to boil and reduce to desired consistency.
Seal in glass jars. Hot-Pack bottles or mason jars, as desired.
For a smoother sauce, put through a food mill.
Chili Sauce back in the day was used as a condiment along side cold meats, basic foods, or added as an ingredient to elevate them a bit – and, more importantly – to use up the end of the season bounty of tomatoes and peppers. It was more often than not a chunky sauce. I decided on a smooth sauce to hot-pack can in bottles instead of mason jars…
It’s an interesting flavor – the spices are all “hot” spices, so the finished sauce has a bit of a kick – not in the chili pepper sense, but definitely sweet and spicy. Very agrodolce.
So… thank you, Aunt Katherine for the stroll down Memory Lane…
