­The green of summer is captured for enjoying on a colder day.
Food for Thought
In Season
Hazel Mosier leads the way down the narrow steps to the basement of her East Tennessee home. It is early autumn, 1999; the year the world might end.
BY
Angie Mosier
PHOTOGRAPHY
Brian Woodcock

(page 1 of 4)

in a pickle
A still life of dill and green tomatoes seems an appropriate centerpiece for a cocktail party where green tomato pickles make a chic, Southern garnish.
Hazel Mosier leads the way down the narrow steps to the basement of her East Tennessee home. It is early autumn, 1999; the year the world might end. While the rest of us were taking advice from Prince and “partying like it was…”, Hazel was working. Her basement walls were lined with what at first glance looked like a modern art installation—a work in concrete, wood and colored glass. Closer inspection revealed cinderblock walls, wood shelves and hundreds of jars holding summer’s bounty.

Beans, okra, peaches and tomatoes put up at the peak of their flavor. Berries were turned into preserves and apples into her famous apple butter. The scene was marvelous—sweet and Southern. At that point, Hazel turned around with a sweep of her arm and a gimlet eye and said, “I’m ready for Y2K.”

Well, 2000 came and went, and while not many of us have ever had to worry about making it through a winter with enough food, a lesson was taught to us that day in the basement. Mrs. Mosier died a few years later, but the cookbooks and small kitchen file that remained left us our assignments. Written in her own hand, or typed out with handwritten notes in the margins, are Hazel’s instructions on how to create her delicacies. Pickles and relishes seemed to be a big deal, and because there are so many written suggestions on what to add or how to replace one ingredient with another, it is revealed that pickles are something that any cook can make his or her own. Johnny’s Zucchini Relish, Shelby’s Watermelon Rind Pickles, Amanda’s Bread and Butter Pickles—get it? The tweak of a recipe allows a cook to claim ownership.

Click here for a Pickled Green Cherry Tomatoes ("Tomolives") recipe and the a recipe for the Mosier Family Bread-and-Butter Pickles from our Recipe Files.