Pickled Green Tomatoes

At Thanksgiving, my mom put out her famous green tomatoes and green peppers as an hors d'oeuvre. All these years, I didn't realize that she fermented them naturally, just as I do with the kraut. So it was a revelation when I finally clued-in this holiday. The fermentation fetish runs in the family!

My mom came here from Italy when she was 20. This old-world preparation of brined green tomatoes is a culinary tradition that she, her mother and her sisters brought with them when they emigrated. (Along with curing their own olives which will be the subject of a separate post.)

The day after Thanksgiving, I dropped by my aunt's house in Hollister (land of fertile ground and home to wonderful CSA Mariquita Farm) to say goodbye as I was leaving town. She was in her carefully tended garden pulling out tomato plants. The plants were full of these beautiful green globes and a few pinkish ones. I promptly picked the green ones and put them in a bag to take home and try my hand at  a new ferment.

The recipe is very simple: tomatoes, green peppers and salt. Lots of salt. I won't post the how-to's  until I can confirm that my first atttempt resulted in success. My crock is brimming with these gorgeous rounds (see pic) and I can't wait to see how they turn out. Hopefully, they'll turn out better than my red cabbage kraut that suffered from the unseasonably warm October temperatures.

Has anyone out there tried fermenting green tomatoes?

Comments

[Daphne Blumenthal]

Yes, I have, and they are delicious! Email me for more info. Daphne

[Glenn Merchant]

We have been pickling them for years, pack small round tomato's with dill, garlic a little alum in jars mix salt and vinagar to taste fill jars and process. cherry tomatos are best. I have pickled in the crock, and they are great right along with cukes. they only keep about two months or so in the fridge.Grape leaves on the bottom to start,dill weed,garlic (LOTS), then fill one layer of cukes tomatoes or both. Continue this layer by layer until crock is full, top with more grape leaves and a plate with a galon jug on water holding everthing down. mix salt and vinagar to taste, add 3 tb. allum to juice and pour into crock till full, Keep it as cool as posible, I do mine in the basement, takes about 3 weeks. the longer they stay in the crock the softer they get. When they are ready and the word gets out and you will have friends and relitives show up to help you eat them, there GREAT. Glenn

[Cara]

My boyfriend's grandmother also uses a similar recipe and came from Italy. The only difference is that she uses hot green peppers like jalepenos or chilies, whole garlic, salt and fennel seeds. The fennel seeds makes it! It tastes like vegetarian pepperoni! Of course she has no idea on the proportions, so I had to guess.... which will be interesting to find out if my guess on salt was ok. You slice the tomate (leave in the brown nubby part, you can cut it out later), or halve them if they are small. Layer tomato, pepper, garlic, salt, fennel seed and repeat till full. Cover with plate, weigh down with rock and wait! When done, serve with olive oil. They are also awesome on pizza or anything!! If anyone can tell me the proportion of salt, that would be fantastic.

[joe borelli]

I tried this receipt using the fennel. My uncle use to make this.
After he layed it & weighted it he would drain it everyday for about 3 weeks. He also scraped the
mold off(fermination process)I have not been able to dupilicate this.
his kids do not remember. I would
like to know more.

[katiek]

Hey there,

I see this is an old post, but I am looking for green tomatoes. Do you know where I could get them this time of year?

[barry]

I was tring to find a similer recipe. The one I'm looking for was hot peppers, green tomatoes, eggplant, garlic, some italian seasonings and pickling salt fermented in a crock for a couple of months. I beleave they called it rotton mix, I know it was an old Italian recipe

[JOANNA]

Could someone post the exact ingredients as I am not great at this but I do remember by grandmother and the fennel taste.