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The Perkinsville resident has been canning for nearly four decades, but it was only recently that she cranked up the heat. Her spicy bread-and-butter pickles caught on, and suddenly she found herself buying vinegar by the case.
“It’s all my electrician’s fault,” Taylor, 71, said during a break between customers at Stern’s Quality Produce in White River Junction, where she works part time.
Spotting the stock of bread-and-butter pickles in her basement, he offered do the work in exchange for a dozen jars, but he wanted them hot. In a test run, Taylor added jalapeno peppers to her regular recipe, which was based on her grandmother’s.
The tweak provided “just a little tiny bit of heat at the end,” but the electrician wondered if she could make them even hotter. “I like to sweat,” she recalls him saying.
Adding serranos and habaneros supplied the required burn, and Taylor brought the extra jars to her co-workers. Apparently, they shared the pickles with customers, who then asked where they could buy them. That’s when Taylor’s boss, Judy Stern, asked if she’d be willing to make them to sell in the store. Later, faced with 20 pounds of slightly tired but still usable red, yellow and orange bell peppers, Stern asked if she’d make pepper relish.
“I hate seeing things go to waste,” Stern, who owns the business with her husband, Keith Stern, said in a telephone interview.
Red pepper relish joined the list of Taylor’s pickled products sold at the store. Her bread-and-butter pickles and cucumber relish come in three flavors — regular, hot, and hot hot. (The latter contains ghost peppers, real scorchers that place near the top of the Scoville scale, which measures the spiciness of peppers.)
The cucumber products sell for $5 for a pint and $10 a quart; pickled caulflower is a $5 pint; and red pepper relish is $6 a pint. The sales support North Springfield, Vt., Baptist Church, which both Stern and Taylor attend.
Taylor estimates that in the past few years she’s canned well over 200 pints of pickles and cucumber relish for the church, plus about 70 or 80 pints of red pepper relish.
Though he’s not a pickle fan himself, the church’s pastor said quite a few people do enjoy her pickles, and there are “quite a few people at church who keep her busy.”
“Sometimes she has to say, ‘Wait a minute, I need time out this weekend,’ ” the Rev. George Keeler said in a phone interview.
Taylor’s creations, and baked goods made by Stern, also sold at the store, are “another way to support the church,” Keeler said. “It all helps, a little bit here and there.”
Most of the cucumbers come from Taylor’s garden, and the bulk of the other vegetables are provided by Stern’s. Everything is made in Taylor’s kitchen, with the help of an attachment on her stand mixer. In the past, she had grated the cucumbers for relish by hand, and sliced the cucumbers for pickles with a mandoline.
“I don’t have the energy I used to have,” said Taylor, a retired respiratory therapist who also works part time as a secretary at the church, which her family has attended for generations.
When she’s starting a new batch, Taylor samples the raw peppers to see how hot they are, and a co worker tests the finished product. He has such a taste for heat that if he protests the “hot, hot” are too mild, she figures they’re about right.
Because some peppers are hotter than others, “every batch comes out a little different,” Taylor said. The hot hot pickles are her biggest seller, “because you can’t get them in stores.”
Taylor’s bread-and-butter pickles are based her grandmother, Clara B. Heald’s recipe. Taylor substituted cinnamon oil for her grandmother’s ground cinnamon, which darkens the product.
Since then, she’s been going through a lot of sugar and vinegar, Taylor said. “The sugar cuts a lot of the heat.”
Makes approximately 7 pints
6 pounds cucumbers, unpeeled. (Cut seeds out of the large ones)
2 pounds onions
2 green peppers, seeded
Grind all of the above with coarse grinder. Put in large container with 1½ gallons of water and ½ cup of salt and let stand overnight.
Drain, rinse with cold water and drain again. Put in large pot with:
6 cups sugar
3 ½ cups white vinegar
1 tablespoon mustard seed
2 teaspoons celery seeds
2 teaspoons turmeric
½ teaspoon oil of cloves
¼ teaspoon oil of cinnamon
(Taylor says you can use less of these oils to taste, but she likes the stronger clove flavor.)
Bring mixture to a boil. Seal in pint jars. Process in a boiling hot water bath for 10 minutes.
If you want it with hot peppers, Taylor uses 12 ounces jalapenos, 8 ounces serranos and 5 ounces habaneros. If you want it very hot, add 4 ounces of ghost peppers. (Taylor wears gloves to slice the ghost peppers.) She leaves the seeds in the hot peppers and grinds them up with the rest. And for the hot relish, Taylor usually leaves out the green bell peppers.
Makes 12 pints
6 quarts sliced cucumbers (6-7 pounds)
1 quart pearl onions
2 medium-size heads of cauliflower, broken into small florets
2 green and 2 red bell peppers, cut into small chunks
1 cup salt in enough water to cover all
Let stand at least three hours in salt water. Drain and rinse and put in a large pot (at least 12-quart) Add:
6 cups cider vinegar
6 cups sugar
¼ cup mustard seed
1 tablespoon turmeric
1 tablespoon celery seeds
¼ teaspoon oil of cinnamon
½ teaspoon oil of cloves
Bring to a boil and put in hot jars and seal. Process in a boiling water bath.
To make the hot versions, she adds 12 to 16 ounces of jalapenos, 8 ounces of serranos and 7 ounces of habaneros, seeds and all, sliced. To make it very hot, she adds 4 ounces sliced ghost peppers, with the seeds. If she’s using hot peppers, she usually leaves out the bell peppers.
If you add the hot peppers, you may need to increase the vinegar and sugar, 2 cups each, Taylor said.
Aimee Caruso can be reached at acaruso@vnews.com or 603-727-3210.