Though born in New York, chef Mashama Bailey spent a large chunk of her childhood in Georgia and credits her love of canning to her Southern roots. “My great-grandmother was constantly putting something up,” she says. “I remember that she smelled like sugar and there were always mason jars around.” So when it came time to develop a green tomato dish for her new restaurant, the Grey, in Savannah, Bailey eschewed the traditional fried preparation in favor of chowchow, a pickled vegetable relish, built from a base of fresh, firm green tomatoes. After testing several recipes, she settled on a version mixed with serrano peppers (a nod to Savannah’s early Spanish settlers) and spiced with the warmth of mace or nutmeg, which, she says, “blends really well with the earthiness of the tomatoes.” At the Grey, Bailey serves it atop juicy pan-roasted chicken, but the chowchow is the undisputed star. “Some of the flavors play on the chicken and the pan juice,” she says, “but really, it’s all about highlighting the green tomato.”