Hot Pepper Jelly

Go to any large Southern cocktail party and there’s a good likelihood that among the toasted pecans and crab dip and celery stuffed with pimento cheese on side tables will be a slab of cream cheese topped with hot pepper jelly, to be spread on crackers. Exactly when and how this spicy-sweet condiment originated is something of a mystery (some authorities say it didn’t exist before the 1940s), but it’s for sure that its popularity today has only been heightened by the availability of so many