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Peaches, Pickled
Take a dozen sound peaches which have been gathered before they are fully ripe. Rub them well with a soft cloth, and put them into a pan. Make a brine by boiling a pound of salt in three quarts of water for one minute. Skim the liquid carefully, pour it, when cold, over the peaches, put a thin board on the top to keep them under the water, and let them remain for three days. At the end of that time lift them out carefully, put them into a large earthenware jar, and pour over them a pickle prepared as follows. Boil half a gallon of vinegar with a quarter of a pound of bruised ginger, a dessert-spoonful of salt, three large blades of mace, one pound of mustard, a quarter of a pound of whole pepper, and a tea-spoonful of cayenne tied in muslin. Skim the liquid carefully, and pour it, when boiling, upon the peaches. Cover the jar with a bladder, and store in a cool dry place. The pickled peaches will be ready for use in nine or ten weeks. If it is wished to pickle the peaches as an imitation of pickled mangoes, take each peach singly, after it has been drained from the brine, and cut out of the stalk end a round piece, an inch in diameter, draw out the stone, and put in its place a little fresh mustard-seed which has been washed in vinegar and flavoured with a finely-minced shallot and a pinch of cayenne. Put the piece back again, and secure it in its place with strong thread; then proceed according to the directions given above. Time, ten minutes to boil the vinegar with the spices. Probable cost of peaches, 2d. to 6d. each.
A straightforward two-stage pickle: a salt cure to firm the fruit, then a boiling spiced vinegar. The details that need translating are the imperial volumes, the vague "mustard", and the bladder.
- Firm fruit is the hingePeaches picked before full ripeness are essential here; ripe fruit collapses in the brine and again when boiling vinegar hits it. Choose hard, barely-blushing freestones, and avoid any with bruises or split skins.
- Imperial volumesThree quarts of brine is about 3.6 US quarts, and half a gallon of vinegar about 2.4 US quarts. A pound of salt to three imperial quarts gives roughly a 12-13 per cent brine, strong enough to keep for the three days specified.
- "One pound of mustard"Genuinely ambiguous. Given the quantity relative to the vinegar it most likely means whole mustard seed rather than powdered mustard, which would thicken the pickle into a paste. Note that the second half of the entry does specify "mustard-seed" where seed is meant, which leaves the plain "mustard" of the boiling pickle unresolved.
- Salt and vinegarUse plain pickling or kosher salt, not iodised table salt, which clouds the liquid. The vinegar should be at least 5 per cent acetic acid; a weak or homemade vinegar of unknown strength will not preserve the fruit.
- VesselsNothing metal at any stage except a stainless pan for boiling. Brine and vinegar attack aluminium, copper and unglazed cast iron. The "thin board" is simply a follower to keep the fruit submerged; a plate weighted with a jar of water does the same job.
- The bladderA pig's bladder was tied wet over the jar mouth and shrank as it dried to form a tight cover. Replace it with a glass jar and a plastic or coated lid; a bare metal lid will corrode above vinegar fumes.
- Storage in practiceBoiling vinegar poured over cold fruit gives no reliable heat process. Keep the finished jar in the refrigerator through the nine or ten weeks of maturing, or process filled jars in a boiling-water bath according to a current tested pickling guide. Discard anything that ferments, goes cloudy or smells yeasty.
- Heat levelA quarter-pound of whole pepper, a quarter-pound of ginger and a teaspoon of cayenne to under two and a half quarts of vinegar makes a fiercely hot pickle by modern taste. Halving the pepper and cayenne still leaves plenty of bite.
- Yield and servingThe dozen peaches plus the half-gallon of pickle needs a jar of a gallon or more, as the recipe's "large earthenware jar" implies. Served as a condiment with cold ham, tongue, mutton or curry, one peach and a spoonful of the liquor is a portion.
The second half of this entry explains itself once you know the verb: eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English cooks spoke of "mangoing" fruit and vegetables, meaning to hollow them, stuff them with mustard seed, garlic or shallot and spice, and pickle them in imitation of the mango pickles that arrived from India with the East India trade. Real mangoes were not to be had fresh in Britain, so unripe melons, cucumbers, small marrows and, as here, hard peaches stood in for them, which is why American cookbooks of the same era give recipes for "mangoes" that contain no mango at all. The heavy hand with ginger, mace, whole pepper and mustard seed is part of the same borrowing. Cassell's, a late-Victorian household dictionary aimed at middle-class kitchens, prices the fruit by the single peach, at 2d. to 6d. each, a reminder that peaches were still a glasshouse or wall-trained luxury in Britain rather than a bulk commodity.