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Pepper Gherkins
Choose the gherkins of uniform size, and not more than two inches long. Cover with salt, and leave them until the next day, then wipe each one singly with a cloth, and put them into jars, cover with boiling vinegar, and allow a dozen bay-leaves, a sprig of tarragon, a quarter of an ounce of black peppercorns, an ounce and a quarter of salt, two small blades of mace, and two shallots, to each quart of vinegar. Cover the jars, and leave them for three days; then drain off the vinegar, boil it up, let it get quite cold, pour it once more over the gherkins, and tie the jars securely down with bladder. Store in a cool dry place. Probable cost, uncertain.
A straightforward Victorian vinegar pickle, spiced rather than sweet. The method is sound in outline, but the units, the sealing and the storage assumptions all need translating.
- The gherkin itselfIn British usage these are usually immature ridge cucumbers picked at two inches or less, rather than a distinct plant (though the name is also given to the separate West Indian gherkin, Cucumis anguria). Small pickling cucumbers or Kirbys work; a full-grown salad cucumber cut down is a poor substitute, as the seed cavity is watery and soft.
- The salting step is the hingeDry salt drawn overnight pulls water out of the cucumbers so the vinegar is not diluted and the flesh stays crisp. Wiping each one dry rather than rinsing keeps that concentration intact; skip or shorten this and you get limp pickles in weak vinegar.
- Imperial quartA British quart is 40 fl oz, about 1.14 litres, not the American 32 fl oz. Scale the spices accordingly if you are working in US measures.
- Spice weightsA quarter ounce of black peppercorns is roughly 2 to 2 1/2 teaspoons; an ounce and a quarter of salt is about 2 tablespoons of fine salt. Blades of mace are the aril surrounding the nutmeg seed, sold whole in some spice shops; about a quarter teaspoon of ground mace per quart is an approximate substitute.
- Vinegar strengthUse a vinegar of at least 5 per cent acetic acid, malt or cider by preference. Victorian vinegars varied, and the preservation here depends entirely on acidity, so do not dilute it or top up with water.
- The double pourBoiling vinegar goes on first, then after three days it is drained, reboiled and returned cold. The hot pour scalds and colours the gherkins; the cold second pour is what keeps them firm rather than cooking them through.
- Bladder is not a seal you can useTying down with a dressed pig's bladder was the Victorian answer to an airtight cover. Use proper preserving jars with vinegar-proof lids; bare metal lids corrode and taint the pickle.
- StorageThere is no boiling-water processing here, so treat these as refrigerator pickles rather than shelf-stable preserves. Keep them cold, give them three to four weeks to mature, and use within a few months.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield. As a rough guide, one quart of spiced vinegar will cover something in the region of 1.5 to 2 lb of small gherkins, but pack the jars and top up as needed rather than working to a fixed jar count.
Cassell's belongs to the high period of British pickling, when a well-run household kept jars of gherkins, walnuts, onions and mixed pickle to cut through cold meat, pies and the heavy sauces of the dinner table. The word gherkin is generally taken to have reached English through Dutch, from a diminutive of the Dutch word for cucumber (augurk), itself borrowed from further east; the connection reflects the Low Countries' long trade in salted and vinegared vegetables. The spicing here is characteristic of its date: bay, mace, peppercorns and shallot recur throughout Victorian pickling vinegars, and mace was often preferred where a pale pickle was wanted. The closing note, "Probable cost, uncertain", is worth noticing in itself, since Cassell's usually attaches a probable cost to its entries; why the compilers declined to price this one is not stated.