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Pickles, Mixed
Begin making this pickle about the middle of May. Take a large earthen jar which will hold two gallons. Put into it a gallon of the best brown vinegar, and add four ounces of bruised ginger and four ounces of mustard-seed. Put into a bowl a quarter of a pound of salt, one ounce of ground black pepper, a quarter of an ounce of cayenne, two blades of mace finely powdered, a quarter of a pound of unmixed mustard, and two ounces of curry-powder. Make these ingredients into a paste by mixing them smoothly with a little cold vinegar, add them to the vinegar in the jar, and mix thoroughly. Cover the jar very closely, keep it in a warm place, and stir it with a wooden spoon every day for a month. Gather different vegetables as they come into season, prepare them as for piccalilli (see PICCALILLI), see that they are perfectly dry, and put them into the pickle. When no further additions are to be made, put the pickle into earthen jars, cover closely, tie down with moistened bladder, and store in a dry place. As the vegetables absorb the liquid, add fresh vinegar, and stir the pickle with a wooden spoon. Before it is used this pickle must be kept twelve months from the time when it began to be made.
This is not a single afternoon's work but a standing jar kept going through a whole growing season, then left alone for a year. The instructions assume a cold larder, an earthenware crock and no metal anywhere near the vinegar.
- The hinge: everything goes in dryAny surface water on the vegetables dilutes the vinegar locally and is where spoilage starts. Vegetables prepared as for piccalilli are salted or brined first, drained, and then dried thoroughly before they meet the pickle; the same rule applies to the spoon, the jar and your hands.
- Keep the vegetables submergedThe direction to add fresh vinegar as the liquid is absorbed is the preservation step, not a matter of appearance. Anything sitting above the surface will go soft and off, so top up with full-strength vinegar rather than water or brine.
- Brown vinegarThis means British malt vinegar. Buy one labelled 5 per cent acetic acid; some modern malt vinegars are sold diluted for table use, and a weak vinegar will not carry a pickle for twelve months.
- Unmixed mustardDry mustard powder with nothing added, as opposed to the made-up paste sold in pots. Modern English mustard powder is the direct equivalent. The four ounces of mustard-seed alongside it should be whole brown or yellow seed.
- Bruised ginger and maceBruised ginger is dried whole ginger root cracked with a rolling pin, not fresh root and not ground. A blade of mace is one flake of the lacy covering of a nutmeg; two blades come to something like a quarter to half a teaspoon once powdered, depending on the size of the flakes.
- Vessels and utensilsThe two-gallon jar is about 9 litres, holding a gallon (4.5 litres) of vinegar plus a season's vegetables. The wooden spoon is specified because vinegar and salt attack iron, tin and aluminium; use wood, glass or stainless steel, and glass or glazed stoneware for storage.
- A warm place for the first monthThe recipe says only 'a warm place' and gives no temperature; ordinary room warmth is what is wanted for the daily stirring that infuses the spices. Do not stand the jar in sunlight or above a radiator. Once the vegetables are all in, the recipe asks for a dry place.
- Moistened bladderA pig's bladder was tied over the mouth wet and shrank tight as it dried. Use a glass jar with a plastic-lined or plastic lid; bare metal lids corrode over a vinegar pickle and taint it.
- Yield and useThe recipe gives no figure for how much vegetable a gallon of liquor will take. It is a strong, mustard-and-curry relish for cold meat, cheese and pork pies rather than a salad pickle, served a spoonful at a time.
Cassell's belongs to the late-Victorian household-encyclopaedia trade, and this entry shows the Anglo-Indian stamp on English pickling: bruised ginger, cayenne, turmeric-yellow curry powder and a heavy hand with mustard, the same flavour family as the piccalilli it cross-references, whose name is generally traced to eighteenth-century "India pickle". Starting in the middle of May is dictated by the kitchen garden rather than by tradition he veggetables are paid in as each comes into season, so a single spiced vinegar does the work of half a dozen separate pickles. The twelve-month rest is partly mellowing and partly bookkeeping: last year's jar is opened as this year's is begun, which is how a household with a cold larder and no refrigeration kept a sharp condiment on the table all winter. The bladder cover dates the method to before rubber-ringed preserving jars were cheap and universal.