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Pickled Dates
One pound of dates. Separate and put in bottle. Take enough vinegar to cover, add a little whole allspice and bring all to a boil. Pour over dates, let stand for a few days and they are ready for use.
A sweet-sour refrigerator pickle rather than a preserve: nothing is sealed or processed, so treat it as something to keep cold and eat within weeks.
- "Separate" the datesDates were often sold pressed together in slabs or blocks, and separating them meant prising the fruit apart by hand. Modern pitted dates in a tub are already loose, but check for stray pits.
- "Bottle" means jarUse a wide-mouth pint or quart canning jar with a plastic or lined lid. Bare metal lids corrode against vinegar and will taint the syrup.
- Vinegar strengthUse ordinary 5 per cent cider or white wine vinegar. The recipe says only "enough vinegar to cover": pack the dates in and add vinegar until they are fully submerged. A pound of dates will need more room than a pint jar allows.
- "A little whole allspice"About a teaspoon of whole berries per cup of vinegar. Whole, not ground, so the liquid stays clear; a short cinnamon stick or a few cloves are in keeping if you want more spice.
- The step that mattersPour the vinegar over the dates boiling hot and make sure they are fully submerged. Fruit sitting above the liquid line is where spoilage starts.
- StorageThis is not a canned product. Cool, cap, and refrigerate; the dates soften and take on the vinegar over three or four days and keep about a month. Discard if the syrup turns cloudy or the surface films over.
- Yield and servingA pound of dates makes a jar's worth, enough for a dozen or so servings alongside cold ham, tongue, curry or a sharp cheese. The leftover spiced syrup is worth keeping for dressings.
The Five Roses Cook Book was compiled by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company of Montreal from recipes sent in by Canadian housewives, and pages like this one show how quickly imported goods reached ordinary kitchens: dates came from North Africa and the Persian Gulf in pressed blocks and cheap wooden boxes, and were available in Canadian kitchens far from any date palm. Pickling sweet fruit in spiced vinegar is much older than the dates themselves in this book -- English cookery had been putting up pickled peaches, plums and walnuts for centuries as a sharp relish for cold meat, and the technique was simply extended to whatever new fruit the grocer stocked.