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Vinegar, Pickles, and Pickling: Cayenne
Raspberry, corn, and other fruit vinegars may be made by the same plan, and substantially the same proportions may be observed. Horse-Radish Vinegar. — Mix 1½ ounces of horse-radish, ounce of minced shallot, ounce of Cayenne pepper or paprika, and pour over it a pint of vinegar. Let stand a week or ten days, strain through cheese cloth and bottle for use.
Cucumber Vinegar. - Place in a large stone jar about 1½ dozen large cucumbers, pared and sliced, 4 large onions, pared and sliced, 2 or 3 pieces of garlic and shallots, 2 tablespoonfuls of salt, 3 tablespoonfuls of black or white pepper, and½ teaspoonful of paprika or Cayenne. Let stand four or five days, bring to a boil, cool and strain, or filter through linen cloth or filter paper, and bottle for table use.
Two flavored vinegars from a chapter where the printer has clearly dropped several fractions. Read the quantities skeptically before you start.
- The missing vinegarThe cucumber vinegar lists no vinegar at all, though the name and the straining step require it. Assume enough cider or white wine vinegar to cover the sliced vegetables in the jar — roughly 1½ to 2 quarts for this quantity — but the original amount is genuinely lost.
- Dropped fractions"ounce of minced shallot, ounce of Cayenne pepper" almost certainly began as ¼ ounce or ½ ounce in the printer's copy. A full ounce of cayenne in one pint of vinegar is around four tablespoons of pure ground chile; start with a teaspoon and taste after a few days.
- HorseradishFresh root, peeled and grated, not the jarred creamed style. 1½ ounces is a piece about the size of a thumb. Grate it in a well-ventilated spot; the volatiles are sharper than onion.
- "Pieces of garlic and shallots"Read pieces as cloves — two or three garlic cloves and the same number of small shallots, peeled and left whole or halved.
- The stone jarA glazed stoneware crock. Any nonreactive vessel works: glass or food-grade plastic. Avoid aluminum, copper, or unglazed earthenware, which vinegar attacks.
- Standing timeKeep both infusions covered and at cool room temperature. The horseradish vinegar's week to ten days is about right; the cucumber mixture is done steeping in four or five days, after which the boil helps it keep.
- StrainingCheesecloth passes fine sediment. For a clear bottled product, strain first through cloth and then through a paper filter; a coffee filter is the readiest modern stand-in for the 'filter paper' called for here.
- Yield and keepingThe horseradish version makes about a pint; the cucumber one several quarts. Both are table condiments rather than preserves — refrigerate after bottling and use within a few months. For anything intended for shelf storage, follow a current tested recipe.
Flavored vinegars filled the role that bottled sauces and dressings occupy now, used to dress cold meat, salads, and boiled vegetables. Household Discoveries, an American compendium of the first decade of the twentieth century, groups them with pickling because the technique is the same acid preservation applied to the liquid rather than the solid. Cayenne is traditionally said to take its name from the port of Cayenne in French Guiana, though the etymology is not settled; paprika entered English kitchens from Hungary in the nineteenth century — the recipe offers them interchangeably, which suggests the author expected either to be on hand and was not much troubled by the difference in heat. Cucumber vinegar appears in English cookery books well before this one.