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Cabbage Pickle for Present Use
Boil the cabbage in salt and water till tender; lay them on dishes, drain or press them in a towel.
Boil together two gallons strong vinegar. 1 pint white mustard-seed. 4 ounces ginger. 3 ounces black pepper. 3 ounces allspice. 1 ounce mace. 1 ounce cloves. 1 ounce turmeric. 1 large handful horseradish. 1 ounce celery-seed. 2 pounds brown sugar.
Pour it over the cabbage boiling hot. If you have no garlic, use one pint onions chopped fine.-Mrs. H.
A quick spiced cabbage pickle in the piccalilli family, meant to be eaten within weeks rather than laid down for the winter. Two things need attention before you start: the quantities are enormous, and the recipe as printed lists garlic only in the escape clause.
- Scale it down hardTwo gallons of vinegar and better than a pound of whole spices will need a very large crock. A quarter of the recipe — 2 quarts vinegar, 1/2 lb brown sugar, 1/2 cup mustard seed, 1 oz ginger, 3/4 oz each black pepper and allspice, about 1/4 oz each mace, cloves, turmeric and celery seed, and a small handful of horseradish — is still a generous batch, enough to dress several pounds of cabbage (the recipe never says how much cabbage).
- The missing garlicThe closing line assumes garlic was in the list, and it is not. Add a head of garlic, sliced, to the boiling vinegar, or follow the printed alternative and use chopped onion in its place. A pint of onion for the full recipe means about half a cup for a quarter batch.
- "Strong vinegar"The term generally indicated vinegar of good acidity rather than a thinned or weak household vinegar, though nineteenth-century strengths were not standardised. Use anything labelled 5 percent acidity; do not dilute it, since the acid is what keeps the pickle sound.
- Spices go in wholeThe weights assume whole seed and unground bark — whole mustard seed, cracked ginger root, peppercorns, whole allspice and cloves, blade mace. Ground spice at these weights would turn the brine to sludge. Tie the small spices in muslin if you would rather not eat around them; turmeric is the exception and goes in loose, for colour.
- Don't overcook the cabbage"Till tender" here means limp but still with structure, five to eight minutes for quartered heads or less for cut wedges. Boiling the cabbage soft and then pouring boiling vinegar over it gives a slack, grey pickle. Press it genuinely dry in a towel; trapped water thins the brine.
- "For present use" is the operative phraseThis is not a canning recipe and the book does not pretend it is. There is no sealing, no processing, no headspace. Pack it into clean jars, cover with the hot brine, cool and keep it refrigerated, where it will hold a month or two. If you want a shelf-stable pickle, follow a current tested recipe with a measured processing time.
- Yield and useA quarter batch will fill several quart jars. It suits cold meat, boiled beef and pork above all, and the flavour will likely improve after a few days rather than on the first.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1878), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree, is a collection of contributions from named and initialled Virginia housekeepers — hence "Mrs. H." Turmeric, mustard seed and ginger in a sweetened vinegar are the signature of the English piccalilli tradition, itself generally traced to eighteenth-century attempts to imitate Indian pickles brought home through the East India trade; in the American South the same formula shaded into chow-chow. The distinction the title draws, "for present use," would have been a real one in a kitchen without refrigeration, and it is reasonable to read it as marking this pickle out as one made in quantity to be eaten through the current season while the cabbage was in, rather than laid by for the long term.