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Peach Mangoes
Pour boiling salt water over the peaches-let them stand two days; take them out and slit them on one side, and put them in turmeric vinegar for two days. Extract the seed, stuff and sew them up, and put in the prepared vinegar. Prepare the stuffing as follows: chop some of the peaches from the turmeric vinegar, add a large quantity of mustard-seed, celery-seed, a good deal of brown sugar-one pound to two and a half pounds peaches; ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, pepper, turmeric, and any other spices, if you like. Onions chopped fine. Vinegar to be seasoned the same way; and any of the stuffing left may be put in the vinegar.--Mrs. C. C.
Peach Mangoes.
Remove the stones from large white Heath peaches by cutting in halves. Stuff them with white mustard-seed, a little pounded mace, turmeric, and celery-seed. Sew them up, and drop them in with the yellow cabbage.--Mrs. H. T.
Peach Mangoes.
Pour boiling salt water over the peaches, let them stand two days; then take them out, slit them on the side, and put them in turmeric vinegar for two days or longer. Take them out, extract the seed, stuff them, sew them up, and put into the prepared vinegar. To prepare the stuffing:
Chop up some of he peaches, add a large quantity of white mustard-seed, a good deal of brown sugar, some ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, pepper, turmeric, celery-seed, also a great deal of chopped onion. Vinegar, seasoned with same ingredients. Quantity of spices can be regulated by your taste.--Miss S. Peach Mangoes.
Take large plum peaches, sufficient quantity to fill the jar. Peel nicely, and take out the stones. Have ready the stuffing in proportion to the peaches. Mince fine some soft peaches, preserved orange peel, preserved ginger, coriander-seed, celery-seed, a small quantity mace, cinnamon, candied strawberries, if you have them, and pickled cherries. Sew the peaches up, after stuffing them, and fill the jar. Then to every pound coffee sugar add one-half pint vinegar, allowing the above quantity to two pounds fruit. Make a syrup of the sugar and vinegar, and pour on the peaches, boiling-hot. Repeat this for three mornings; the fourth morning put them all on together, and boil a short time; add a few spices, cinnamon, and ginger to the syrup when you make it. They will be ready for use in a few weeks.--Mrs. R.
Four contributors' versions of the same thing: firm peaches brined, dyed and soured in turmeric vinegar, hollowed, stuffed with mustard and spice, stitched shut and put down in sweet-sour pickle. Nothing here is a measurement in the modern sense, so read all four and pick the framework you trust.
- "Mangoes" are not mangoesTo mango a fruit or vegetable meant to pickle it whole and stuffed, in imitation of imported Indian mango pickle. No mango is involved at any stage.
- Which peachesWhite Heath is a late-season clingstone with dense, low-juice flesh, the kind of fruit that survives brining and stitching; what Mrs. R. means by "plum peaches" is unclear, though the same firmness is implied. A supermarket freestone at eating ripeness will collapse; choose the hardest, least fragrant fruit you can find, and expect to halve or slit rather than core neatly.
- Turmeric vinegarVinegar (the type is never specified) steeped with turmeric, used here as much for the yellow stain as for the flavour. It is a soaking liquor, not the finished pickle.
- "The yellow cabbage"Mrs. H. T.'s instruction to "drop them in with the yellow cabbage" points to a companion recipe elsewhere in the book: a turmeric-yellow cabbage pickle whose jar and syrup the stuffed peaches share. On its own her version gives you no pickling liquid at all.
- Coffee sugar and half a pintCoffee sugar was a coarse, hard granulated sugar sold for the coffee cup; ordinary granulated sugar stands in exactly. Half a pint is one cup, so Mrs. R.'s proportion is 1 lb sugar and 1 cup vinegar to every 2 lb fruit.
- The unmeasured salt"Boiling salt water" for two days at room temperature is the one step with no proportion attached anywhere in the four versions. Brines of this sort were generally made strong; a weak brine at summer temperatures will simply spoil the fruit.
- The repeated syrupPouring boiling syrup over the fruit for three mornings, then boiling everything together on the fourth, is a deliberate draw: each round pulls water out of the peaches and drives sugar in without cooking them to mush. Skipping to a single long boil gives you jam-textured fruit in thin syrup.
- Sewing and unsewingUse plain unwaxed cotton thread and a large needle, and take a few loose stitches rather than a tight seam so the stuffing can swell. The thread stays in until serving, when the fruit is lifted out and snipped.
- KeepingNone of these versions describes sealing or processing jars, and the acidity of the finished liquor is unknown. Treat the result as a refrigerated pickle to be eaten within a few weeks, and follow a current tested recipe if you want shelf-stable jars.
- Yield and useFigure a quart jar per 2 lb of fruit. This is a condiment served in slices alongside cold ham, roast pork or game, not a dessert preserve.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia, compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree and published in 1878, is a collection of contributed receipts, which is why the same dish appears four times over the initials of four different women. "Mangoing" was a standing solution to an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century problem: pickled mango arrived from India as an expensive import, and American cooks reproduced the idea with whatever firm local produce would hold a stuffing of mustard seed and spice. Muskmelons were a common choice, and in parts of the Midwest the sweet bell pepper is still called a mango for the same reason. Peaches were one southern answer, abundant in late summer and grown in cling varieties that held their shape under brine. The heavy hand with mustard seed, turmeric, ginger and coriander reflects the period's taste for pickles built on the flavour profile of imported Indian and English "India" pickles, and Mrs. R.'s version, with its candied strawberries, preserved orange peel and pickled cherries, shows how far a well-stocked storeroom could push the form toward sweetmeat.