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Pickle of Watermelon Rind
Cut in pieces and soak the rind in weak salt and water for twenty-four hours--of course having first peeled off the outside. To seven pounds rind put three pounds sugar; scald well in ginger tea, and make a syrup of the sugar and vinegar, enough to cover the rind. Season the syrup with mace and ginger, and boil the rind in it till tender. A delicious pickle.--Mrs. Dr. P. C.
A sweet-sour watermelon rind pickle of the standard nineteenth-century Southern type: brine soak, ginger infusion, then a slow simmer in spiced syrup. The instructions assume you know what a pickle syrup should look like, so a few numbers help.
- Preparing the rindPeel off all the dark green skin and trim away every trace of pink flesh, which turns to mush and clouds the syrup. Cut the pale rind into 1-inch cubes or strips; 7 lb of trimmed rind is roughly two large melons' worth.
- "Weak salt and water"Something on the order of 1/4 cup pickling or kosher salt per quart of water is a common strength for this kind of soak; the recipe itself gives no measure. Avoid iodized table salt, which is often said to darken the syrup, and keep the crock somewhere cool for the full 24 hours.
- Ginger teaThis is simply a strong steeping of fresh or dried ginger root in water: a few ounces of sliced fresh ginger simmered in enough water to cover the drained rind. Scalding in it both flavors the rind and starts softening it before the sugar goes in, which matters, because sugar syrup firms the rind and slows any further softening once it enters the pot.
- The syrup proportions3 lb sugar to 7 lb rind is less sugar than most modern watermelon pickle recipes use, so expect a sharper, less candied result. "Vinegar enough to cover" will depend on your pot and how tightly the rind packs -- expect a quart or more; use cider or white vinegar at 5 percent acidity, the usual strength of bottled vinegar today.
- SpicesWhole blade mace and whole ginger, tied in cheesecloth, give a clear syrup. Ground mace works but clouds it, and a scant teaspoon is plenty for this quantity.
- Judging tendernessSimmer gently rather than hard-boil. The rind is done when a piece is translucent all the way through and a skewer passes without resistance, typically 45 minutes to an hour. Boiled fast, the cubes shrivel and toughen at the edges before the centers give.
- StorageThe book gives no sealing instructions; such jars were generally kept in a cool larder or cellar. Pack them into clean jars and keep them refrigerated, where they will hold for a couple of months; if you want shelf-stable jars, follow a current tested boiling-water-bath procedure for sweet pickles.
- YieldRoughly 5 to 6 pints. Served as a relish alongside cold ham, roast pork or game rather than as a dessert sweet.
Watermelon rind pickle is thrift made into a luxury: the part of the melon that would otherwise go to the pigs, converted with sugar and spice into something fit for the dinner table. It belongs to a large family of sweet pickles and "sweetmeats" that dominated Southern preserving in the nineteenth century, when sugar had become cheap enough to use in quantity but home refrigeration did not exist and every summer surplus had to be put down in salt, vinegar, or syrup. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by housewives in Virginia and neighbouring states, many of them anonymous or identified only by initials, is full of recipes signed like this one, which is why it reads as a note between cooks rather than as formal instruction. Mace and ginger were among the spicings used for such pickles, alongside cloves, cinnamon, and allspice, and the ginger tea step reflects an understanding that rind must be softened before sugar enters the pot.