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Pickle Vinegar
2 gallons cider vinegar. 4 ounces white pepper, beaten. 4 ounces whole allspice. 4 ounces mustard-seed. 2 ounces ground mustard. 2 ounces of mace. 2 ounces of turmeric. 2 ounces of white ginger. 2 ounces of garlic. 2 ounces of horseradish. 2 gills of celery-seed. 2 sliced lemons. 5 pounds of sugar. This ought to be prepared several months before using, and always kept on hand ready for use.-Mrs. S. T.
Pickle Vinegar. 2 gallons vinegar. 1 pint black mustard-seed. 4 ounces ginger. 3 ounces allspice. 1 ounce cloves. 4 ounces whole black pepper. 1 ounce celery-seed. 3 pounds brown sugar. 2 handfuls scraped horseradish. 1 handful garlic. 3 sliced lemons.
Make in May, and sun all summer.-Mrs. D. R.
Two versions of the same thing: a spiced, sweetened vinegar kept by the gallon and poured over cucumbers, melon rind, onions or green tomatoes as the season provided them. Neither is a pickle in itself, and neither is cooked.
- The point of itThis is a stock vinegar, not a finished preserve. The flavour comes entirely from long steeping, so the one thing that matters is time — Mrs. S. T. wants several months, Mrs. D. R. wants a summer in the sun. Rushing it gives you sweet vinegar with gravel at the bottom.
- Gills and handfulsA gill is half a cup, so 2 gills of celery seed is a full cup — a great deal, and worth halving on a first attempt. "Handfuls" of horseradish and garlic are genuinely unmeasurable; read them as roughly a cup of scraped root and a couple of heads of garlic.
- Vinegar strengthNineteenth-century cider vinegar was homemade and inconsistent, and could run either side of the modern 5 percent standard. Use commercial cider vinegar at 5 percent and do not dilute it; the sugar adds volume of its own, and this liquid is doing preservative work later.
- White pepper and white ginger"Beaten" white pepper most likely means pounded in a mortar rather than reduced to fine powder. "White ginger" is dried ginger with the skin scraped off, sold whole or in cracked pieces. Fresh ginger is not a substitute here.
- Turmeric and maceTurmeric in the first version is largely for the yellow colour associated with mustard pickles; it also settles as sediment, so strain before bottling. Mace is the outer covering of nutmeg and is milder and more floral — buy blades rather than ground if you can.
- Sunning it"Sun all summer" means a stoppered glass jug or demijohn left in full sun, shaken occasionally. Use glass or stoneware only; the acid will attack metal lids, aluminium and unglazed earthenware. Keep it tightly closed against insects rather than covered with cloth.
- Straining and yieldEach version makes about two gallons before straining, rather less after. Pour off the clear vinegar through muslin into clean bottles and keep the spent spice for a second, weaker batch if you like.
- Using itVegetables want salting or brining first to draw out water, then a covering of this vinegar. The high sugar means it will darken over a year or two, which is expected, not spoilage.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia, compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree in 1879, gathers contributions from named and initialled housekeepers across the state, which is why two recipes for the same thing sit side by side with different spicing and no attempt to reconcile them. A standing spiced vinegar of this kind is straight out of the British pickling tradition the Virginia kitchen inherited — the same family of preparations as piccalilli and the sweet-spiced "mangoes" made from stuffed melons — and it calls for a heavy hand with allspice, mace, ginger and turmeric. The instruction to make it in May and sun it all summer belongs to a household that expected to pickle continuously from the first cucumbers to the last green tomatoes, and needed the vinegar ready before the garden was.