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Vinegar for Pickles
2 gallons vinegar. 1 cup bruised ginger. 1 cup black mustard-seed. 1 cup garlic. 1/2 cup black pepper. 1 cup celery-seed. 1/2 cup of mace. 1/2 cup of cloves. 1/2 cup of turmeric. 2 pounds brown sugar. 1 pod red pepper. 1 handful horseradish.-Mrs. P. W.
Cucumbers (sliced), snaps, gherkins, muskmelons, cabbage, onions, or anything to be put into the spiced vinegar, must be previously boiled tender in strong vinegar and salt-well pressed out-and then put into the pickle vinegar, will soon be ready for use.-Mrs. J. J. C.
This is two recipes run together: a contributor's formula for a spiced pickling vinegar, and a second contributor's note on what to do with it. The vinegar is a keeping liquor, not something eaten on its own.
- Scale it downTwo gallons of vinegar with two pounds of sugar and several cups of whole spice makes a very large quantity, far more than most kitchens need. Quartering the whole list gives a manageable half-gallon and keeps the proportions honest.
- Vinegar strengthNineteenth-century household vinegar was often homemade and variable in acidity. Use a commercial cider or distilled vinegar at 5 percent, the strength modern pickling assumes, and check the label, since acidity differs between products.
- The spices are wholeBruised ginger means dried whole ginger root cracked with the flat of a knife, not ground. Mustard seed, celery seed, cloves and peppercorns all go in whole. The turmeric was most likely a powder, and it is there mainly for the yellow. A cup of garlic means peeled cloves -- several heads' worth.
- MaceMace is the lacy red aril that wraps a nutmeg, sold as dried "blades." Half a cup of blades is a large amount; if you only have ground mace, use about half the volume, and expect a cloudy liquor.
- Bag the spiceThe original leaves everything loose in the crock. Tying the whole spices in cheesecloth lets you pull them once the vinegar has the flavour you want, which stops the cloves and mace from turning bitter over weeks of standing.
- Snaps and muskmelonsSnaps are snap beans, strung and topped. Muskmelon here means underripe green melon, cut in chunks and firm enough to hold shape, not a ripe cantaloupe.
- The pre-boilBoiling vegetables tender in salted vinegar before they go into the spiced liquor is what makes the difference between a pickle and a limp mess. Cook only until a knife just enters, then press out hard; cucumbers and cabbage go from firm to collapsed in a minute or two.
- StorageThere is no processing step here and none should be improvised. Treat the finished jars as refrigerator pickles: keep the vegetables fully submerged, store cold, and use within a couple of months rather than sealing them for the pantry.
- YieldThe full quantity makes about two gallons of pickling liquor.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia, compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree and published in 1878, gathered recipes from hundreds of contributors who are identified only by initials, which is why this page carries two names and two hands. The spice list points east: turmeric, mace, ginger, black mustard seed and cloves are the signature of the "India pickle" or piccalilli style that reached Anglo-American kitchens through the British East India trade in the eighteenth century and settled permanently into Southern chow-chow and mixed pickle. A keeping-vinegar like this one was a working household staple rather than a single dish. It was mixed once, held in a crock, and fed through the summer and autumn as beans, cucumbers, green melons, cabbage and onions came in, which is exactly what the second contributor's note describes.