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Watermelon Rind Pickle
Ten pounds melon, boil in water until tender. Drain the water off. Make a syrup of two pounds sugar, one quart vinegar, one-half ounce cloves, one ounce cinnamon; boil all this and pour over rind boiling-hot; drain off the syrup and let it come to a boil; then pour it over the melons.--Mrs. C. C. McP.
A sweet-sour crock pickle of the sort every Virginia household put up in late summer, written for a cook who already knew the drill. The hinge is the repeated syrup treatment: the syrup is drained, reboiled and poured back over the rind rather than the rind being cooked in it, which is what keeps the pieces firm and translucent instead of collapsing.
- What "ten pounds melon" meansIt almost certainly means ten pounds of trimmed rind rather than whole melon, since the receipt goes on to say "pour over rind." Pare off all the green skin and every trace of pink flesh, then cut into inch or two-inch pieces. Yield per melon varies widely with size, so several melons will be needed to reach ten pounds.
- Boiling until tenderSimmer in plain water 10-20 minutes, until a piece is translucent at the edge and a fork enters with slight resistance. Fully soft rind will fall apart over the following days of syruping.
- The lime or alum step is missingMany nineteenth-century rind pickles first soaked the rind overnight in salt water, or in lime or alum water, for crispness. This version skips it. Soaking overnight in a brine of about 1/4 cup salt per quart of water, then rinsing well, is one common period approach and does no harm.
- Repeat the pouringAs written, "drain off the syrup and let it come to a boil; then pour it over the melons" describes a single repeat. Other period rind receipts direct the draining and reboiling to be repeated over several days, each round drawing water out and syrup in; a single pass tends to leave a thinner, less flavoured pickle.
- SpicesHalf an ounce of cloves is about 2 tablespoons whole; an ounce of cinnamon is a substantial quantity, on the order of eight to ten sticks broken up, or several thick pieces of cassia bark. Use whole spice tied in cloth, not ground, or the syrup turns muddy brown and gritty.
- VinegarA quart of cider vinegar at modern 5 percent acidity is a reasonable substitute. Period vinegar strength was not standardised, and old receipts give no acidity figure.
- SugarTwo pounds is about 4 1/2 cups, low by later standards. Many cooks now use closer to equal weights of sugar and rind for a thicker, more candied syrup.
- Yield and storageExpect roughly six to eight pints. Treat it as a refrigerator pickle: the syrup is diluted by the water in the rind, so this is not a tested shelf-stable formula and nothing here processes the jars. For pantry storage, follow a current tested watermelon rind pickle recipe with a measured boiling-water bath.
- ServingEat cold, in small quantity, alongside ham, cold roast meat or a plate of beans; it is a condiment, not a side dish.
Watermelon rind pickle belongs to the American Southern habit of putting up the part of the fruit nobody would otherwise eat, and it turns up in regional community cookbooks. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), assembled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by two hundred and fifty of Virginia's noted housewives, is exactly that sort of book, which is why the receipt carries the initials of its donor, Mrs. C. C. McP., rather than a set of explanatory notes. Sweet spiced pickles of this kind were the sugar-and-vinegar preserving tradition inherited from English "pickled" fruit, and they made heavy use of cloves and cinnamon.