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Yellow Pickle Vinegar
2 gallons of pure cider vinegar. 1 pint black mustard-seed. 1 pint white mustard-seed. 2 ounces ground mustard. 4 ounces white ginger. 3 ounces pepper. 3 ounces allspice. 1 ounce mace. 1 ounce cloves. 2 ounces turmeric. 1 large handful horseradish. 1 handful garlic. 1 spoonful salt. 1 gill celery-seed. 6 lemons. 5 pounds sugar.
The liquid should be mixed in the spring and set in the sun-Mrs. T. M. C.
This is not a pickle but the spiced vinegar that a pickle is made in — a solar infusion meant to be started in spring and drawn on through the summer's cucumbers, cauliflower and cabbage. Scaled as written it fills a two-and-a-half-gallon crock; a quarter batch is more realistic for a modern household.
- Acidity is the whole pointUse commercial cider vinegar at 5 percent acidity and do not dilute it with water, brine drained from vegetables, or extra lemon juice beyond the six lemons. The sugar and spices are carried safely only because the liquid stays strongly acid.
- A gillA gill is half a cup, so the celery seed is 4 fluid ounces of seed. The "spoonful" of salt and the two "handfuls" are genuinely unspecified; read them as roughly a tablespoon of salt and a loose cup each of scraped horseradish root and peeled garlic cloves.
- White gingerIn nineteenth-century usage this generally means dried ginger root scraped or peeled so that it dries pale rather than dark. Whole dried ginger from a spice merchant is the closest match; ground ginger will cloud the vinegar and is not a good substitute at four ounces.
- Pepper and mace"Pepper" here is most likely whole black peppercorns, since the recipe names ground mustard separately when it wants a spice ground. Mace is the outer covering of the nutmeg seed, still sold as blades -- use blades rather than ground, which will settle into sludge.
- Turmeric does the namingTwo ounces of turmeric is what makes the pickle yellow, and it will stain wood, plastic and hands stubbornly. Work in glass or glazed stoneware.
- Never metalTwo gallons of vinegar will corrode aluminum, cast iron and copper and pick up a metallic taste. Use a glass jar or a glazed crock with a non-reactive lid, and stir with wood or silicone.
- What "set in the sun" asks forCover the vessel, stand it in full sun and leave it several weeks, shaking or stirring every few days; the heat drives extraction the way a low simmer would, without boiling off the vinegar. Bring it indoors at night if spring nights are cold, and strain when the liquid is deep gold and strongly aromatic.
- Using itSalt and drain the vegetables first, pack them into jars and cover with the strained vinegar. Store the finished pickles in the refrigerator; this is a keeping vinegar, not a tested canning process, so treat the jars as fresh pickles rather than shelf-stable ones.
Yellow pickle belongs to the same family as English piccalilli, the mustard-and-turmeric pickle whose name and coloring are usually traced to eighteenth-century English cooks imitating Indian achar with spices the East India trade had made cheap, though the origin of the name itself is uncertain. Housekeeping in Old Virginia was compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree and published in 1878, by which time mustard-and-turmeric pickles were a familiar Southern household preparation, closely related to what was also sold and served as chow-chow. Printing the vinegar separately from the vegetables suits a household that made up the liquid once -- two gallons, five pounds of sugar and a dozen spices -- and drew on it as each crop came in. Setting it in the sun rather than on the stove used free heat over weeks instead of fuel.