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Pickled Cabbage
4 quarts chopped cabbage 2 cups chopped onion 1 cup chopped peppers salt Arrange cabbage, onion, and peppers in layers in an earthen crock; cover each layer with salt. Let stand over night; in the morning drain; then arrange cabbage, onion, and peppers in layers, with cloves and mustard seeds. Cover with cider vinegar; let stand twenty-four hours.
A fresh-pack salt-and-vinegar cabbage pickle of the chow-chow family, written in the shorthand a 1907 cook would have filled in from habit. Two things are left unstated — the amount of salt and the amount of spice — and one thing is left unsaid entirely: this is a keep-cold pickle, not a canned one.
- The salt is unmeasuredThe original simply says "salt" for the overnight layering. A common working proportion for a dry salt draw on 4 quarts of shredded vegetables is about 1/2 cup of coarse pickling or kosher salt, but the recipe genuinely does not specify, so treat any figure as a reconstruction. Use non-iodized salt; iodine and anti-caking agents cloud the brine.
- Spice quantities are also missing"Cloves and mustard seeds" carries no measure. For this volume, a tablespoon or two of yellow mustard seed and a teaspoon of whole cloves is in the normal range for period chow-chows. Whole cloves are assertive — they will dominate if you go heavier.
- Earthen crock, or anything non-reactiveA glazed stoneware crock was the default vessel. Glass, food-grade plastic or stainless steel all work. Avoid aluminum, copper and cast iron, which react with the vinegar and salt and will discolour both the pickle and the pan.
- Cider vinegar strengthCommercial cider vinegar is standardised at 5 percent acidity today. Household vinegar in the 1900s was not standardised and its strength varied. Do not dilute it, and do not substitute a low-acid or "drinking" vinegar.
- PeppersIn a Boston book of this date, "peppers" most likely means sweet peppers rather than chiles, though the recipe does not say. Use sweet peppers unless you want heat, in which case a small amount of hot pepper is a departure from the original rather than a reading of it.
- Drain, and drain properlyAfter the overnight salting the cabbage will have thrown a great deal of water. Drain it hard and press it — any brine left behind dilutes the vinegar and slackens the finished pickle.
- Storage is the gap in the instructionsThe recipe ends after twenty-four hours in vinegar with no sealing, processing or heat step. Treat the result as a refrigerator pickle: keep it covered and cold, and eat it within a few weeks. Do not put it into jars and store it at room temperature, and do not attempt to can it without following a current tested procedure.
- YieldFour quarts of raw chopped cabbage collapses considerably under salt. Expect roughly 2 1/2 to 3 quarts of finished pickle.
Lowney's Cook Book was published by the Walter M. Lowney Company, the Boston chocolate manufacturer, and like other branded cookbooks of the era it surrounds its chocolate recipes with a full household repertoire so the volume earns its place on the shelf. This cabbage pickle belongs to the chow-chow and piccalilli family that filled American preserving chapters at the turn of the century: chopped garden vegetables, drawn overnight with dry salt, then covered in cider vinegar and spiced with whatever was in the box. Salting first is the working principle -- it pulls water out of the cabbage so the vinegar is not diluted and the shreds stay crisp -- and salt is used to draw water in sauerkraut too, though there the brine feeds a fermentation, while here vinegar does the work and the result is ready in a day rather than weeks. The terseness is characteristic of the period; the printed page had mainly to remind the cook of the order of operations.