Capsicums, Pickled
INGREDIENTS. Vinegar, 1/4 oz. of pounded mace and 1/4 1/4 oz. of grated nutmeg, to each quart; brine.
Gather the pods with the stalks on, before they turn red; slit them down the side with a smallpointed knife, and remove the seeds only; put them in a strong brine for 3 days, changing it every morning; then take them out, lay them on a cloth, with another one over them, until they are perfectly free from moisture. Boil sufficient vinegar to cover them, with mace and nutmeg in the above proportions; THE CAPSICUM. put the pods in a jar, pour over the vinegar when cold, and exclude them from the air by means of a wet bladder tied over.
A straightforward cold-pack vinegar pickle of green chillies, with two details that decide whether it keeps: the pods must be bone dry, and the vinegar must be strong.
- Dry the pods completelyThis is the hinge. Water clinging inside a slit pod dilutes the vinegar around it and gives spoilage organisms a foothold. After the brine, spread them out and blot until no moisture transfers to a fresh cloth — several hours, or overnight.
- What "capsicums" means hereNot the sweet bell peppers of a modern supermarket. Victorian usage applied 'capsicum' to the longer pods of Capsicum annuum, gathered green here as the recipe directs; the smaller, hotter 'chilies' are handled separately elsewhere in Beeton. A Hungarian wax or a green cayenne is a reasonable stand-in; whole small bells will work but taste flat by comparison.
- The brine is unspecifiedThe original gives no strength. Period household brines for pickling were made strong, the usual test being that the brine should float an egg; recipes of the order of 1 lb of salt to 4 pints of water are common. Changing it each morning for three days draws out water and firms the flesh.
- Spice proportionsA quarter ounce each of mace and nutmeg per quart of vinegar is about 7 g of each: roughly a tablespoon of pounded mace and one whole nutmeg, grated. Boil them in the vinegar as directed, then leave it to cool fully before pouring.
- Use 5 per cent vinegarOrdinary bottled malt, cider or white wine vinegar at 5 per cent acidity is the modern equivalent of the household vinegar assumed here. Do not thin it with water, and make sure the pods stay fully submerged.
- The wet bladderA cleaned pig's bladder was tied over the jar mouth and shrank as it dried, giving an airtight skin. Use sterilised glass jars with vinegar-proof lids instead; store cool and dark, and refrigerate after opening.
- Cold vinegar, and what it costsPouring the vinegar cold keeps the pods crisp, which is the point of the method, but it does nothing to pasteurise the jar. Expect a refrigerator life of a few months rather than a shelf-stable year, and discard any jar that clouds, bubbles or smells yeasty.
- Yield and useA quart of spiced vinegar covers roughly 1 to 1 1/2 lb of pods. Leave them three to four weeks before broaching. The vinegar takes up heat from the pods, though less than it would with the seeds left in, and spiced chilli vinegars of this kind were used as condiments in their own right, a spoonful at a time in soups and sauces.
Capsicums reached Britain from the Americas by way of Spain and Portugal in the sixteenth century, and by Mrs Beeton's day they were a familiar kitchen-garden crop in England — grown under glass or in a warm border, and picked green, as the recipe prefers. Pickling was the standard way to keep a glut, and the pickle jar sat alongside the walnuts, gherkins and mushroom ketchup that furnished a Victorian sideboard. The heavy hand with mace and nutmeg is characteristic of nineteenth-century English pickling, which reached for the old spice cupboard rather than the garlic, dill and mustard seed a modern cook would expect.