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Pickled Sweet Apples
2 Cups of Vinegar 4 Cups Sugar Cinnamon and Cloves Make a syrup of the vinegar and sugar, add a few pieces of cinnamon and a few cloves; pare, core and quarter sweet apples; drop in syrup and cook until tender; put in jar and pour the syrup over. They are ready to eat as soon as cold and will keep for any length of time if sealed.
A simple sweet-sour fruit pickle of the kind that once stood on the shelf all winter beside the pickled peaches and crabapples. The recipe assumes knowledge the modern cook no longer has by default: what a "sweet apple" was, how strong the vinegar was, and what "sealed" meant in a kitchen without a canner.
- Storage is the one thing to change"Will keep for any length of time if sealed" describes open-kettle canning: hot syrup poured into a jar and capped, with no boiling-water processing. That method is no longer considered reliable, since the seal is unproven and surface mould and yeast can take hold. Treat this as a refrigerator pickle, good for a month or two cold, and follow a current tested recipe if you want shelf-stable jars.
- "Sweet apples"A recognised nineteenth-century category of low-acid apples, not simply apples that taste sweet: varieties such as Sweet Bough, Pumpkin Sweet or Tolman Sweet, valued for baking, drying and preserving. Golden Delicious, Gala or Fuji are the nearest supermarket equivalents. Avoid a tart cooking apple here, since the vinegar already supplies the acid.
- Vinegar strengthHousehold vinegar of the period varied and was often cider vinegar at roughly 4 to 6 percent acidity. Use standard 5 percent cider vinegar; the flavour is right and the acidity is predictable. White distilled vinegar works but tastes harsher against the sugar.
- The syrup ratioTwo parts sugar to one part vinegar by volume gives a heavy, almost candied syrup. Dissolve the sugar over low heat before it comes to a boil, or it will catch on the bottom of the pan and darken.
- Whole spices only"A few pieces of cinnamon and a few cloves" means a couple of broken sticks and perhaps eight to twelve whole cloves. Ground spice will cloud the syrup and turn it muddy brown. A square of muslin or a tea ball makes them easy to lift out.
- Cooking timeQuartered apples need only about 8 to 15 minutes in simmering syrup, depending on variety and size. Test with a skewer and stop while the pieces still hold their shape; they continue to soften as they cool in the hot syrup, and a minute too long turns them to sauce.
- Quantity of fruitNo amount of apples is given. Two cups of vinegar and four of sugar make a generous quantity of heavy syrup, enough for about 2 to 2 1/2 lb of prepared apples, or two pint jars, cooked in batches so the fruit stays submerged.
- ServingThese are a condiment, not a dessert: a spoonful alongside roast pork, ham, goose or cold meats, which is how sweet pickles earned their place at the table in the first place.
Sweet pickles like this one belong to a long American tradition of preserving fruit in a vinegar-and-sugar syrup with warm spice, the same treatment given to peaches, pears, crabapples and watermelon rind. Their purpose was practical: a sharp, sweet relish to cut the fat of roast and salt meats through the winter, when fresh fruit and green vegetables were unavailable. A pickle chapter was a standard feature of household cookbooks of the period, since a housekeeper was expected to put up her own stores. The compressed style shows here in the missing weight of apples, the vague "few pieces" of spice, and the confident claim that a sealed jar will keep indefinitely, all of which assumed a cook who already knew the method and simply needed reminding of the proportions.