Pickled Pears

A plain sweet-pickle formula of the sort every hotel larder kept on hand for cold meats and game. The proportions are sound; the storage method is not, and that is why this one should be read rather than followed.

• Why it fails as writtenThis is open-kettle preserving: hot fruit is poured into jars and the jars are covered with paper or cloth tied over the rim. No hermetic seal is formed and nothing is processed after filling, so airborne mold and yeast recontaminate the surface as it cools. Use a current tested pickled-pear recipe with a measured jar processing step instead.
• The acidity is unverifiableOne pint of vinegar of unstated strength is diluted by the juice thrown off by six pounds of pears and sweetened with three pounds of sugar. Vinegar of this period was not sold to a single standard strength, so the finished acidity of the syrup cannot be known from these instructions, and shelf stability depends on it.
• "Tie them down"The phrase means covering the crock or jar mouth with paper, parchment or a soaked bladder and binding it with string, sometimes over a disc of paper wet with brandy. It excludes dust and insects. It does not exclude air.
• Loaf sugarRefined sugar sold in hard cones, chipped and crushed for use. Ordinary granulated sugar is the same thing by weight.
• Lined preserving-panTin-lined copper or enamelled iron. The lining matters because vinegar attacks bare copper; a modern stainless or enamelled pan is the equivalent, and unlined aluminium should be avoided with acid.
• The pears themselvesA pickling pear is a firm, dense, slow-ripening one: Seckel, Kieffer, or any hard cooking pear. Bartletts and other dessert pears collapse into sauce long before they read as "tender."
• ClovesTwo whole cloves stuck into each fruit is a large amount by modern palates "