Pickles

“ Do not let our medical friends feel too indignant if I recommend to these same women the manufacture of pickles. The use of pickles, like the use of wine, may be a questionable thing; but, like liquors, they are a large article of trade: and, if we must have them, why not have them made of wholesome fruit, in good cider-vinegar, with a touch of the grandmotherly seasoning that we all remember, rather than of stinted gherkins, soured by vitriol and greened by copper? ”

“ Miss Lady met her caller at the front porch and relieved her of the jar she was carrying.
“It's pickles,” said Miss Ferney, a withered little woman whose small, nibbling face suggested a squirrel's. “I thought having company you might need 'em. Don't know though. City people may be too aristocratic to eat country pickles.” ”

“ To judge from the tone of her orders to the waiter, she was evidently impatient to finish her dinner. When she reached for a dish of pickles standing on the table at a little distance from her, the lieutenant got up and, with a polite bow, took it and offered it to her. She withdrew her hand as if it had touched something loathsome, her eyes flashed fire, and in a tone of wrathful scorn and indignation she said: "So you think a Southern woman will take a dish of pickles from a hand that is dripping with the blood of her countrymen?" ”

“ Sour pickles could never be made without me, and as for peach pickles, you might have all the cloves and cinnamon in the world in them, would they be at all if it were not for me? As for my looks, I can’t help them. We all have to look like we are, and even though I look and seem sour, at heart I am sweet because really I have to have sugar to make the mother. ”

“ Probably they are fairly good pickles, as pickles go. Because I am in the pickle business myself is no reason why I should run down anybody else’s pickles. Yet, on the other hand, I feel that I have a right to uphold the superior quality of my own pickles. And it is of such pickles that I am going to make good your loss. Not store pickles, Mrs. Clayton, as we usually accept the term, but home-made pickles, of which the more you eat the more you want; pickles that you never tire of; pickles with the lasting, lingering taste; pickles with a skin you love to touch ”

“ If we live a life of goodness, we will most naturally have a sweet disposition. The difference between peaches and pickles is far more than a matter of spelling. Peaches are not pickles, because they absorb the sunlight and the sweetness of the soil, until even their tartness is delicious to the taste. Pickles are not peaches because they absorb only those things which suggest and harmonize with salt and vinegar. We never think of pickles without thinking about vinegar. Their difference is in the choice of elements used in building tissues. ”

“ The pickles, in a uniform of rich brown double-breasted buttoned coat, and yellow or sombre drab continuations, announced their portly forms, in printed capitals, as Walnut, Gherkin, Onion, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Mixed, and other members of that noble family. The jams, as being of a less masculine temperament, and as wearing curlpapers, announced themselves in feminine caligraphy, like a soft whisper, to be Raspberry, Gooseberry, Apricot, Plum, Damson, Apple, and Peach. ”

“ Having made pickles, it was thought best to put up a sardine or two. Flax seed was expressed and impressed in an oleaginous bag, whose slippery contents wriggled about on the tremulous lid like a packet of angle-worms. But the crows liked linseed and kept on. Things looked serious, as far as I could see them with a solitary eye; but there was a comfort: if I had half as many eyes, I had twice as many friends, and they were tender-hearted women. ”

“ Not for one instant had it occurred to me that something [34] bigger and better equipped than an ordinary kitchen would be needed to cook the big wad of pickles that we hoped to sell. But, as I say, old Poppy already had dreams of a pickle factory in the back part of his mind. That kid! First it was stilts and now it was pickles. I never saw the beat of him. And what is more I never expect to.
At six o’clock we knocked off for the day, telling Mr. Weckler that we would be back the first thing in the morning. Mother nearly had a cat fit when she saw me. And no wonder! ”

“ Not from any personal interest in pickles, though that will seem odd, and perhaps incredible, to my French friends, who seem to think that every Englishman must be a pickle-eater—just as we English used to think every Frenchman ate frogs. ”

“ No, she told me, after tasting the pickles, they weren’t out of her kitchen. Nor could she help me. But she’d like to buy some of the pickles, she said, if it turned out that there were more of the same kind for sale. I went to three women in turn. No success at all. [21] But here’s an important point, Jerry: Every woman who sampled the pickles wanted to buy some. So you can see the big money that’s waiting for us if we can find out who this unknown pickle genius is and win her over to our scheme.”
There’s nothing I like better than mystery stuff. ”

“ Seeing that it was useless to argue with him further, I sort of resigned myself to my fate as his pickle partner.
“I have a hunch,” says I, “that it’s going to be a whole lot worse than that. A Pickle Parlor! We’ll be the laugh of the town.” ”

“ There was a “do-or-die” look on Poppy’s face.
“We’ve got to have pickles,” says he.
“Wa-al?”
“And if you won’t let us have your recipe, or tell us where you got it, the only thing left for us to do is to hire you.”
“Meanin’ that you want me to work fur you?”
“Exactly.”
“Makin’ pickles?”
Poppy nodded.
“Um.... My business is towin’, not pickle makin’.”
“You may find,” says Poppy, “that you can make more money pickling than towing. For what you take in from towing isn’t all profit. The wear and tear on your outfit is considerable.” ”

“ I nodded.
“All right,” says he, “we’re going to manufacture pedigreed pickles. Or, if you think it’ll help to stretch the name out, we’ll call them ‘Poppy’s Pedigreed Pickles.’ That’s what they are—pickles with a pedigree. For you heard what Mrs. O’Mally said about her recipe having been handed down in the family for a hundred years or more. There’s where the pedigreed part comes in. It’s a proven recipe, in other words. The quality of the pickles is guaranteed. Do you like the name, Jerry?” ”

“ PICKLES. The free or frequent use of pickles is by no means to be recommended, where any regard is paid to health. In general they are the mere vehicles for taking a certain portion of vinegar and spice, and in the crisp state in which they are most admired are often indigestible, and of course pernicious. The pickle made to preserve cucumbers and mangoes, is generally so strongly impregnated with garlic, mustard, and spice, that the original flavour of the vegetable, is quite overpowered, and the vegetable itself becomes the mere absorbent of these foreign ingredients. ”

“ Onions, cauliflower, green peppers, tomatoes, and beans, as well as cucumbers, are used for making mixed pickles. All vegetables should first be cured in brine.
For making mixed pickles, very small vegetables are much to be preferred. If larger ones must be used, first cut them into pieces of a desirable and uniform shape and size. Place in the bottom of each wide-mouth bottle or jar a little mixed spice. In filling the bottle arrange the various kinds of pickles in as neat and orderly a manner as possible. ”

“ Pickles was—well, Pickles was just Pickles. First of all, he was a dog. Beyond that I hesitate to go. Leo, the big, two-fisted Swede who had sailed with Captain Troy for seven years, declared that "he ban part wolf-dog an' part big fool." But that was scarcely fair to Pickles, because, no matter how mixed he was in the matter of breed, he was certainly no fool. Even Terry, the cook, acknowledged that. No dog capable of stealing a piece of mutton as big as his head from right under the cook's nose can rightly be called a fool. ”

“ Poppy quickly followed up. “We’ll go at it that way, then. You’ll be the boss. See? And the other women will do the work.”
“No, no!”
“But, Mrs. O’Mally,” old do-or-die hung on, “if you don’t help us, we won’t be able to pay you for the cucumbers. Besides, think of what it will mean to you if the pickles turn out to be a big success. We’ll be able to start up a pickle factory. That will make you rich. For, of course, you’ll be one of the owners.”
“Sure,” came dizzily, “’tis nothin’ I hear but talk of riches. First it was the pirate’s treasure; an’ now it’s pickles.” ”

“ No one, I said, referring to the people who bought groceries, would buy their sugar and other truck in one store and then walk a block to buy their pickles in a pickle store. That would be just extra work for them.
“They will,” says he, sticking to his scheme, “if [2] we have better pickles to sell them than they can buy in the average grocery store.” ”

“ A soft or slippery condition, one of the most common forms of spoilage in making pickles, is the result of bacterial action. It always occurs when pickles are exposed above the brine and very often when the brine is too weak to prevent the growth of spoilage organisms. To prevent it keep the pickles well below the brine and the brine at the proper strength. To keep pickles for more than a « 13 » very few weeks a brine should contain 10 per cent of salt. Once pickles have become soft or slippery as a result of bacterial action no treatment will restore them to a normal condition. ”

“ Let me tell you something, old lady: you’re crazy to sell pickles to kids like them when you’ve got a big responsible company like ours to deal with. For when we buy we buy big.”
“Yes,” the pickle woman gave the bragger a dig, “an’ at half the price that other people pay me.”
“A dollar a bushel is a good price.” ”

“ They want better pickles than they can buy. So how easy for us to build up our new business if we get the right kind of pickles to sell!”
I gave him a sad look.
“Poppy,” I sighed, “you’re too much for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“As long as you’re a boy,” I advised, as a further effort to pull him down to earth, “why don’t you be a boy? This Peanut Parlor stuff is out of your line, kid.”
“I didn’t say anything about a Peanut Parlor.”
“Well, a Pickle Parlor is just as crazy. You can’t make it work. For pickles are groceries. And the place to buy them is in a grocery store.” ”

“ Take your own mother’s pickles for example. You must have noticed that they’ve got a better taste than boughten pickles. And that largely explains why a great many women prefer to make their own pickles. ”

“ Clayton, that whenever you are in need of pickles, the place to buy them, if you want the best, is at Poppy’s Pickle Parlor, the home of perfect pickles.”
Well, say! I never felt so foolish in all my life. Poppy is all right. He is a smart kid, in fact. And no doubt this new scheme of his was water tight. But it struck me that he was spreading the gab too promiscuously. ”

“ Pickles consist of vegetables and fruits steeped in vinegar previously boiled with spices, to which is frequently added salt and sugar, in quantities varied according to individual taste. The chief pickles are cabbage, cauliflower, chillies, gherkins, onions, and walnuts. Any or all of these, except cabbage, may be mixed; one variety of mixed pickles, highly seasoned with mustard, is well known, and often usefully employed as a dressing for devilled bones, re-heating pork, etc. Indian pickles form a class by themselves ”

“ The arts of both preserving and pickling are of late years much simplified. All pickles have nearly the same taste, and there is no use (and much trouble) in multiplying varieties, when a few sorts of the very best will be found amply sufficient for any table. One important point to be always observed, is to use none but the most wholesome vinegar, (the genuine cider,) as all that is made of drugs is unwholesome to the eater and destructive to the pickles. ”

“ Last Thursday when I was in Rockford, my cousin, who works in a wholesale grocery store, took me down to the office to meet the boss. Our talk was mostly about cucumber pickles. Mr. Wiggins was very much interested in our new pickle business. I spread a lot of gab, I guess. And what do you know if I didn’t talk him into giving me an order for two thirty-gallon barrels! Being Henny’s cousin helped, I suppose. Anyway, whether it was that or just my line of gab, I got the order. Boy, did I ever feel big! ”

“ Sour pickles are first prepared by soaking in a brine made of one pint of coarse salt to six quarts of water. Boil this, and pour it scalding hot over the pickle, cucumbers, green tomatoes, &c. Cucumbers may lie in this a week, or a month even, but must be soaked in cold water two days before using them. Other pickles lie only a month.
Sweet pickles are made from any fruit used in preserving, allowing three, or sometimes four, pounds of sugar to a quart of best cider vinegar, and boiling both together. ”

“ When used in very small portions, and only with fat and tough animal food or fish, pickles may serve as substitutes for salt, mustard, horse-radish, or pepper.—It deserves farther to be remarked, that all pickles should be kept in earthen, but unglazed, vessels; no copper or verdigrease must be employed; the air should be carefully excluded ”

“ But again, at the moment you are waiting for some reply, interesting to you, comes the servant, perhaps the very best daddy in the whole black world, and shoots the pickle-bottle in between you and your conversible neighbour, and with horror you again behold pickles ready to be put upon your plate, so that in the end you find yourself quite overcome by the pickle persecution.
Thus goes on the meal; one incessant bustle of serving, which takes from you all enjoyment of the food. I have at last a regular palpitation of the heart from disquiet and impatience ”