Pickling

“ PICKLING consists in preserving fruits and vegetables in vinegar or brine. Each of these liquids acts as a preservative, so that the receptacles, or containers, for the food do not have to be sealed air-tight, nor does the preserved food require much care in order to have it keep perfectly.
The effect of the pickling liquids on both fruits and vegetables is very similar. The salt in the brine or the vinegar hardens the cellulose of the foods to such an extent that they are impervious to the action of bacteria. ”

“ The pieces adapted for pickling being at hand, put a layer of finely beaten rock salt at the bottom of your powdering tub, which must always be particularly clean and sweet, and better if fumigated with sulphur the day before it is used, then place the thickest of the meat, then a layer of this mixture:
[Pg 32] then again meat, and alternately to the finish, and filling all the spaces with common or rock salt. In a week, if a pickle does not rise up so as totally to cover the pork, boil as much of similar ingredients, and, when cold, pour it gradually and evenly over the meat, and leave it. ”

“ When perfectly cold remove the fish into fresh jars, smooth them with a knife, and cover them with clarified butter.
Pickling
Pickling.—The chief agent in pickling is hot vinegar, and the best way to prepare it is as follows:—Bruise 1⁄4 lb. each of black pepper, ginger, cloves, pimento, and mace, with some garlic, horse-radish, capsicums, and shallots, in 1 qt. of the strongest and best vinegar in a stoneware jar; cork tightly, cover with a bladder soaked in the pickle, and place on a trivet near the fire for 3 days, shaking it up 3 or 4 times a day. ”

“ Accurate measurements and weights are most important in making pickles and relishes if a quality and safe product is to be the result.
Use only good quality fruits and vegetables. Select tender vegetables and firm ripe fruit. Pears and peaches may be slightly underripe for pickling. The pickling type cucumber is the variety you will want to use. The salad (slicing) variety does not make a crisp pickle. Contact your county Extension office for the variety grown in your area. ”

“ However, any vegetable that is naturally bitter and looses its taste is not considered ‘Maror’ at all, for it has changed from the way its nature.
Pickled vegetables have the same status as cooked, and one can not fulfill his obligation with them. There are two types of pickling:
1) Pickled by vinegar or brine. The time it takes for this process is short, about the time it takes to bring to a boil on the fire. 2) Pickling in water. This type of process requires 24 hours. Therefore, one should not keep ‘Tamcha’ (horseradish) soaking in water for 24 hours. ”

“ The strongest vinegar must be used for pickling. It must not be boiled, as thereby the strength of the vinegar and spices will be evaporated. By parboiling the pickles in brine, they will be ready in half the time they would otherwise be. When taken out of the hot brine, let them get cold and quite dry before you put them into the pickle.
The articles to be pickled should be perforated with a larding pin, in several places, by which means they will the more readily imbibe the flavour of the pickle. ”

“ Vinegar for pickling should be sharp, though not the sharpest kind, as it injures the pickles. If you use copper, bell-metal, or brass vessels for pickling, never allow the vinegar to cool in them, as it then is poisonous. Vinegar may be prepared ready for use for any kind of pickling by adding a teaspoonful of alum and a teacupful of salt to three gallons of vinegar, with a bag containing pepper, ginger root, and all the different spices that are used in pickling. Keep pickles only in wood or stone ware. Anything that has held grease will spoil pickles. ”

“ They are very much better if pickled quite fresh, and all of a size, which can scarcely be obtained if they be pickled all at the same time. The onions should be dropped in the vinegar as fast as peeled; this secures their colour. The horseradish should be scraped a little outside, and cut up in rounds half an inch deep.
1657. The Second Method of Pickling.
The second method of pickling is that of heating vinegar and spice, and pouring them hot over the vegetables to be pickled, which are previously prepared by sprinkling with salt, or immersing in brine. ”

“ In the pickled state they are often sorted out before tanning. The pickling is usually a one-bath process in which vitriol and salt or else alum and salt are used, but sometimes all three substances. The skins may indeed be received in a pickled state. They may be depickled by paddling with salt and borax, bicarbonate, or basic alum solution. They may also be tanned without depickling if the composition of the pickle be allowed for in the first chroming liquor. A commonly used pickle consists of 3 per cent. aluminium sulphate and 9 per cent. ”

“ All the meat that is to be cured being properly prepared, it should be laid in the pickling-trough and the brine poured over it; and, if there are several pieces of meat, care should be taken to lay them so that the brine may touch every part, and completely cover the whole. Meat which has been preserved in the first pickle for ten weeks or more, if cooked without being hung up to dry, will be perfectly tender, and will eat as well as meat that has been only freshly and slightly salted. ”

“ The meats should be kept in a cellar during the pickling process, with the temperature ranging from 38° to 40° F., and overhauled every five, ten and fifteen days in order that all the pickle may thoroughly penetrate the meats. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Turn the pickle and fruit into a hair sieve and press the liquor out into a large jug or jar, and on the next day pour the clear off from the lees through a muslin strainer into bottles, which should be corked well and the air excluded by sealing wax. You will still have remaining some sediment, upon which you may put half a pint of boiling rough cider or light vinegar, for an inferior lemon pickle, to be kept apart from your best. Better than the first product is rarely made, and it is an estimable pickle, generally admitted. ”

“ If you have a large quantity, the easiest way to prepare them for pickling is to put them into a tub with sufficient lye to cover them, and to stir and rub them about with a hickory broom till they are clean and smooth on the outside. ”

“ The directions given for pickling peaches apply also to this fruit. The crab apples should be examined carefully to make certain that they contain no worms. Also, the stems should be left on, and they should be washed thoroughly with the blossom ends cut out.
RECIPES FOR RELISHES
99. MUSTARD PICKLES.--Among the relishes, mustard pickles are very popular. This relish is made up of a large number of vegetables, namely, cucumbers, string beans, green peppers, red sweet peppers, onions, green tomatoes, cauliflower, and green Lima beans. ”

“ Let them lie covered over with a pickle of bay salt and water, one and a half pounds to the gallon, for three or four days, according to size; take them out and, wiping them separately, lay them in jars, and pour over them, when cold, this pickle:
It must be boiled fifteen minutes and skimmed well. Fill the jars so as to cover the fruit completely with the pickle. Tie bladder and leather over, and keep them eight or nine months. They will be very rich and choice pickles. ”

“ Lay your fish, cut in proper pieces, in oblong earthenware pots, and pour the pickle over them when it is scalding hot, not boiling. Next day fill up the pots with more liquor, and tie bladder over them. These will be fit for table in a week, but will be improved by keeping. If any water is put to the vinegar it will certainly spoil them for keeping long. ”

“ As to the length of time the fish should remain in the pickle, that depends whether they came to hand with coarse salt scattered amongst them, at the sea coast, a precaution necessary in hot weather; a good criterion is when the fish begin to be stiff or rigid while being handled, but to try one or two cooked is certainly a sure proof. Pure fresh water must never be added or made use of in this process after salt has been imbibed, or the heads will all be broken when putting them on the spits. ”

“ Pour a pint of good vinegar, nearly boiling, over these, cover the jug close, and let remain till next day. Then add this pickle to the meat, and rub it well in for half an hour, not disturbing the fat if possible; slice six large onions, and strew them equally over the meat, turn it every day twice, and keep always the onions well on the uppermost part. ”

“ Try one of those pickles in the jar there, won’t you. I always like to have a boy enjoy himself when he comes to see me,” said the grocery man, winking to a man who was filling an old fashioned tin box with tobacco out of the pail, who winked back as much as to say, “if that boy eats a pickle on top of them mumps we will have a circus, sure.”
“You can’t play no pickle on me, not when I have the mumps. Ma passed the pickles to me this morning, and I took one mouthful, and like to had the lockjaw. ”

“ In our search for the pickle genius we hadn’t dreamed for the tail end of a second that anyone short of a first-class cook had made the poochy pickles. And we had sort of pictured in our minds a spotless kitchen, puddled with sunshine, with a line-up of shiny aluminum kettles on the shelves, clever little ruffled doo-dads at the windows, a gurgling canary, and, to finish off, an old rag rug of many colors in the middle of the kitchen floor. ”

“ Eat the flesh and save the rind. Cut the rind into finger lengths and about an inch in width, pare and cut out all the red flesh, throw into a strong salt brine and let stand over night. In the morning drain, boil in water until the pickles are clear, drain again and put into a stone jar. To one gallon of fruit, allow one quart of sugar and one pint of vinegar. Do up cinnamon and cloves in little bags, in ratio of two of cinnamon to one of cloves and boil them in the syrup. Pour the boiling syrup over the pickles, tie up close and in a few days they are ready for use. ”

“ 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? ”

“ If you pickle a great many walnuts, and eat them fast, make pickle for a hundred or two, the rest keep in strong brime of salt and water, boiled till it will bear an egg; and as you pot empties, fill them up with those in the salt and water. Take care that they are covered with pickle. In the same manner you may do a smaller quantity; but if you can get rape vinegar, use that instead of salt and water. Do them thus:—put your nuts into the jar you intend to pickle them in, throw in a handful of salt, and fill the pot with rape vinegar ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Put all the articles intended for the yellow pickle in a pot, and pour on them boiling salt and water--let them stand forty-eight hours, take advantage of a clear hot day, press the water from the articles, and lay them to dry in full sunshine, on a table covered with a thick soft cloth, with the corners pinned securely, that they may not blow up over the things--the cloth absorbs the moisture; and by turning them frequently on a dry place, they become white, and receive the colour of the turmeric more readily--one day of clear sunshine is enough to prepare them for the first vinegar. ”

“ 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 ”