\ I /HE custom of pickling seems to have been practiced since A I / very early times, the ancient Greeks and Komans highly @J I ^ esteeming their pickles made from herbs, roots and vegeta- bles preserved by vinegar. All vegetables and fruit used for pickles should be sound, and not over^ripe. Fruits can be pickled as well as vegetables. The Vinegar. — Use only pure vinegar in making pickles, catsups and sauces. Cider vinegar is usually considered about the best for this purpose. As vinegar is weakened by boiling, it should be merely brought to the scalding point and then x)oured on the pickles; if not scalded but put on raw, however, it will not keep well. Have the vinegar strong or the pickles will seem "insipid," If the strength of the vinegar is lost, replace it with some which is strong, and boil- ing hot when poured on. Adding a little horseradish will help to keep up the life of the vinegar, but use it sparingly; 1 or 2 clusters of green grapes serve the same purpose. To heat vinegar, a good way is to put it in a stone jar in a sauce=pan, with hot water around it, and as soon as it reaches the boiling point remove from the fire, as boiling reduces both its strengh and flavor. Vinegar can be kept from molding by putting into each jar some horseradish, mustard seed or nasturtiums, but use only a little. Using Alum and Parboiiing.^If articles to be pickled are parboiled or scalded they will absorb the vinegar more readily, but they will not be so crisp. Cucumbers and gherkins are made crisp and green by dissolving a small lumj) of alum in the vinegar the first time it is scalded, but it is injurious to the health if too much is used. Coloring Pickles. — A green color can easily be obtained, if desired, by soaking cabbage or vine leaves or the leaves of parsley or spinach in the vinegar, and the color thus obtained is harmless. Or to have cucumbers green put them into cold vinegar and heat them slowly over a moderate fire until they become green, A Caution. — • Bright green pickles have been popular, merely because of their looks. To gratify this taste pickles have been boiled in copper kettles with vine- gar and a little alum. The acetic acid of the vinegar acts on the copper and forms acetate of copper, which is commonly and well known as verdigris. This pene- trates the pickles and colors them green, but it should be understood that this acetate of copper (verdigris) is really a most active poison, and that pickles thus prepared are poisonous and unhealthy. 630 SOUR PICKLES 531 Spices. — Use spices judiciously so that all combine into a pleasant flavor without having one flavor predominate over all the others, and do not flavor so strongly as to entirely disguise the original flavor of the article pickled. Brine. — The rule for the brine used for x>ickles is "strong enough to float an egg." The proportion is about 1 quart of water to 1 cup salt. Tlie Kettle, etc.— Use porcelain4ined or granite kettles for putting up pickles. The acid in vinegar will act on the lead in tinned ves- sels, and produce the poisonous acetate of lead, and in brass or cop- per vessels it produces the poisonous acetate of copper {verdigris). As the mild acids, however, do not affect aluminum, utensils made of that metal are excellent to use for this purpose.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

\ I /HE custom of pickling seems to have been practiced since A I / very early times, the ancient Greeks and Komans highly @J I ^ esteeming their pickles made from herbs, roots and vegetables preserved by vinegar. All vegetables and fruit used for pickles should be sound, and not over^ripe. Fruits can be pickled as well as vegetables. The Vinegar. — Use only pure vinegar in making pickles, catsups and sauces. Cider vinegar is usually considered about the best for this purpose. As vinegar is weakened by boiling, it should be merely brought to the scalding point and then poured on the pickles; if not scalded but put on raw, however, it will not keep well. Have the vinegar strong or the pickles will seem "insipid," If the strength of the vinegar is lost, replace it with some which is strong, and boiling hot when poured on. Adding a little horseradish will help to keep up the life of the vinegar, but use it sparingly; 1 or 2 clusters of green grapes serve the same purpose. To heat vinegar, a good way is to put it in a stone jar in a sauce-pan, with hot water around it, and as soon as it reaches the boiling point remove from the fire, as boiling reduces both its strengh and flavor. Vinegar can be kept from molding by putting into each jar some horseradish, mustard seed or nasturtiums, but use only a little. Using Alum and Parboiling.^If articles to be pickled are parboiled or scalded they will absorb the vinegar more readily, but they will not be so crisp. Cucumbers and gherkins are made crisp and green by dissolving a small lumj) of alum in the vinegar the first time it is scalded, but it is injurious to the health if too much is used. Coloring Pickles. — A green color can easily be obtained, if desired, by soaking cabbage or vine leaves or the leaves of parsley or spinach in the vinegar, and the color thus obtained is harmless. Or to have cucumbers green put them into cold vinegar and heat them slowly over a moderate fire until they become green, A Caution. — • Bright green pickles have been popular, merely because of their looks. To gratify this taste pickles have been boiled in copper kettles with vinegar and a little alum. The acetic acid of the vinegar acts on the copper and forms acetate of copper, which is commonly and well known as verdigris. This penetrates the pickles and colors them green, but it should be understood that this acetate of copper (verdigris) is really a most active poison, and that pickles thus prepared are poisonous and unhealthy. Spices. — Use spices judiciously so that all combine into a pleasant flavor without having one flavor predominate over all the others, and do not flavor so strongly as to entirely disguise the original flavor of the article pickled. Brine. — The rule for the brine used for pickles is "strong enough to float an egg." The proportion is about 1 quart of water to 1 cup salt. Tlie Kettle, etc.— Use porcelain-lined or granite kettles for putting up pickles. The acid in vinegar will act on the lead in tinned vessels, and produce the poisonous acetate of lead, and in brass or copper vessels it produces the poisonous acetate of copper {verdigris). As the mild acids, however, do not affect aluminum, utensils made of that metal are excellent to use for this purpose.

The household cook book