ISSUE 22, PICKLES, Part 2: Cucumbers
"The natural innocuousness of the cucumber cried out for the sharpness of acid"
The Sumter Cucumber, a standard pickling variety
Pickled Cucumbers
Cherished universally for its moisture and cool brisk taste, the cucumber in its wild state still may be found in the southern approaches to the Himalayas. It was domesticated in Asia and its cultivation spread westward and southward in the early classical period. Known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, the cucumber familiar to Theaphrastus and Pliny differed from modern forms in having a rougher, pebbled rind and a more irregular configuration. Columbus brought the vegetables with him to the New World and planted it in Haiti in 1494. The vegetable was so familiar to the early explorers that Cartier, DeSoto, and the 16th-century English adventurer Arthur Barlow believed that Native squashes they encountered in Indian gardens were cucumbers. Authentic cucumbers grew in the gardens of Jamestown and Plymouth.
By the time settlers planted New World gardens, European gardeners had developed several distinct varieties of the vegetable that gathered unto them a bewildering multitude of names. The standard cucumber for pickling (Cucumis satevus vulgaris), middling in length, green complected and moderately rough skinned would become identified as the “Early Cluster” by 19th-century American seedsmen. A longer, rougher cucumber with more point to the ends was familiar to American gardeners as the Long Green Prickly Cucumber or the Early Frame. The smooth skinned, seven/eight inch rounded cucumber popular for salad slicing in the 19th century bore the name, “Long Green Turkey” cucumber. The very long, narrow seedless variety became known as the Long Green English Cucumber. The ovoid, white cucumbers cultivated for the cosmetic trade were known either as the Bonneiul or the Dutch White.[1] During the 19th-century several sorts of Russian-bred cucumbers that had the rounded configuration of melons became fashionable among experimental gardeners. Gardeners and plant brokers during the 19th century elaborated each of these varieties, developing dwarf versions, or cultivars that came to market earlier, or were more amenable to forcing in hot houses. One of the most popular of these market creations was the West Indian gherkin, a refraction of the first of the varieties above, that would become the smallest cucumber widely grown, used exclusively for pickles.
Cucumbers grew in most kitchen gardens in the United States and became an important item in the hot houses of market gardeners. Several maxims governed their growth: enrich the soil to enrich the crop;[2] don’t overcrowd—one cucumber planter per hill;[3] don’t plant near melons, pumpkins, or squashes if you are producing seed; raise the vines and fruits off the ground for larger crop and healthier growth (piles of brushwood were a favorite mode of elevation); “When the plants have got two rough leaves out, they will begin to make a shoot in the middle. Pinch that shoot off.” It will make the plant fruit weeks earlier.[4]
Cucumber Vinegar (American Domestic Cookery 1823)
Pare a slice fifteen large cucumbers, and put them in a stone jar, with three pints of vinegar, four large onions, sliced, two or three shallots, a little garlick, two large spoonfuls of salt, three tea-spoonfuls of pepper, and half a tea-spoonful of Cayenne. After standing four days, give the whole aboil; when cold, strain, filter the liquor through pepper. Keep in small bottles, to add to salad, or eat with meat. An Experienced Housekeeper, American Domestic Cookery (New York: Duyckinck, 1823), p. 144.
To pickle young Cucumbers (American Domestic Cookery 1823)
Choose nice young gherkins, spread them on dishes, salt them and let them lie a week—drain them, and, putting them in a jar, pour boiling vinegar over them. Set them near the fire, covered with plenty of vine-leaves; if they do not become a tolerably good green, pour the vinegar into another jar, set it over the hot hearth, and when it boils, pour it over them again, covering with fresh leaves; and thus do till they are of as good a colour as your wish:--but as it is not known that the very fine green pickles are made so by using brass or bell metal vessels, which, when vinegar is put into the, become highly poisonous, few people like to eat them. An Experienced Housekeeper, American Domestic Cookery (New York: Duyckinck, 1823), P. 201.
To Pickle Cucumbers (Virginia Housewife 1838)
Gather them full grown, but quite young—take off the green rind, and slice them tolerably thick; put a layer in a deep dish, strew over it some chopped onion and salt; do this until they are all in; sprinkle salt on the top, let them stand six hours, put them in a colander-when all the liquor has run off, put them in a pot, strew a little cayenne pepper over each layer, and cover them with strong cold vinegar; when the pot is full, pour on some sweet oil, and tie it up close; at the end of a fortnight, pour off the first vinegar, and put on fresh. Pp. 164-65.
Pickled Cucumbers (Every Lady’s Book 1854)
Make a strong brine (which will float an egg), and pour over it your pickles, let them stand in this for a day and night, then take them from it, put them into a bright brass kettle with vinegar and water, and a good bit of alum, to green and harden them. Fold a thick coarse towel over them, and simmer them until thoroughly heated through, then take the up with a skimmer into a stone pot or firkin, and cover with cold strong vinegar, with plenty of spice, cloves, mustard seed, and whole pepper. Mrs. T. J. Crown, Every Lady’s Cook Book (New York: Kiggins & Kellogg, 1854), p. 127.
Ripe Cucumber Pickle (Godey’s Lady’s Book 1870)
Pare them, take out the seeds, cut in rings an inch thick; then simmer in weak alum water an hour; take them out, drain them, and lay them carefully in a jar, then prepare a syrup of one gallon good vinegar, two cups sugar, one ounce cinnamon, one ounce ginger-root; pour it hot over your pickles. This is a delightful pickle and will keep sealed up a long time. Sarah Annie Frost, Godey’s Lady’s Book Receipts and Household Hints (Philadelphia: Evans, Stoddard Co., 1870), p. 71.
Ripe Cucumber Mustard Pickle (Mrs. Elliott’s Housewife 1870)
Peel ripe cucumbers and lay thin in salt six hours. Drain them through a colander, get some good English mustard, put a layer of cucumber cut in slices, cover it with mustard, a little black pepper, and a little sugar. Fill the jar in this way and pour hot vinegar over it, with a few spices boiled in and strained out. Mrs. Sarah A. Elliott, Mrs. Elliott’s Housewife (New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1870), p. 215.
Cucumber Mangoes (Cook’s Own Book 1840)
Cut a long narrow piece out of the sides of large Turkey cucumbers, scoop out the seeds, and with a part of them mix some mustard seed, shred garlic, and grated horse-radish; stuff the space as full as it will admit of, and replace the piece which was cut off; bind them with a thread; put over them hot vinegar three successive days, and boil with it the last time pepper, flour of mustard, and some salt; put them into jars, and pour over them the boiling vinegar, and when cold, cover them closely. P. 60.
[1] E. Lewis Sturtevant, “History of Garden Vegetables—Cucumber,” American Naturalist 21 (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1887), pp. 906-910. [2] “Early Cucumbers,” New England Farmer 6, 33 (February 22, 1828). [3] Worcester Yeoman, New England Farmer 4, 44 (May 16, 1826), p. 347. [4] William Cobbett, The American Gardener (London: C. Clement, 1821), art. 217.