Cantaloupe among the fruits that gained pickling popularity in the 1800s

Hanna Raskin Email @hannaraskin – The Post and Courier

If Charleston’s amateur pickle makers didn’t rush to their gardens and markets in search of preservation-worthy melons after reading a cooking column in the July 1, 1917, issue of The Sunday News, the columnist’s derisive tone was probably to blame.

“Here is a sweet pickle recipe for cantaloupe,” groused the author of Mary’s Housekeeping, styled as a conversation between a mother and daughter. “I don’t care for it very much myself, but there are others who are quite fond of it, so I am giving it to you anyway.”

R.J. Moody, chef at Spero restaurant.
Enlarge R.J. Moody, chef at Spero restaurant. Wade Spees/Staff
The daughter was unimpressed: “I believe I’ll just take my cantaloupes plain, if you please.”
But as the columnist noted, cantaloupe pickles — often likened to watermelon rind pickles — were wildly popular in certain circles. Considered a guaranteed extension of summer, the pickles were relatively easy to make and elegant enough for stylish luncheons.

The background
Pickling is practiced around the world. According to “The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink,” ancient Mesopotamians were well-acquainted with the concept of preserving food in spiced saltwater brine. In North America, indigenous people pickled meat in maple-sap vinegar.

Each culture has its pickle preferences. The sour pickles central to Eastern European cuisine, for example, were overshadowed in Western Europe by sweet pickles. Yet despite the British taste for pickles made with sugar syrup, pickle scholars say the success of the American sweet pickle should be credited to the Pennsylvania Dutch. The German immigrants, who settled around Philadelphia in the early 1700s, practiced a style of cooking that was predicated on the constant balance of sour and sweet, a philosophy that led to frequent tabletop appearances by gherkins.

During the 19th century, cookbooks regularly listed recipes for pickled fruits. While protecting delicate strawberries and grapes from spoilage in the pre-refrigeration era was the primary goal, home cooks also recognized the inherent magnificence of what blooms briefly in summertime. “Cantaloupes now rank among the real aristocrats of the food world,” Louise Gunton Royston in 1916 advised readers of Table Talk: The National Food Magazine.

The recipe
Royston suggested turning cantaloupes into sherbet, salads, preserves and pickles, boiled in a sugar-heavy solution of vinegar, cinnamon and cloves. Most contemporary recipes featured the same set of ingredients, although one of the three cantaloupe pickle recipes published in 1879’s “Housekeeping in Old Virginia” called for the melon to be boiled in “strong ginger tea,” and then seasoned with white ginger and mace, in addition to cinnamon.

Cinnamon and cloves were the spices included in The Sunday News’ recipe, which also specified cider vinegar and “Coffee C” sugar, apparently a brand produced by sugar manufacturer Stuart’s.

The update
“It was great,” says RJ Moody of Spero, who followed the original recipe pretty faithfully. “It’s very much like other fruit pickles I’ve made.”

Because the cinnamon and cloves reminded Moody of pho, a problem that likely didn’t afflict Charlestonians in 1917, he spiced the pickles with burnt ginger that he happened to have on hand.

Moody is considering developing a dish around the pickles next year.

“I’d definitely want to do something with country ham,” Moody says. “It’s a little on the sweeter side, which cries for salt to balance it out: It screamed like it needed pork.”

Published July 1, 1917:
Select melons that are not quite ripe; open, scrape out the pulp, peel, slice and lay in a weak brine overnight. The next morning boil in a weak alum water till transparent; lift out, drain, wipe dry, then drop into boiling spiced syrup and cook 20 minutes. To make the syrup, take three pints “Coffee C” sugar to one quart good cider vinegar. The spices commonly used for this variety of pickle are cloves and cinnamon, and the proportion two teaspoonfuls of the former and four tablespoons of the latter to each gallon.