Pickles Revisited (Beeton's Universal Pickle, 1861)

 I finally opened the pickles I made summer-before-last using Beeton's Universal Pickle receipt.

 

 

 

Pickled cucumber and radish pods

As expected from the pickling experience, these ended up very sour, but also strangely compelling. Both the radish pods and cucumbers were well-received, especially with a chaser of bread-and-butter. It being February, the pickles made both a badly-needed vegetable addition to the table and an excellent opportunity to talk about the seasonality of foodstuffs in the mid-19th century. All of the fruit and vegetable material on our table were preserved in some form (such as the dried currants in the cake), or else capable of being stored over the winter (carrots, potatoes, and onions in the pasties). 

A Winter Tea Spread, 1857 (ish) Style

I provided the tea, cake, hard cheese, and pickles. My companion made the pasties, the Dutch cheese, bread, and also shaped the butter (with clever use of a cookie-stamp and a crumpet ring for want of a butter mold).