Sunday, August 14, 2011

Dill Pickles

Most summers when I was growing up, we spent a week or so in Gettysburg, South Dakota, visiting Mom's relatives. We stayed with our grandparents and ate many jellies, jams, fruits, and pickles that Grandma Toomey had put up.

I'm not sure whether either of these recipes is hers:

Dill Pickles


1 c. pickling salt
2 c. vinegar
1 gal. water

Boil the above. Put pickles in jar, a garlic bud at top and bottom & dill in top and bottom. If you wish, put a little cayenne pepper in top (she didn't the ones I had). Put 1/4 tsp alum in jar. Pour boiling juice over top & seal.

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Dill Pickles

2 quarts water
1 quart vinegar (5% acidity & Heinz is good)
1 cup plain salt (not iodized)

In bottom of jar place 1 or 2 cloves of garlic. Also use 1 grape leaf if available, 1 hot pepper if desired, and either 1 T of dill seed or 2 fresh dill heads if available.

Position cucumbers in jars, then bring brine solution to a rapid boil over cucumbers, add pinch of alum, then seal immediately.

Pickles are best after a six week curing period.

6/21/81 (which would have been after my grandmother's death)

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Neither recipe specifies how many cucumbers. Did they just assume everybody knows that?

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