Select small silver-skinned onions. After taking off the outside skins, remove with a knife one more skin, when each onion should look quite clear. Put them into strong brine for three days. Bring vinegar to a boil with one or two blades of mace and some whole red peppers. Pour it hot over the onions well drained from the brine.
Pickled Bell Peppers.
Cut a slit in the side of each pepper, and take out all the seeds. Let them soak in brine (strong enough to float an egg) two days. Then, washing them in cold water, put them into a stone jar. Pour over them vinegar boiled with cinnamon, mace, and nutmeg. Whenever they are wanted to be served, stuff each one with a boiled tongue cut into dice, and mixed with a Mayonnaise dressing. Or little mangoes may be made, stuffing each one with pickled nasturtiums, grapes, minced onions, red cabbage or cucumbers, seasoned with mustard-seed, root ginger, and mace.
Ripe Cucumber Pickles.
Pare and seed ripe cucumbers. Slice each cucumber lengthwise into four pieces, or cut it into fancy shapes, as preferred. Let them stand twenty-four hours covered with cold vinegar. Drain them: then put them into fresh vinegar, with two pounds of sugar, and one ounce of cassia-buds to one quart of vinegar. Boil all together twenty minutes. Cover them closely in a jar.
Sweet Pickled Peaches.
To seven pounds of peaches allow three and three-quarter pounds of sugar, one quart of vinegar, two ounces of cloves, and two ounces of stick-cinnamon. Pare the peaches, and stick one or two cloves into each one. Boil the sugar and vinegar, with several sticks of cinnamon, for five minutes, then put in the peaches. When cooked till thoroughly done, take them out. Boil the sirup, reducing it to nearly half, and pour it over the peaches.
Strawberry Pickle.
Ingredients: Seven pounds of strawberries, three and a half pounds of brown sugar, one and a half pints of cider vinegar, one ounce of cloves, one ounce of stick-cinnamon. Place the strawberries and spices in alternate layers in a deep dish. Boil the sugar and vinegar three minutes, and pour it over them, letting them remain until the next day. The second day pour the liquor off and boil it again three minutes, returning it, as before, to the strawberries. Let them remain until the third day, when boil all together over a slow fire for half an hour. Put it away in jars.