WHAT MAKES MY PICKLES SHRINK?

Shannon News, 23 July 1926, Page 4

WHAT MAKES MY PICKLES SHRINK?

My apologies to the reader who asked why pickles shrink. The inquiry got in with some other letters and I have just discovered it. For. tunately, picki e making is a long way off. Frankly, I didn’t know what makes them shrink, so I took the question to Aunt Nellie, that happy household sage who knows everything. “It’s the saltness or sourness of your mixture that does it,” she declared. "It's got to be just right or it will draw out th R water from tho inside of the pickle and shrivelling will be the result.” “What is. ‘just right?’ ”1 put in. “There you are,’’ she came back at me. “That’s, what’s hard to say. You’ve cither got to follow a tested recipe or else just try till you get it. They’re working on ways of measuring such things now and maybe sometime w r e’ll be able to do it in our kitchens.” My mother is a practical, not a scientific, pickle maker, but I have never known anyone who has better success than she (toes keeping them crisp. Here is her method: Scrub the cucumbers with a stiff brush and put in brine for 24 hours, (over night w T i!l do). Heat your seasoned vinegar to boiling and con. tinue the boiling for about five minutes. Add th e cucumbers and cook five to ten minutes. Seal in sterilised jars. Again, there is the mat. ter of the brine to be considered. She uses a cupful of'salt to a quart of water, which makes it, after all, a case of “trial and error,” because salts of different kinds differ so much in density.