Short History of sweet pickled fruits.

My own experience of Sweet pickled fruits began as a child when my mother routinely made sweet pickled pears as part of the massive exercise of jamming, and bottling her way through the harvest from our prolific orchard.

The pickles came out with a range of chutneys and sauces for the big family gatherings over Christmas.

With a child’s taste I turned my nose up at some traditional chutneys, but the mild pickled pears gently spiced with cinnamon, mace and cloves became a treat that I looked forward to.

When I began expanding the range of preserves I offered to my farmers market customers I scoured mums old recipe books to recreate the pickles. I found that they were completely unknown to most of my customers, but several Staffordshire who must have been well into their late seventies, began asking if I did pickled damsons, which they remembered from their childhood, German French and Polish customers asked about pickled Cherries and Blackberries.

This interest triggered research into different fruits to pickle, different methods, and the uses and history of the pickles.

One or two recipes appear in most contemporary preserving books, but it seems that few people actually get around to trying them

Sweet pickling is a particularly effective way of preserving fruits for the winter, which goes a long way to explaining their role in British and Northern European cookery. The fruits are very lightly poached in a spiced vinegar syrup. The intention is to keep the fruits whole or in defined chunks. The fruits will over the period of storage absorb some of the syrup, but this should not overwhelm the character of the fruit. The syrup will assume some of the taste of the fruit. When eating the fruits, if there is a lot of syrup it is usually best to drain this off and set it aside to be used as a base for wonderful salad dressings.

The process of pickling requires perfect fruit and precise timing. Jars, syrup and fruit must all be ready at the same time, and you need to watch the poaching fruits like a hawk to lift them from the syrup the instant they become tender.

Vinegar was regularly used on a means of preserving fruit and vegetables in Roman Times. It was also common practice to flavour honeyed wine with fruit which produces a form of pickled fruit as a by product. It would be surprising if sweet pickled fruit was not present in some households.

By Tudor times pickled prunes are listed in menus for banquets, where they were an ideal partner to the rich meats and game.

By Victorian times pickled fruits were a must have item for picnics as well as for the supper table. The attractive appearance of the fruits would have been as important as the taste.

Because they were such a good way of keeping fruits through the winter many of the recipes belong both in both lavish country house and simple farmhouse pantries. When the fruits were eaten the vinegars were often used as cold cures.

19^th Century Americans were particularly fond of pickles, and we can trace items like pickled watermelon rind, blueberries and cranberries to this source.

Distinctive pickles are also common in Indian and Caribbean cuisine. The portability of pickles makes them a natural starting point for “fusion cuisine”

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