Pickled Cucumbers
Take small young cucumbers, freshly gathered, and free from blemishes. Make a brine strong enough to float an egg, and let the cucumbers lie in it till they become yellow, stirring them down to the bottom twice a day. Then pour off all the brine, wash the cucumbers in cold water, and drain them. Lay a thick bed of fresh green vine leaves in the bottom and sides of a porcelain kettle. Put in the cucumbers, and pour on sufficient cold water to wet them all plentifully. Then cover them, closely, with more vine leaves, and pour on more water, packing the leaves well and pressing them down. Fill up to the top with water and vine leaves, and cover the kettle closely to keep in the steam. Hang it over a slow fire where there is no blaze, and keep it warm all night, but not hot. In the morning if the pickles are not a fine deep green, remove the vine leaves and replace them with a fresh supply. After this, they will be generally green enough; but if not, continue till they are. Then drain the cucumbers on a sieve, and transfer them to a very clean stone jar. To fifty cucumbers allow four quarts of excellent vinegar, and a bit of alum about the size of a large grain of corn, with half an ounce of mustard seed, half an ounce of mace, a broken-up nutmeg, and half an ounce of root ginger, sliced. Tie up the spice in three muslin bags, and boil them ten minutes in the vinegar. Then take out and lay them among the cucumbers in the jar; one to the bottom, one in the middle, and one at the top. Pour over them the vinegar boiling hot; add a table-spoonful of sweet oil, and cork the jar immediately, tying a leather over it. Keep wooden pickle spoons in the pantry for taking out pickles, and always be careful to close the jar immediately after.
You need not keep the bags of spice in the jars more than two or three weeks.