Working at Home, Part One

Most of the day I wash, cut, manage vegetables and fruit, and think about Aunt Elsie. My first task is a sink full of cucumbers from my mother-in-law's garden.  I slice them thin, chop up an onion and three six-inch Giant Marconi green peppers from my garden, and mix them all together with about half a cup, or a bit more, of kosher salt. The vegetables need to macerate for a while so I reach for Aunt Elsie's recipe file. My fingers are antsy. The Pickles and Relishes section is extensive.  The first ingredient of the first recipe I read is one-hundred cucumbers. Aunt Elsie was not dabbling in canning. I rifle the section; many of the recipes call for a piece of alum the size of a walnut or hickory nut. Huh? A chunk of alum? I fetch my red and white two-ounce metal can of the white powder from the bathroom cupboard. It is handy there for use (and this is my sole use of the product) on canker sores. The pink price sticker is still on the lid of the can—thirty-seven cents. On the front of the can in parenthesis under the large printed word, ALUM, in much smaller print, is the word ammonium. Now I run upstairs for the “A” volume of the 1962 World Book Encyclopedia; its entry on alum will remain valid fifty years hence. There is a one-paragraph (and I can’t help but note the entry is credited to George L. Bush) description: a group of double salts made up of two metals and one acid group. . .common alum is potash alum. .  .other alums are ammonium. . .used to stop bleeding, check excessive perspiration, treating canker sores, size paper, purify water. . . .Wow, but nothing about using it in food, wait—I look at the back of my can—alum gives a firmer, crisper product. Use as indicated in recipe. Is that last sentence a warning?

I fill four one-quart jars with the softened juicy cucumber-pepper mixture, heat up a vinegar-sugar solution on the stove, and pour it over the cucumber mix. The jars go into the refrigerator and will stay there until all the kids and grandkids come home. In December, we will pop off the canning lids, fork a mass of pickles into our mouths, and crunch down on a summer day.