Crabäppel-Pickles

This recipe comes from the "Praktisk, illustrerad kok-bok för Svenskarne i Amerika," published in 1889 in Minneapolis for Swedish immigrants. At the time, immigrants were keen to preserve their culinary traditions in a new land, adapting old-country recipes to American ingredients. Pickling fruit, such as crabapples, offered a delicious way to make use of the abundant local orchards in the Upper Midwest, ensuring a sweet-tart treat could be enjoyed all winter. Victorian-era pickling recipes like this were common in both Sweden and America, reflecting both preservation needs and the era's fondness for spiced, sweetened fruit preserves. The repeated boiling and pouring of vinegar syrup over the fruit was a practical method to infuse flavor and ensure preservation, long before the days of home canning as we know it.

In the 1880s, cooks would have used a simple range stove or open fire, with heavy-bottomed pots for preparing the syrup and steaming or simmering the apples. Apples would be pricked using a darning needle, knitting needle, or sharp fork. Fine cheesecloth or muslin was used to tie up the spices. Glass or stoneware jars were cleaned thoroughly and sealed with waxed paper, cloth tied with string, or glass and rubber seals, as metal canning lids were just coming into use. A kitchen scale and measuring jugs would be in use among wealthier or more modern households, but many worked by volume or weight approximations.