Because GWPDA was looking for a pickled onion recipe. This is from “What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking, by Abby Fisher, daughter of a South Carolina slave and an unnamed Frenchman, herself thus an ex-slave. She was operator of a succesful pickle business in San Francisco by 1881 when this was published. Her business success is more notable as she was entirely illiterate; the cookbook was compiled by friends who sat with her in the kitchen and took dictation.

ONION PICKLES
Take as many small onions as you desire to pickle and peel them, then put them in a keg or barrel. Lay down one layer of onions about three inches thick, cover them all over with salt freely; then another layer of onions in the same way and cover with salt, and repeat in this manner until all the onions are covered with salt. Let them remain one or two days, then take the onions out of the salt and put them in clear water, letting them remain in the water long enough to be seasoned with salt to your taste. If very salty, you had better change the first water after three or four hours. Put the onions in a large cullender or wire sieve and let the water all drain from them, then put them into a keg, cover them with vinegar, and let them remain in the vinegar twenty-four hours. Take the vinegar from them and put it on to boil, seasoning it with the following spices: Two gallons of vinegar will take one teacupful* of allspice, two tablespoonfuls of cloves, one-half teacupful of black pepper (wash and pick all gravel from the pepper before putting in vinegar; one fourth pound of white ginger, one fourth pound of Chile peppers. This seasoning must be boiled in the vinegar, and when boiled twenty minutes, strain vinegar from the spices through a cullender on to the pickles, and always prepare enough in this way to have your pickles well covered with vinegar.

***

That’s the way Mrs. Fisher (or her friends) wrote it and indeed the narrative form was standard for receipts of the time. For convenience of those accustomed to having a separate ingredient list, here yuz go:

Onions
Salt

The Pickle:

For 2 gallons vinegar**
—3/4 c. whole allspice
—2 tbs. whole cloves
—1/2 c. (or slightly less) black peppercorns
—1/4 lb. white ginger
1/4 lb. chili peppers

*The commonest conversion for teacup is 3/4 of a standard 8 oz cup. That seems like a shitload and a half of allspice but who am I to argue with Mrs. Fisher?

**Mrs. Fisher does not specify the strength of the vinegar but ones as strong as 10% acidity were common in the 19th century. The modern standard is 5 percent and some inexpensive or off-brand vinegars are as low as 4%. The strongest available without excessive expense would seem advisable.

General note: In these times “a pickle” was the liquid which produced the preservative effect, not the item being preserved.