No Cooking Sweet Pickles
Originally handed down from Elizabeth Swaney.
Ingredients
- 38 cucumbers
- 2 cups salt
- 4 oz alum water
- apple cider vinegar
- 5 lbs sugar
Spices
- pickling spice
- turmeric
- celery seed
- mustard seed
Instructions
- Soak 36-38 cucumbers in 2 cups salt water for 5-7 days.
- Wash and slice into spears.
- Cover with alum water mixture. Let stand for 24 hours.
- Wash and cover with vinegar. Let stand for 24 hours.
- Pour vinegar off.
- Layer cucumbers and sugar and spices. Let stand for 24 hours. (The spices are unknown. The recipe calls for "whatever kind you want". What is listed above is the common spice list.
- For the next 5 days, stir mixture.
- Pack cucumbers in mason jars and refrigerate.
Notes
Mamie Sue would make these when her garden cucumbers would come in. They would sit in the kitchen in front of the fridge in a 5 gallon bucket covered with a cheese cloth. The entire house would smell of either vinegar or spices. She would then pack the finished pickles in a half pint mason jar and refrigerate. We would eat these pickles with almost everything.
