welcome friends welcome back to the
kitchen welcome back to sunday morning
the old cookbook show today we're going
to do a recipe out of a cookbook sent in
by one of our viewers
and i want to thank you very much for
sending us this box of books
there's some real gems in it and the
cookbook we're going to work from today
is called
the wilken family home cooking
album this this is a snapshot of america
in 1935. it is very interesting
the wilken family has an association
with whiskey
and they're promoting their family brand
of whiskey even though they really have
nothing to do with it
at this point another company is
actually making the whiskey and they're
just using them sort of as a marketing
ploy
and this is a very down homey
folksy kind of 1935 recipe book
that really kind of plays on the family
dynamic
trying to interest you in buying their
whiskey and there's very few recipes in
it that actually
use whiskey so the one today we're going
to do is called
grandma's sweet pickled watermelon
not something i'm familiar with at all
this is not the type of recipe that we
made as children or even in my adult
life this is the first time i'll be
making it
and the first time i'll ever try eating
it so
i'm only gonna make half a recipe so
into that pot i put
two cups of sugar and i'm going to put
in a cup of
vinegar i'm going to put the heat on and
bring this
up to a boil i'm also going to make up a
little parcel of spices so i have a
piece of cheesecloth here
and in the center i'm going to put some
cloves
and some cinnamon and we'll just tie
this
up into a bundle
a little piece of twine
a little spice packet goes in and this
boils for 10
minutes and after it's boiled for 10
minutes
i'm gonna turn it back and we let it
simmer for how long like two hours
cook it slowly for two hours so
i'll let that go now we prep the
watermelon rind
the instructions say to pair the
watermelon rind so i imagine that's
removing the green outer skin
leaving the white pith and a little bit
of red on the inside i
imagine isn't really such a big deal so
pair it off and then we'll slice it up
i guess just cut it up into pieces
now that i've got it paired and mostly
chopped up i'm supposed to
boil it until it softens
not sure how long that'll take because
to me it's already pretty soft
so i've got a pot of water here just
coming up to a boil
and we'll see what happens in the
meantime the syrup is bubbling away
nicely
okay let's see yeah i'm gonna say those
are soft
so i'm gonna take it over to the sink
i'm gonna drain it through a sieve
now the recipe says to cook this slowly
for two hours until it's thick
it is pretty thick now and it's already
starting
to caramelize so you know what i'm gonna
put the rind into the syrup and i'm
gonna leave the clove
in there at this point and it says to
cook it for a further one hour
so i'm going to turn the temperature
down and let this go
smells really good so i have a cleaned
and sterilized jar
of course and
i'm not going to do like a water bath
canning this is not the kind of thing
that i think is going to sit in our
basement forever
i'm probably going to eat this fairly
quickly
and based on the amount of sugar and
vinegar in here
this is well and truly pickled
so transfer this all to the jar except
for the little flavor packet which i
will discard
smells wonderful now the instructions
don't tell me how long to let this sit
to pickle
but you know judging by any pickle that
i've ever made in my you know 50 some
years on this planet
i know that this is going to have to sit
for probably at least two weeks before
we taste it
and more than likely a month before it
really comes into its own
but while we're waiting for that to
happen there's one piece left in the
bottom of the pan let's give it a try
huh that's really cool
okay just gonna put a lid on this and
i'm gonna stick it in our cold room
and we'll come back in about two seconds
for tasting
hey glenn i got your forks out pickles i
think the pickles are ready
i'm fascinated hey friends yes not um
not part of our family history not
something
i've never had it before no okay i know
when you made it it should be sweet
but let's see
the most part it tastes like candied
fruit
there's one odd flavor in it though what
is that
okay so i'm gonna tell you something
okay
remember aunt doris's electric green
icicle pickles oh yeah
so there's a sweetness from the
watermelon
but it's the clove ah it is the clove
yes
so obviously your ants pickles have
cloves is what you're saying
yeah and a lot of sugar if anybody has
ever had the electric
green sweet pickle sweet icicle pickle
it's a cucumber that's super sweet it's
sliced lengthwise so it looks like an
icicle
and then there's green food dye put in i
think it's funny that you need to
describe it in detail because because to
me i was as a child
traumatized by it i hated those things i
absolutely hated those things
i don't think anyone in my family made
them no aunt doris made them
a wonderful lady i did not like her
pickles her
icicle i just did just i did like her
butter tarts though
butter cherries are fantastic fabulous
butter jars so
these are really good yeah oddly
i'm not so fan of the fun of the clove i
would use left's clothes dollar clove
back a little bit
i don't get a i don't get the cinnamon
no so i would up the cinnamon maybe dial
back the clove i don't know where you
would eat them
you could eat them with ice cream oh
yeah everything everything everything
goes with ice cream
because i think of i think of you know i
think of the pickled dish
on the table with don't think of them
now think of them in the middle of
winter
because that's what it's pickled for
it's not pickles for eating right now
it's pickled for eating in the middle of
winter it is a warm it is yes
and so you know you've got it and you've
got some cake
not like like like a like a pound cake
or a
yeah a side cake of some sort i mean it
would
it would almost you could almost throw
it in the cake well i was just thinking
if you if you cut these finer
you could use it in a tart like
mincemeat yes so it
i mean little little christmas tarts
yeah so that being said
i say we wait until winter and come up
with a recipe for them to use them okay
so
grandma grandma wilkins sweet pickled
watermelon
um we're still experimenting because i
think it's
i think it's an inch i mean i
i'm not gonna eat a bunch of them no i'm
not gonna love it right away
but i think it could grow on me so let
us know
do you pickle watermelon rind
and how do you do it because i imagine
there's a whole lot of different ways
to come up with a pickled watermelon and
you're not wasting anything and you're
not wasting anything
as a kid we would just pitch it out into
the compost pile yeah
yeah okay thanks for stopping by stay
safe
see you again soon
you