not wasted on any pig
The latest issue of Countryside (the magazine of modern homesteading) contains recipes for watermelon ball pickles, pickled melon, and watermelon rind pickles. They got me to thinking about Farmer Boy.

In Farmer Boy (Chapter 18, "Keeping House"), Almanzo and Alice pick six of the largest watermelons they could find and put them in the icehouse to get cold. Six watermelons? For four children? That's what Laura tells us. And when the melons are cold, Royal used the butcher knife to apparently cut up all six melons (they were "so ripe that the rinds split open"). Most likely, the Wilders only ate the "heart" of the melon. Almanzo wanted to give the rinds to Lucy - his pig - but Eliza Jane said she was going to make watermelon preserves.

Well, when I discovered the recipes in Countryside, I thought I had remembered that Eliza Jane made watermelon pickles, but obviously I was wrong. I had a beautiful watermelon today and I wanted to make rind pickles or at least the pickled watermelon balls:

10 cups watermelon balls (3 pounds pink meat)
1/2 cup salt
2 quarts cold water
3 lemons sliced
4-1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 tablespoons crystallized ginger

Cut balls from pink watermelon with scoop. Soak overnight in mixed salt and water. Drain and rinse in cold water. Add lemons, sugar and ginger. Add enough water to cover the fruit. Cook slowly until clear, about 20 minutes. Place fruit in hot, sterilized jars. Boil syrup until it threads. Pour over fruit and seal jars.

Well, since the watermelon has to soak overnight, tomorrow will be watermelon pickle day. But I found a recipe for watermelon preserves, and it has a shorter soaking time, so that's what I did this evening:

1-1/2 quarts prepared watermelon rind
4 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon ground ginger
4 cups sugar
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup thinly sliced lemon
water

Trim the green skin and pink meat from watermelon rind and cut into one-inch cubes. Dissolve the salt in 8 cups of water and pour over the rind. Let stand for 5-6 hours. Drain, rinse, and drain again. Cover rind with cold water and let stand for 30 minutes. Sprinkle ginger over the rind, cover with water, and cook until fork tender. Drain.

To make the preserves, combine the sugar, lemon juice and 6 cups water in a large pot. Boil 5 minutes. Add the rind and boil gently for 30 minutes or until syrup thickens. Add sliced lemon and cook until lemon rind is transparent. Pack hot into hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch space. Tap jars to remove air bubbles. Adjust caps. Process 20 minutes in boiling water bath. Makes about 6 half pints.

Let's hope these preserves turn out better than the violet jelly I once made.

When we lived in Georgia, our back yard was covered with violets in the spring. They were beautiful, sweet-smelling violets that always made me think of the "fairy ring" in By the Shores of Silver Lake. I followed the recipe exactly, gathering blossoms gently in the morning, rinsing, then cooking them with sugar and lemon juice, straining the pretty purple jelly into cut-glass jars.

The trouble was that my violet jelly tasted like something you scraped off the lawn mower blade.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:55 AM