Bread and Butter Pickles

I can't decide how I feel about canning. I try to embrace the trendy "urban homesteader" ethos - veggie garden, compost, farmer's market, etc. - but canning is just so much work. And so much standing up. For so much effort, I'm usually disappointed with the canned yield from what seems like a mountain of fresh produce. Plus, I hear there's some debate about the nutritional value of canned foods. I'm not one for counting calories and making sure I get my recommended daily allowance of vitamins, but I've read a bit about the process of water-bath canning destroying all the nutrients in otherwise healthy foods. As with most information on nutrition, I have no idea whether or not this is actually true.

However, there's something pretty satisfying about seeing jars of homemade canned goods lined up all pretty-like, in quaintly old-fashioned Ball jars whose design hasn't changed since... forever. There's a real feeling of accomplishment, too, to see your winter meals (or at least part of them) stretching before you in those jars: time capsules containing the bounty of summer.


On top of this feeling of self-satisfaction (I can survive the apocalypse!), this canning project held special meaning for me, because it is the original recipe for bread and butter pickles from my Nana, who passed away in 1998. When I was a kid, eating her pickles straight out of the jar was one of my favorite things about visiting my grandparents' house, though I never gave much thought to how the pickles came to be and how much work was involved. I just knew that she made them from cucumbers my grandfather grew in his garden, and - though it's likely that her recipe came from a Ball home canning book - the idea of making her pickles made me feel as though I'd be honoring her memory somehow, 12 years later.

I can report that the finished product tastes exactly as I remember my Nana's pickles tasting, even though I was terrified about adding 4 cups of sugar to plain white distilled vinegar and had no idea how many cucumbers would equal 2 quarts. I'd like to say that I'm going to use the pickles sparingly and share them with my friends, but - let's be serious - I'm going to eat all of them straight from the jar.

Thanks, Nana.

Bread and Butter Pickles

2 quarts unpeeled cucumbers (10-12 medium-sized), sliced thin*
6 medium white onions, sliced medium-ish
salt
4 cups sugar
2 cups water
4 cups distilled white vinegar
2 tablespoons celery seed
2 tablespoons mustard seed

* Use regular slicing cucumbers, not pickling cukes. Also, don't use wax-coated cucumbers from the grocery!

Arrange cucumbers and onions in layers in an earthenware crock (I didn't have one, so I used two enameled cast-iron pots, which worked fine). Sprinkle salt over each layer. Cover and let stand 3 hours.

Combine sugar, water, vinegar, and celery and mustard seeds in a large pot. Stir to dissolve sugar completely. Bring to a boil, and boil for 3 minutes.

Drain liquid from cucumber mixture. (Some people might recommend rinsing the cucumber mixture with cold water. I didn't.) Add mixture to vinegar and stir gently. Bring to boiling point but do not let the mixture boil.

Immediately divide pickles (with juice) into sterile, heated canning jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space. Process in water bath for 10 minutes.

Makes about 8 pints (but I ended up with 6).