Grandma's Sweet Pickled Watermelon 1935 Recipe - Old Cookbook Show
Grandma's Sweet Pickled Watermelon 1935 Recipe - This recipe for how to pickle watermelon uses the rind of the watermelon in a sweet and sour spice syrup. The green watermelon skin is peeled away and the white watermelon rind is pickled. This is from the 1935 'Wilken Family Home Cooking Album'
Ingredients:
4 cups sugar
2 Tablespoons cinnamon
1 Tablespoon whole clove
2 cups vinegar
watermelon rind
Method:
Pare the watermelon rind.
Cut it into 2 inch squares and cook it in boiling water until it is tender.
Put the vinegar, sugar, and spices into a preserving kettle, boil the mixture ten minutes and then cook it slowly for about two hours or until the syrup is thick.
Add the melon rind and simmer it about one hour.
Put into jars.
#LeGourmetTV #GlenAndFriendsCooking
Thanks for watching everyone! *The recipe is in the description box.* Let us know in the comments if your family makes pickled watermelon!
um... no it isn't!
@@TheBaconWizard Oops - well, I’m in a tent connected by sketchy cell phone service... so I guess you’ll all have to grab the recipe from on screen until we paddle our canoe home next week.
My parents were hippies and had a communal organic farm outside of Stratford Ontario back in 50's - 80's. There were several other communes in the area and we friends with all of them. A couple of the other communes made pickled watermelon rind, their's were cut more into a 3 inch baton shape. We usually ate them at lunch with sandwiches. It is great to see you visiting these recipes many of which have been long forgotten by many and not known by the younger generations who only know how to walk the aisles and only buy prepared foods...
@@GlenAndFriendsCooking Yep, not a big ask :)
I've had it with bbq, burnt ends pair with this amazing, as does bbq pork belly. Kind of a palate cleanser imho.
This was a delicacy from my grandmother's basement in Nebraska! She would use the cinnamon red hot candies for flavoring. Brings back wonderful memories!
My grandmother served pickled watermelon on Thanksgiving and Christmas with other pickles and olives, that 50 years ago.
I found out about pickled watermelon at this trendy cafe and absolutely loved it. It was part of a watermelon chilli jam which was put on a fried chicken burger with coleslaw
My grandmother made watermelon rind pickle every year. My grandfather planted watermelon every summer and always looked for varieties that had nice thick rinds.😋
Mom talks about her mother making watermelon preserves from the rinds, but there was no pickling involved. It made a jam type spread. She said it was very good. This was a depression era thing - no food was ever wasted.
In South Africa it is well known to make a preserve from the rind. It is called watermelon konfyt. It is very sweet and flavoured with ginger.
I would love to see a jam made from rinds. I hate wasting the rinds as I know they're still edible, but I'm not a fan of the pickled style here.
There is a watermelon rind jam. It's completely different than watermelon rind pickles
After watching this video and hearing it came from a cookbook with a whiskey past, can you pickle the rind with some sort of whiskey/bourbon? How would that taste? Is that some sort of springboard?
My brain is telling me that sliced up fine, with some caramelised onions, this would be good on a cheeseburger as a strange relish.
I make a bacon and onion jam which is great on burgers, I'm going to have to try adding this to it and see if it comes out as good as I think it will.
My Grandmother used to make this and she'd always send them to us back in the 60's and 70's. I can't wait to make this recipe.
I've eaten those my entire life down here in Alabama. It's eaten more as a relish or a palate cleanser with a meal. Never as part of dessert. No more than just a few pieces on the edge of your plate, possibly next to a bit of chow chow.
Daybird Aviaries Wow, you use the term chow chow. I’m French Canadian and we have chow chow, for us it’s basically a chunky homemade ketchup.
@@l.c.6282 Chow chow is also a relish used in Pennsylvania Dutch/Amish cuisine.
@@TuckertonRR That's the only context I've heard it in--but I'm from Indiana.
They were a necessary part of the relish tray (along with celery, carrots, radishes, olives, scallions, dill pickles, and bread and butter pickles) at every holiday dinner in my family. We cut the chunks a bit larger, maybe 1 inch x 2 inches. As a little girl I didn’t like them, but they really grow on you. I remember the first Thanksgiving dinner I hosted as a newlywed, I searched high and low to find them for purchase, and paid the earth for a jar. My in-laws, particularly my husband’s grandmother and great-aunts, were most impressed.
WATERMELON RIND PICKLE! We had those every summer in my childhood (1950's); made in the family since the 1920's, I would imagine.
We’d have as a side dish with NC pulled pork, vinegar slaw and corn bread or corn on the cob.. not too much just a rectangular piece or two of pickled watermelon.
Oh my goodness! I have been looking for this recipe forever. My mom and grandma used to make this every year. I loved it as a child and the recipe died with them. Thank you for going outside the box and do something not many people out there make! Love your videos!
We served ours warmed with pork in Jan/Feb/March...after the holidays but still cold outside. My Grandma would also make pie by adding apples and raisins(homemade). In retrospect, kind of an "apple extender" for us. We live in an extremely rural area, over an hour to a grocer.
With pork roast and try with ginger
Ginger sounds amazing!
@@jenthulhu yes either ginger apple jelly or ginger chunks gone the same way as the watermelon rind.........DELICIOUS
@@jenthulhu yes done and not gone the same way.........DELICIOUS
They were made in stick shapes as a finger food, and served at cookouts as more of a condiment.
Yes, I think that it was sticks.
Jules...I love your dress😍
Uncle Al, from Montana via North Dakota, made pickled watermelon before going to The Ox card room many summer mornings. Delicious! How I miss him❣️
My mom use to make these in the 60s & 70s. She was born in 1923.
There is a watermelon rind poem. Definitely the heart of summer treat. Eat them at a picnic or on the side with fried chicken.
My grandmother used to make watermelon jelly, that was great
My grama made watermelon rind pickles. She passed just after I turned 13, and I wish to the heavens above that I had her recipe! About a month after she passed, we were cleaning out her house, and I found one lonely small jar and ate half of it before I knew it. That was the last time I ever had any.
My husband's grandma made pickled watermelon rinds. I remember tasting cinnamon, cardamom, and allspice. This looks like her watermelon rind pickles! She had pickles on the table for every meal, (It could have been a Swedish thing) and they complimented with every meal. She made different kinds of pickles, beets, watermelon, cucumber, green beans, or wax beans, onions, mushrooms, sauerkraut, carrots, relishes, chow chow, etc. Pickles, now that I think about it, was a way to preserve food for the winter. She canned extensively, and canned meat, and made sausage, and pickled meat. Her father and mother came directly from Sweden.
My aunt made watermelon pickles often. Now have you tried okra pickles? DEEELICISOUS and crisp!!
i grew up in the 50's in texas my grandmother made pickled watermelon rind all the time, she would use only one kind of watermelon, the black diamond, small round with a thick rind, good stuff
Good taste in games old timer
My mom talked about watermelon pickles and told me it was pickled watermelon rind. She remembered them fondly though never made them. I have canning books with recipes for them 😮
My Grandmother made watermelon rind pickles. A favorite memory of my childhood. Thinking back I think the over riding spice was cinnamon.
My grandmother used to make something similar to this. We'd eat them on some bread with butter. Kind of in a marmaladesque fashion
Love that portmanteau! Did your grandmother make it with a finer dice? Or dice like a relish for the sandwich? Or was it the large chunks with the bread and butter?
@@IMJwhoRU It was about as chunky as Glen was rocking, maybe a smidgen smaller
My mother always talked about pickled watermelon rind that her mother made. They lived in Oklahoma through the Great Depression and Dust bowl. Her mother died in 1939 when my mom was only 9 years old. I’ve wanted to make this all my life but every recipe I found had cloves in it and I think cloves are very strong. An acquired taste that I certainly don’t prefer. Thanks for trying this.
We always had watermelon pickles at every major family dinner. (Thanksgiving,Christmas, Easter, and Family Reunions)😊
My Great-aunt made these, and we loved them.
I think we all have a rustic pickle from our childhood we haven't had for decades. Mine were pickled crabapples. I wish I could have those again.
Growing up the child of German immigrants in the sixties I thought I had had pickled everything(from Cukes to Quince) never had pickled crab apple.And there were several trees in our neighborhood.
Wow, as a kid in Massachusetts and Vermont it was a treat to get sweet pickled watermelon rind! But, it was sold commercially in groceries. I've never had homemade. So excited to see the recipe! Now, back to Glen....
Yes! Growing up in Massachusetts, my grandmother always had them in the fridge. (And they were chartreuse green)
We made ours spicy. Super spicy and we used the whole watermelon. Not just the rind. They’re a family favorite. The recipe has been passed for generations! I believe my great great grandparents brought it with them from Russia.
I have a fruit cake recipe that uses pickled watermelon as an ingredient. This may be just what I need. Thank you so much
Here in the DC area, we have a local "chain" of restaurants called Great American Restaurants. They use pickled watermelon rind in their deviled eggs with millionaires bacon bits on top. DIVINE!!!! shockingly delicious. Was so surprised the secret ingredient was pickled watermelon rind! Gonna try this recipe!
Our family has eaten Pickled watermelon with cold meat especially cold roast lamb . My mother and her mother have been making this for as long as I can remember and I am almost 60.
My mom puts this in her tuna fish salad. We used to buy the “Old South” brand, but can no longer find it in So. Cal. So, now I can make it for her, thanks! 😋
My grandmother always served with pork chops or lamb. Brings back good memories. Thank you!👍🏾
Mom (raised on a farm in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, by dirt-poor farmer parents) used to make Watermelon Rind Pickles (and many other lovely canned things). They were quite sweet and spiced. I remember the taste of cloves, but there may have also been cinnamon and allspice. Edit: How to eat them? For me, just sneaking a few out of the opened jar from the refrigerator as a snack after school. PS, Mom's weren't quite as colored as yours, and yes, you did put quite a lot of cloves - more than Mom ever used on anything except studding a ham.
The older a booklet is, the more fragile it is; wood fiber literally disintegrates, breaks into pieces with age and therefore should be handled extremely carefully. After all, it's not like we can go to the store and buy another copy. Old and tried methods and recipes are the best!
My Grandmother would make this, but they would be longer slices. She also added red dye.
This was one of my favorite pickles when I was a child! My mom made them one last time for me when I was about 15. I have a bowl-full of rinds in my refrigerator right now so I can can them tomorrow. We ate them on the side with a relish tray, just one or two at a meal, so good.
Maybe try it as a part of a charcuterie plate.
Those were a childhood memory of mine. My mother made them.
My Nana always had these on hand and I remember eating them at thanksgiving dinner! She also said that the water melons today have such a thin rind that they don’t make good pickles.
I love these old recipes.
I love pickled watermelon rind in deviled eggs and egg salad. I will definitely be trying this!! Thanks for the recipe.
Oh I am all over that. Deviled eggs. I always put a layer of deviled eggs on top of my bowl of potato salad. It is decadent.
I can't imagine it with ice cream. They were always with the relish dish with black olives, celery, carrots at our Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner at my grandmothers house. They were always a favorite - still a favorite. Kind of gives the relish dish a kick of sweetness.
chopped smaller , add onions and hot peppers, use like a chutney with meat; chicken , pork .....
oouuu that sounds killer.
My grandmother made them every year. Haven't had them in 30+ yrs. I just might try this recipe.
There's a restaurant by me that serves pickled watermelon rind as an accompaniment side to a steak and buttermilk mashed potato dish. The pickled rind is a tasty side that serves as a palette cleanser to a hearty meat and potato dish. I enjoy things like this.
My grandma always served this with a gingerbread style spice cake for Christmas and/or Thanksgiving.
These were a side at Thanksgiving...much like how you served olives, or little gerkin pickles. They were part of a relish tray and I loved them and always looked forward to having sweet pickled watermelon rinds. We didn't make them but bought them from the store for Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
I make an old fashioned sweet watermelon pickle similar to this. We keep the slice large and put it on charcuterie and cheese boards. It pairs VERY well with cheese. Also, it’s great in sandwiches. Mine have lemon juice and I don’t cook the syrup down before adding the watermelon rind. They are sweet, but not just sugar sweet.
Pound cake or Madeira cake, sliced and pan-fried in butter or buttered and heated on a grill. Some of these pickles on top and then top the lot with mascarpone cheese.
I need to try this
Fried pound cake. You may have blown my mind.
@@aethelberga You could also put a can of tinned plums in a pot to heat and thicken the juice. Pour that into a bowl and have some fried or grilled cake topped with ice cream floating like an island in the soup.
In the south, we put them on top of cooked turnip salad, collards, or cooked cabbage with cornbread.
There was a sweet lady in my town who used to give me a jar of pickled watermelon rind every summer... they tasted a lot like sweet pickles, I have used them to make relish before
oooo good idea
Born and raised in NC, so it is amusing to read about how to “use these”. As an acidic element, it can stand alone against the richness of southern cuisine. It presents a different option along with chow-chow, relishes, etc. but is typically much sweeter than other options. We like things sweet....see sweet tea. As far as fusion cuisines I incorporate them into pico de gallo, or simply finely chopped as a topping on Korean style short ribs.
Oddly, I never had pickled watermelon rind until I went to an upscale steak house in Detroit... and this was an appetizer that came with dinner... along with creamed pickled herring.
This was really interesting for me to hear you guys talk about this. My grandmother used to make this; but, the application was very different than the sweet applications you talked about. For our family it was part of a relish tray or eaten with a hamburger, like a pickle. So, hearing you talk about it in desert applications would be like putting sweet pickles in a cake.
Yes. Exactly. Watermelon pickles go with savory dishes not desserts
Those chunks you use for garnish in an old fashioned. The only way I have ever consumed them.
some stores have them in a Specialty Isle... and they are DELIGHTFUL...
Relish tray. My husband's grandmother made watermelon pickles. So good!
Preserved/pickled watermelon rinds date back at least 150 years. I ate at a Civil War-era restaurant in Gettysberg and bowls of preserved watermelon rind were served with the meal which of course is authentic to the CW era.
With Sandwiches on the side. Charcuterie board, great with cheeses.
My Mom made them occasionally. They went on the relish tray with baby gherkins, capers, whatever pickles, for holidays. I begged my Mom to make it more often, she always pickled and preserved stuff; she said this was too much trouble. Now I'm going to make a little bit, but not waiting two weeks, lol.
There's a recipe I found out about a couple of years ago that reminded me of the electric green pickles you talked about:Kool-Aid pickles. Me and my friends asked co-workers repeatedly about it. It's supposed to be a "Southern Thing" and it popped up on facebook and other social media that it was supposed to be a common side. I haven't gotten around to making them myself, but Walmart started carrying them. They had the fruit punch version. You make a pitcher of Kool-Aid and then you take a quart jar of sliced or quartered pickles and pour out the brine and pour in Kool-Aid until it covers the pickles. Let it sit in your fridge a few days and the pickles take on the color and flavor of the Kool-Aid. The funny thing is, my buddy thought it might be soul food, but none of the black guys he worked with had heard about it. I was looking for it at Walmart and found it and this black guy saw me an said,"My family used to eat that all the time." It's supposed to be a Southern dish, but I had never heard of it. My family ate all kinds of Southern stuff like chitterlings (aka chitlinn's), and poke salad, greens (both collard and turnip) blackeyed peas, and watermelon and fried chicken. I had never heard of Kool-Aid pickles or seen them until that day at Walmart. They had the fruit punch flavor, I heard they had grape available, too. It's pretty nasty. It's not the taste, but your brain can't wrap around the two different flavors because it's flopping between pickled cucumber and fruit punch Kool-Aid several times a second as you're chewing on it. I wonder if you're supposed to use unsweetened Kool-Aid or if you need to add more sugar? Other than Kosher dills, my favorite pickled produce is pickled peaches. The recipe didn't specify what kind of vinegar to use, I wonder what it would taste like using malt vinegar or apple cider vinegar? I'll ask my mom because, sure enough, my grandparents and other relatives used to make pickled watermelon rinds. If you're hard up, living on farm during the Depression, you can't afford to waste anything that's a potential food source. Throwing the rinds out to your hogs might be wasteful. Granddaddy raised acres of watermelons and all the neighborhood kids boasted about being able to "steal" them while my Granddaddy pretended to chase them away. I say "steal" and "pretended" because everyone knew who was doing it except their parents. Granddaddy didn't want them to get whupped, so he never told their parents. He used to do it when he was a kid, too. :)
A very endearing post. Thank you for sharing a snapshot of your family's life. You had a wonderful Grampa that left you will many fond memories. ♥
Thanks for the video. I grew up in rural America in the early 60's and my mom, either made pickled watermelon or bought it somewhere. As a kid, I loved it. She's passed on, so I can't ask her about it. Watermelon is relatively inexpensive, so I may give this a go. Thanks again.
My mother used to serve watermelon rind pickles as a garnish with curry
My grandmother made these every summer after we had watermelon. Her recipe was a bit different I think she used the one from Better Homes and Garden cook book from the 1950's. They were delicious all of her grandkids loved them.
They were always set out at any family dinner on a pickle tray... always pickled watermelon, pickled beets, pickled apples, pickled peaches, cucumber pickles (sweet, bread and butter, dill) sometimes pickled asparagus or string beans (strong german family, grandma pickled EVERYTHING) It was just something always with dinner at grandma's!
I had always assumed pickled watermelon rind would be made in the same fashion as common dill pickles. These look much more interesting.
I make cinnamon cherry watermelon pickles. They are a glorious rosy red and so good to serve at holiday time in a pretty crystal dish.
This popped up again in my list today. It reminded me of a Thai cooking video I watched recently where they made a version of these watermelon pickles and served them over shaved ice/ice cream.
Love watermelon pickles. They are also a good item to can.
i make about 2 gallons of watermelon rind pickles every season........luv them
We had these on the pickle tray at thanks giving along with pickled crab apples.so yummy.
I was at Horrock's in Grand Rapids, MI yesterday and I saw they sell pickled watermellon rinds actually. IIRC - they were made by the Amish in Ohio.
Pork chops soul mate. Add coriander seeds, star anise, ginger, orange peel, and keep all spices in for bottling.
Watermelon rind preserves are delicious--not pickled, more like jam. So good.
Hey guys. I enjoy watching you make the old recipes. My Grate Gran used to make a watermelon konfyt in South Africa it is definitely a heritage recipe. It is almost like a dry jam and is also made with watermelon rinds. It is eaten as a treat and does not have vinegar in the recipe. It is absolutely delicious.👍❤️ I have made it myself amongst the other heritage recipes she handed down to my Gran ,mom and myself.
These sweet watermelon rind pickles were put on a Southern "Relish Tray" with other homemade pickles. Nowadays, you would put them on a Charcuterie Board. They are great with cheeses and crackers, etc. A sweet element to the savory, salty foods...❤
I’ve only made pickled watermelon rinds once and it was made in a way slightly similar to making spicy sweet cucumber pickles and not really in the same way that recipe explained. That way gave it more ways that it was able to be used like in place of pickles on things like sandwiches. I know pickled watermelon rinds are a big thing in the southern states of America though which is why most don’t hear too much about it
I make watermelon rind preserves following an old Ball Blue book method. Lots of work and time but worth it to me.
Watermelon tribe pickles us a very southern Ametican way of using the left over rind.
I have used the recipe in the Ball Canning book. For some odd reason, all of my sweet pickles I have placed a slice of lemon in them. Never knew why, but grandma always did. On a hot summer day, these beat bread and butter pickles.
We ate them with collard greens. So so good!
my mom made these growing up. I loved them. Glad to find this
These were my great grandmother's pickles. Always at gatherings with an array of other pickles. They were about the size of a medium pickle (with squared edges) and translucent. People would cut them in half to eat them. I recently found a jar at a country store. I did not remember that they are sickeningly sweet and I don't like the strong clove, cinnamon either but yes this is for sure the recipe. think apple butter, not pickle. Maybe its because I don't eat much sugar now days but I remember loving these as a kid ! I am looking at your video to make sure I need to boil the rind but I am going to experiment with less sugar and spices for one and use a bread and butter pickle recipe on the other and see how it turns out ! Thanks for the video and roll back to 1935!
Thanks again for the captions/subtitles
My mom used to make these, and I absolutely loved them.
Oh mannnn my grandma made these,so good what a treat!
Glen I love this show. Thanks for putting in such amazing work.
I am totally trying this. I bet it would pair with Vodka.
You would laugh, but in Russia and Kavkaz, pickled watermelons is classic pair for vodka for centuries :D
Excellent as a condiment with the Thanksgiving turkey, or a roasted pork loin.
Add pineapple chunks to the mix. Very tasty!
Go Glen!
So many WONDERFUL IDEA y'all. Thank you. I love experimenting in the kitchen.
I like your show!