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Sweet Pickle Cantaloupe

Cantaloupes pickled in a sweet, spiced vinegar solution with salt, sugar, cloves, cinnamon, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Sweet Pickle Cantaloupe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and cut the cantaloupes.

  2. Soak the cantaloupes in a mixture of salt and water until evening.

  3. Wash the cantaloupes.

  4. Soak them overnight.

  5. Scald the cantaloupes in a kettle with grape leaves, water, and a little vinegar.

  6. Add alum if desired.

  7. Remove the cantaloupes with a fork.

  8. Place them in a jar.

Make the syrup and cook

  1. Measure the vinegar.

  2. Pour it over the cantaloupes.

  3. Pour the vinegar back into the kettle.

  4. Add ½ pound of sugar for every pint of vinegar.

  5. Add the bag of cloves, cinnamon, and mace to the boiling mixture.

  6. Drop the cantaloupes into the kettle.

  7. Cook until tender, ensuring there is enough vinegar as it reduces.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Grape + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  4. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cantaloupes
Provide the fruit that becomes tender and pickled, absorbing the spiced vinegar syrup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the fruit and gives the pickle its tang.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cantaloupe during soaking, firming the flesh.
Cloves
Contribute warm aromatic flavor to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Cook until tender with enough vinegar. As the liquid reduces, the fruit can be left exposed and the vinegar concentration changes, so the cantaloupe must stay submerged. Cooking until tender softens the flesh and lets it absorb the syrup evenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (grape, vinegar, sugar, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grape, vinegar, sugar, clove, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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