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Oantelope Pickles

Pickled cantaloupe fruit preserved in a sweet vinegar and spice syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Oantelope Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the melon

  1. Wash, peel, and cut cantaloupes into small pieces, removing the seeds.

  2. Cover the pieces with vinegar and let sit for 24 hours.

Make the syrup

  1. Discard 1 quart of vinegar for each quart remaining.

  2. Add 3 pounds of sugar, 3 ounces of stick cinnamon, 2 ounces of cloves, and 2 ounces of allspice to the vinegar.

  3. Boil the mixture, skimming well, then add the fruit and boil for 15 minutes.

Pack and finish

  1. Remove the fruit, boil and skim the syrup, then pour it boiling hot over the fruit.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

Cantaloupe (in the method)
Forms the pickle's main body and absorbs the spiced syrup as it cooks.
Vinegar
Soaks into the fruit and provides the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickle and, with the vinegar, helps preserve the fruit in syrup.
Stick cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet spice aroma that infuses the syrup and fruit.
Cloves
Contribute strong, warm aroma and pungent spice flavor to the syrup.
Allspice
Adds warm, peppery aroma that rounds out the spiced syrup.

The step that matters

Pour the syrup boiling hot over the fruit. Keeping the syrup at a full boil when it goes over the fruit helps heat the pieces through and reduces the chance of spoilage in the jar.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, allspice. 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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