This is very similar to Mernie’s pickle recipe from yesterday but it calls for hot peppers. I assume one would use chili peppers similar to these.  Depending on the intensity of the flavor you want, you could go with a spicier hot pepper. Interesting side note about peppers – the chemicals in peppers bind to receptors in your mouth that tell your brain you have eaten something hot in temperature, which is why it actually feels hot inside your mouth and throat as you eat a hot pepper!

A curiosity about this recipe is this note “piece of alum about a walnut.” I don’t know if that means a piece of alum the size of a walnut OR a piece of aluminum foil wrapped around a walnut. This recipe may have to wait until I figure that out. The note is clearly written in after the original recipe was written down, whether it was an afterthought or Gram had to go ask Mernie about the alum, we will never know.

Finally, I have to ask my mother what size Mason jars Gram used for this type of canning. Mason jars come in a number of sizes – half pint, pint, quart, etc. My guess is she used quart or smaller, though for this recipe it would be easy to figure she used seven or eight quart size jars, since the recipe yields “seven quarts or so.”

Dill Pickles (Hot)

3 quarts water

1 quart cider vinegar

1 cup salt

Piece of alum about a walnut

Boil, 7 quarts or so of pickles

Put a garlic bud in each jar, bunch of dill top and bottom, piece of hot pepper or whole small hot pepper. Fill jars with pickles. Pour hot vinegar mixture over. Seal.