People do have cold meat in the house, but that as a rule is
where there are children, for when a child is hungry, and cries for
food, his mother gives him a bone of cold meat, just as in other
countries where bread is common you give a child a piece of bread.
However, he would try cold meat for once. It looked to him as if there
were other things to eat on the table. "And what is this?" he shouted,
pointing dramatically at a dish of large, very green-looking pickled
peaches. Peaches--peaches in winter! This is strange indeed!
It was explained to him that they were pickled peaches, and that it
was the custom of the house to have them on the table at supper. He
tried one with his cold mutton, and was presently assuring my parents
that never in his life had he partaken of anything so good--so tasty,
so appetizing, and whether or not it was because of the pickled
peaches, or some quality in our mutton which made it unlike all other
mutton, he had never enjoyed a meal as much. What he wanted to know
was how the thing was done. He was told that large, sound fruit, just
ripening, must be selected for pickling; when the finger dents a peach
it is too ripe. The selected peaches are washed and dried and put into
a cask, then boiling vinegar, with a handful of cloves is poured in
till it covers the fruit, the cask closed and left for a couple of
months, by which time the fruit would be properly pickled.
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