Your cucumbers should be well shaped, and all of the same size.
Spread the bottom and sides of a preserving kettle with a thick
layer of vine leaves. Then put in the cucumbers--with a little
alum broken small. Cover them thickly with vine leaves, and then
with a dish. Fill up the kettle with water, and let them hang over
a slow fire till nest morning, but do not allow the water to boil.
Next day, take them out, cool them, and repeat the process with
fresh vine leaves, till the cucumbers are a fine green. When cold
drain them, cut a small piece out of the flat side, and extract
the seeds. Wipe the cucumbers in a dry cloth, and season the
inside with a mixture of bruised mace and grated lemon-peel. Tie
on with a packthread the bit that was cut out.
Weigh them, and to every pound of cucumbers allow a pound of loaf-sugar.
Put the sugar into a preserving kettle, a half pint of
water to each pound, and the beaten white of an egg to every four
pounds. Boil and skim the sugar till quite clear, adding sliced
ginger and lemon parings to your taste. When cool, pour it over
the cucumbers, and let them lie in it two days, keeping them
covered with a plate, and a weight on it to press it down. Then
boil up the syrup again, adding one-half as much sugar, &c. as you
had at first; and at the last the juice and grated peel of two
lemons for every six cucumbers. The lemon must boil in the syrup
but ten minutes. Then strain the syrup all over the cucumbers, and
put them up in glass jars.
If they are not quite clear, boil them in a third syrup.
Small green melons may be preserved in this manner.