Lemon Mangoes (Author’s original receipt)

Instructions

1. Note on the name (Acton): in England any pickle of vegetables or fruit that has been emptied and filled with various ingredients is called a mangoe, probably first prepared in imitation of that fruit, though none she has tasted bears the slightest resemblance to it. Young melons, large cucumbers, vegetable-marrow and peaches are all so designated.
2. Remove from the blossom end of each lemon a circular bit of the rind about the size of a shilling.
3. Scoop out all the pulp and skin with the handle of a teaspoon, reserving the pulp. Rinse the insides of the rinds until the water from them is clear.
4. Throw them into plenty of brine made with half a pound of salt to two quarts of water, stirring them down in it often. In three days change the brine and leave them for three days longer.
5. Drain them from it on a sieve, then fill them with bruised or whole mustard-seed, very small chilies, young scraped horseradish, very small eschalots, a little ginger sliced thin, or aught else that may be liked.
6. Sew in the parts that have been cut out and lay the lemons into a stone jar.
7. Make the pickle from the lemons' own juice: when they are first emptied, squeeze the juice from the pulp through a cloth, and boil it with sufficient vinegar to keep it, allowing to every quart a large saltspoonful of salt, half an ounce each of ginger and of white peppercorns, and a blade or two of mace. Pour it boiling over the lemons.
8. Alternatively prepare them like the whole pickled lemons of the preceding receipt, omitting the turmeric, and soften them for immediate eating as directed there. They may be filled simply with mustard-seed, horseradish and spice if preferred.