In a pickle about my pickles

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Given that it’s mid-July, I’ve gotten a bumper crop of cucumbers, and that means I’ve had to switch my mason jars from drinking glasses to what they’re supposed to be used for — pickling.

I went to college up north, and I don’t know how many people I bumped into up there who were astounded to learn that pickles didn’t apply just to cucumbers. Of course here we’re used to lots of pickled items: okra, asparagus, tomatoes and even pigs feet.

Worldwide, pickling is found in numerous countries and cuisines. It’s in chutney in India, kimchi in Korea and herring in Scandinavia.

There are basically two main ways of pickling. The first is done with vinegar. Even though most of us have vinegar in our households, vinegar is actually a fairly strong acid in which few bacteria can survive or thrive. Most kosher cucumber pickles commercially available at the supermarket are preserved in vinegar with added spices.

The other type of pickling is one that actually encourages fermentation. The person making the pickles helps “good” bacteria to grow and thus take over, disabling “bad” bacteria from growing. To do this, the pickler will soak the material in a salt brine and add other flavors or spices if necessary.

They will then allow it to ferment. During this process, all sorts of gases and smells can be released because the “good” bacteria is breathing them out. But not to worry. Even though technically your food is going bad, it’s going the good kind of bad if that makes sense.

The most famous kind of fermented pickle is kimchi, but most may not know that types of dill pickles are also fermented.

Although many may not realize this, pickling doesn’t have to just refer to preserving with vinegar or salt. When you make jam, you’re pickling fruit in sugar. When olives are preserved in oil, they’re also being pickled. In fact, olives are pickled twice: once in salt brine and once in oil. If you’ve ever tried to eat an olive right off a tree, you’ll understand why. Fresh, they taste absolutely terrible.

The technique of pickling is thousands of years old and was driven by the need to conserve foods before modern refrigeration. Even in our local area, some may have been without refrigeration into the 21st century. Pickling recipes are passed down through generations and — pardon the pun — preserved as a special way of transmitting culture.