In a Pickle

My friend Ms. Zany tells me they pickle everything in her hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania – beans, beets, red peppers and even hard cooked eggs. Some people – who clearly see themselves as slick urbanites – raise an eyebrow when she mentions this, and I assure you, she mentions it fairly frequently. I like Zany. She knows what’s important in life.

Yet, for all my prowess in the kitchen, I’ve never pickled anything. Oh, there is the occasional Saturday night when I … okay…too much information.

Something about sweet, savory, tangy foods with bite resonates deep within. I was said to be such a fan of pickles as a child that I was once given a jar of pickles as a birthday present. Not too tough to shop for. Or maybe I should just pick up and move to western Pennsylvania where I’d clearly fit right in.

When Zany sparks an idea, it usually comes to fruition, and I’ve kind of been on the lookout for something to pickle – at least something that doesn’t have to get up for work the next morning.

So, I do a quick round of the Hallelujah Chorus when I see that the organic Sisters of Sophia Garden are offering pickling cucumbers in this week’s harvest. I gather up my five allotted virgin pickles and head for the kitchen to get started.

Before we get into the details of pickling, here’s a short history of an old and venerable kitchen technique from the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink. Did you know that pickles are thought to have first been eaten in ancient Mesopotamia, now known as Iraq? It was there that a number of foods were preserved in saltwater brine. The word “pickle” is derived from the Dutch word “pekel” and Dutch colonists brought the technique to North America in the 1600s. The practice was often necessary to preserve foods during long journeys and over lean winter months. Various ethic groups have developed different recipes for pickling, from kosher pickles that come from the Jewish community, to the sweet pickles loved by the English, or the tiny spiced cornichons craved by the French.

The August issue of Cooking Light is my guide, and its “Cooking Class” on Curing & Pickling introduces me to the stress-free method of “refrigerator pickling.” This approach requires no boiling or sterilization, so I forge ahead with a recipe for Bread-and-Butter Pickles. Pickles prepared in this manner must be refrigerated at all times, are perishable, and will usually last up to two-weeks. I discover that the bread-and-butter variety is known for its sweetness and the high sugar content in the pickling brine.

The cucumber slices are tossed with kosher salt and chilled for up to two hours. I then prepare a hot mixture of granulate sugar, brown sugar, white vinegar and cider vinegar, spiked with mustard seed and celery seed, which is poured over the cucumber and sliced onions.

The slices then sit for an hour at room temperature, and must then be covered in an airtight container and refrigerated for 24 hours to allow the flavors to meld and the cucumbers to "pickle."

The results are a crisp and bracing summer snack, the just-picked crunch of the organic garden buoyed by sweet and biting flavors that pop on the palate.

And all this time, I thought the stork delivered pickles straight to the kitchen!

©2008 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved