Culte Ileaven

These quick pickling methods help take care of nature's bounty.

ANNABEL COHEN
Special to the Jewish News

y father, though a
very accomplished
instinctive cook,
was never the main
meal maker in my family. But I
do remember dad preparing two
foods he learned to make from his
Turkish-Bulgarian mother —
thick white yogurt and pickled
cucumbers.
His pickling method was sim-
ple..He'd fill an old mayonnaise or
pickle jar with sliced cucumbers.
He'd add salt and pepper,
chopped onions and garlic, and a
little vinegar. He'd tighten the lid
and place the pickles on the _
counter.
Every day he'd turn the jar on
end so that every other day the
pickle jar would be standing on
its lid. We'd watch the pickles like
a chemistry experiment, peering
into the jar as the liquid actually
boiled inside, and to see when
they would be perfect to eat.
A week or more later, dad
would twist off the cap and fish
out a slice of pickle. He'd bite into
it and proclaim it delicious in his
Brazilian accent. We kids, accus-
tomed to neon green, sour, store-
bought slices on our tuna and
toast, didn't fully appreciate dad's
light colored, too-thick slices.
Now we know better.
For some reason, dad's pickle
making was a sort of phase, something nostalgic he did for just a
short time in the scheme of things. But we kids still have those
memories of bubbling pickles.
Dad's pickling was something he remembered from his youth.
My grandmother most likely made pickles for the some of the same
reasons people have been preserving produce forever.
For thousands of years, pickling summer vegetables and fruits
wasn't merely for the tangy and unusual flavors these foods absorbed
from the seasoned brines used in preserving them. Pickling was a
way to eat vegetables and fruits during the months when fresh pro-
duce became scarce. Indeed, it was common for sailors to take pick-
led products on long journeys to prevent diseases like scurvy that

could affect those lacking fresh
fruits and vegetables in the diet.
While pickling many different
kinds of vegetables, fruits — even
fruit rinds — is a custom around
the world, when American Jews
think of pickles, we think of
those enormous glass containers
of baby cucumbers swimming in
greenish brine at the deli counter.
Some remember big oak bar-
rels with hundreds of swimming
cukes. Some will tell you that the
only real pickles are those made
on New York City's Lower East
Side.
Either way, the fact of the
matter is that pickles are easy to
prepare. And there's a real differ-
ence in the flavor of homemade
pickles. The good news is that
pickles are so easy to conjure,
there's no reason not to make
some.
There are different schools of
pickle preparation. One is that
vegetables be salted first, to bring
out the extra water. The rationale
is that excess water will dilute the
pickling brine.
A quick method skips the
moisture extraction stage. This is
the method used in the recipes
below.
Some people boil the brine
first. Some don't.
There is a constant when it
comes to making pickles. It's the
combination of an acidic liquid,
salt and a sweetener, most often
sugar. These are the flavors that combine to make the characteristic
pungent flavor of pickles.
A word of caution: There are older pickle recipes that call for an
ingredient called "alum." This should not be used today. Large
amounts of alum can be toxic.
Most pickling recipes call for pickling salt or kosher salt.
That's because these salts have no additives that can make the
pickling brine cloudy.
When making pickled vegetables, you could "jar" or "put up"
your pickles in sterilized jars — the directions come with the jars
when you buy them in supermarkets or at hardware stores. The
recipes here are meant to be eaten within a month. They "pickle" in

a M, •

8/25
2000

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