Pickled

WEEK 42

With the San Francisco mayor ordering residents to shelter in place (separate post to come on this topic), it has been a time to look inward. I’m grateful we are healthy and have a safe and comfortable home in which to shelter. I know that is not a given for some. We are fortunate to have the means to work and connect remotely. And we are with each other. For that I am most grateful.

A few days into this new reality, I needed a mental distraction and looked around the apartment for something new to learn. Plenty of rainy day tasks stared back at me – wash the windows, clean the blinds. But what could I learn to do for the first time, where all the required elements were already inside our walls?

I opened the fridge, and the answer revealed itself in a bag of carrots and a bulb of fennel. I will learn to pickle vegetables.

I’m not a natural artisan, more taker than maker. My wife, on the other hand, has for years been perfecting her own sausage links, and most recently conquered homemade tonic syrup, starting at the very beginning with cinchona bark.

Pickling is more my speed. Who can resist colorful jars of pickled vegetables lining the shelves? Not to mention that crunchy sour/sweet flavor.

Very quickly I learned there are layers and layers of nuance with pickling, which at its most fundamental involves soaking food in an acidic brine – that is itself heated – to yield a sour flavor.

What pickling is not is fermentation (though they are related), in which the food develops its sourness without any added acid or heat. Think of kimchi (which I’ve made), for example, where that funkiness comes from a natural chemical reaction at room temperature. Those fermented foods are known to promote gut health. I’m going for flavor instead.

My research uncovered that pickling likely began eons ago in Northern India. Today, when you think about the foods of the world, pickling is everywhere – not surprising of course given the need for food preservation. Perfect for a city on lockdown.

I decided to start small and easy. I’ve got two glass jars with lids that fit, carrots, fennel, some citrus and a fully loaded spice drawer.

I spent the first hour or so online triangulating across recipes and techniques. Quick refrigerator pickles need only vinegar, water and salt along with sugar, if desired. From there, the palette is infinite.

A basic brine is equal parts vinegar and water, but doesn’t have to be. The vinegar selection is wide open too – white vinegar, apple cider vinegar, rice vinegar, wine vinegar or all of the above in combination if you desire. I read posts from chefs who use fresh herbs like dill, thyme or oregano along with smashed garlic cloves, fresh ginger, whole spices like coriander and peppercorns, mustard and fennel seeds, even ground spices like turmeric and paprika. Too many choices can spell inertia for me, but I pressed on.

Then it occurred to me. I most crave pickled vegetables while at Burning Man. They are heavenly on a hot arid day, the sharper and more aromatic the better. I’ve got my flavor inspiration.

For the carrots, I imagine the high desert Atlas mountains of Morocco, and root around in the spice drawer for cardamom pods, coriander seeds, black peppercorns and turmeric, along with fresh garlic and thyme. I boil a simple brine of basic white vinegar in a 2:1 H2O to vinegar ratio, along with salt and some sugar.

For the fennel, I slice it very thin and opt for a flavor combo of North Africa and Asia, using thin peels of lemon along with whole star anise. Here I decided to use both apple cider and white wine vinegar, in a 1:1 ratio. Plus of course salt and some sugar.

Once decided, the mechanics of assembling all the elements was easy, although I did read that novice picklers make the mistake of overheating the pickling liquid, and that what matters more is how long the vegetables sit in the liquid at what temperature. An exploration for another day…

The hardest part was waiting 48 hours to open the jars!

Our first bites added a zing to what has become a routine lunch in these days of being at home, and only at home. I expect they will taste even more delicious as the flavors mingle and lockdown continues.