In the Lithuanian language (part of my heritage), there are two words for pickles. One refers to those that are fermented, and the other to cucumbers preserved with vinegar.
Fermentation is awesome because it can be a delicious way to preserve fresh vegetables without the hassle and worry of canning. To can safely, you need to be sure the pH of your food is too high to let bad bacteria (I’m looking at you, botulism) grow.
Fermentation though, is much easier to make safe. You still want to clean everything, and you need a healthy amount of salt to keep the brine safe, but otherwise it’s pretty safe.
The trick is, that fermentation promotes living bacteria — and living things aren’t always easy to control. So sometimes ferments don’t turn out quite as planned.
This year already I’ve had a fermentation fail — with my pickles. My first batch of fermented pickles turned to mush. Tannins in grape leaves and bay leaves are supposed to prevent this sad fate. I used dried bay leaves in this batch and am here to report that they did not work.
In another jar, cucumbers popped up above the brine and mold grew on the tops.
So as not to waste the precious cucumbers I grew, I might try to turn the mushy but tasty first jar into a relish.
After these fails, I switched to making refrigerator pickles. If you haven’t made these, I highly recommend trying, as they are easy and delicious. All you need is water, salt, vinegar, seasonings and cucumbers or other veggies.
Before starting this adventure I looked up a bunch of recipes. Some called for using mostly vinegar for the brine, while others suggested just a teaspoon or two with the rest water. The amount of salt in these recipes also varied.
Not knowing which to follow, I decided to follow none. To make the brine I put a few cups of water into a small pot and added a few good splashes of apple cider vinegar, and some salt (I’d estimate a couple teaspoons), and warmed it up to dissolve the salt.
To a glass jar I added peppercorns, black mustard seeds, dill, cloves of garlic and cucumbers (slices or spears), then poured the cooled brine over top. After a couple days in the fridge, they were saturated and delicious.
The brine from a batch can be reused a couple times before losing flavor. In one jar of upcylced brine, I noticed bubbles — the telltale sign of a ferment. The vinegar I’d used had a mother (solid layer of bacteria) so fermentation wasn’t a shocker.
Historically, fermentation was a key part of food preservation for the winter months. The tradition of pickling vegetables dates back to more than 2,000 years BC, when cucumbers brought from India helped start a pickling tradition in the Tigris Valley.
Pickles are mentioned a couple times in the Bible, Aristotle praised pickles for healing properties, and throughout history since they’ve kept an important place in the diets of people the world over.
According to the pickle timeline by the New York Museum of Food, “5,200,000 pounds of pickles are consumed annually in the United States. That’s nine pounds per person.”
Shelf stable pickles aren’t fermented. In most grocery stores, there are few options for fermented pickles — if they’re available you’ll find them in the refrigerator section.
Until the invention of canning equipment in the 1850s pickles were always fermented.
I just wish I knew how picklers throughout history kept their cucumbers crunchy during fermentation.
