The World's Best Pickles
By
Janette Blackwell
I knew they were the world's recipe belonging to the whole
best pickles the moment I human family.
tasted one. That first taste
took place around 1950, and END-OF-GARDEN PICKLES
I've tasted a lot of pickles
since, am a pickle hound in Vegetables:
fact, but I've never come
across anything else as good. Green tomatoes*, cut in half
or quartered if large
They came to us by way of Carrots, peeled and cut into
my Uncle Ronald Smith, who strips
was an electrician in the Cauliflower, separated into
Bitterroot Valley of Montana small florets
where I grew up. One day he Baby onions, peeled, or
was doing electrical work for larger onions halved or
a Bulgarian family, and they quartered
rewarded him with a sample Green peppers, cut into broad
pickle. He liked it so much lengthwise slices
he got the recipe and gave it Garlic, two peeled cloves per
to his wife Gladys, who gave quart jar
it to Grandma Glidewell, who Medium-hot peppers, two small
made it and gave some to me, whole peppers per quart
and I thought I'd died and
gone to pickle heaven. You can also add unpeeled
and unwaxed small cucumbers,
And thus, although they zucchini, or lightly cooked
became an old Glidewell family green beans, though we never
recipe, they are really an did. The hot peppers add
old Bulgarian family recipe. adventure and zest, but if you
The Bulgarian family, whose prefer to save your tears for
name I do not know, told Uncle really sad occasions, why
Ronald that in Bulgaria, when not?
the first heavy frost kills
the tomato vines, they put all Amounts and proportions
their end-of-garden depend on what vegetables you
vegetables - including those have and how many quarts you
green tomatoes -- into a plan to make. You don't have
barrel, fill the barrel with to have the green tomatoes,
pickling brine, and eat the and the other things can be
best pickles in the world all bought in a grocery store.
winter. But you do need a variety of
It turns out, though, vegetables, and you have to
that the pickles' travel from have the onions and garlic, or
Bulgaria to the U.S. was only you won't have the world's
one leg of a more ancient best pickles. You will have
journey. Because I mentioned the world's so-so pickles, and
them to an Iranian woman, and that would be a shame.
she said, My family has
always made pickles like that! Armenian-Persian-Bulgarian
Exactly like that, except we Brine
add tarragon.
To one quart of water add
Iran being the new name 1/4 cup pickling salt salt
for the ancient kingdom of that isn't iodized, and one
Persia, who knows how many cup of white distilled
centuries these pickles go vinegar. Bring the mixture to
back? a boil. This is enough brine
to cover two quarts of mixed
There's more: I later pickles, with a little left
lost the recipe's brine over.
proportions. Gave some
thought to its travels between Processing
Persia and Bulgaria, looked
in an Armenian-American Follow the canning
cookbook Treasured Armenian instructions in a good,
Recipes, published in 1949 by standard cookbook. Or, if you
the Armenian General plan to eat them right away,
Benevolent Union and there pack the vegetables into clean
they were, under Mixed quart jars, pour over them
Pickles No. 2. Turns out the the hot brine, and keep the
world's best Armenian pickles pickles covered in the
are just like the world's refrigerator. Some of the
best Bulgarian and Persian and more impressionable
American pickles, except they vegetables, like zucchini,
include dill, and sometimes will be ready to eat in only
green beans and coriander two or three days.
seed.
So this is an old, old
About the author:
Go STEAMIN’ DOWN THE TRACKS WITH VIOLA HOCKENBERRY, a storytelling cookbook -- and find Montana country cooking, nostalgic stories, and gift ideas -- at Janette Blackwell’s Food and Fiction, http://foodandfiction.com/Entrance.htmlOr visit her Delightful Food Directory, http://delightfulfood.com/main.html
Circulated by Article Emporium
|