9 minute read
Kind of a Big Dill
By David W. Brown
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who immediately open their hamburger, pull out the pickles, and say, “Do you want my pickles?” and those who take them.
I belong to the latter. Picking the pickles from your burger (from anything, really) is like ordering a chocolate sundae without the cherry, or nachos without the jalapenos. Look, I am not one to judge, but if you pull the pickles off your hamburger then you have serious issues you need to address, and probably horrible personal hygiene, too. I should add that if you remove your pickles from your hamburger but don’t even have the courtesy to offer them to someone else at the table, you should remove yourself from polite society before polite society removes you.
The reason I bring this up is because my editor, while an otherwise kind and clever person, has a sadistic streak and enjoys assigning me foods to eat and describe. It’s never, “This month, write about Neapolitan ice cream” (the only ice cream worth mentioning), or “Could you review tacos for us?” No, dear reader. She once made me write about okra. (Like chewing on a caterpillar.) Ranch dressing on pizza. (If you do this, who hurt you?) Sometimes her plan backfires: she expected me to mock and ridicule Hawaiian pizza, but it is one of my favorite foods in the world. (And it certainly is of the world—everywhere except Hawaii, that is. It was invented in Canada by a Greek Canadian who was inspired by Chinese cuisine. I regret to inform you that everything you’ve ever believed is a lie.)
So for this pickle assignment, she covered her bases. “I’ll make him eat pickles… and fried pickles.” I know how much some of you love to fry things that ought not be fried. I see it every Thanksgiving, when I look up at the sky and watch squadrons of medical helicopters soaring overhead, carrying patients who just blew up their houses trying to deep fry a frozen turkey.
Again, the joke is on her. I love pickles. (Fried pickles… well. My feelings on that are complicated, but more on that in a minute.) To the best of my recollection, I first encountered pickles at my grandmother’s house as a child, and upon learning of my love for them, she would keep her refrigerator stocked for when I visited. When I stayed overnight at her house, look out: I would easily eat an entire jar of those mysterious green spears. (For more on my grandmother, see the story about canned vegetables, also in this issue.)
My love of pickles never abated. And once you discover them in your youth, they’re everywhere! When the fates conspired to have me at a sporting event in elementary school, they were one of five snacks every concession stand had. (The others being nachos, popcorn, chips, and candy bars.) From salads to Subway sandwiches, hot dogs to Bloody Marys, there is no cuisine high or low that cannot benefit from the humble improved cucumber.
So what are they, these “pickles” that I keep going on about? As stated, they are generally jarred cucumbers in some sort of brine. But they need not be! You can pickle just about anything, as anyone who has been to a gas station in the deep south can attest. But cucumbers are uniquely suited for pickling because 1. they never walked the Earth as living, animate objects (alas, the humble pig), and 2. they’re basically little tubes of water that will soak up whatever you ask them to.
There are different types of pickles, as you’ve undoubtedly noticed at Rouses, and the variation depends on the state of the pickle (chopped into relish, sliced longways, cut crossways, quartered into spears, or left whole) and the ingredients in the brine. (There are as many brines, apparently, as there are gumbo recipes, and everyone thinks theirs is right; as with gumbo, one should only trust the recipe used by your mom.)
A dill pickle has dill in the brine. That’s pretty much the only requirement. Full sour pickles are generally brined twice as long as regular dill pickles and are not heattreated to become shelf stable. That’s why some pickles are sold in the refrigerated section of the store rather than the shelves. A sweet pickle foregoes the dill, and the brine features instead sugar and sometimes onion and mustard seeds. Bread and butter pickles are a variation on sweet pickles, with the addition of salt, celery seeds, and coriander.
You have probably spent your life wondering about the difference between kosher pickles and dill pickles, but not so much that you googled it. Fear not, dear reader—as ever, I will do the heavy lifting for you. A kosher pickle and a dill pickle are basically the same thing, though the kosher variety has a lot of garlic, and uses saltwater
brine rather than vinegar. (Sometimes, a jar is labeled “kosher style,” which means its preparation might not adhere strictly to Jewish dietary law—read the label closely to be sure!) Kosher pickles got their name from the pickling techniques brought by Jewish immigrants at the turn of the twentieth century and made popular at New York City delicatessens where they were first sold.
Let’s say you love pickles, but like doing things the hard way. No, the stuff on the shelves and in the coolers won’t do for you. You want to make pickles yourself. I applaud your industriousness! When I was young, my dad had a vegetable garden in the backyard, and one year he grew what felt to a five-year-old like an infinite number of cucumbers. There is a theoretical upper limit to the number of cucumbers one can eat, but the number of pickles? You are limited only by time. So my mom found jars (I do not know where) and—this was like witchcraft to me at the time—she made pickles. Her own. From cucumbers! I recall vaguely the interminable wait until they were sufficiently brined for eating. They were heavenly.
As I would learn, pickling itself is pretty easy work, and the “interminable” wait was about two weeks. (Not to diminish my mom’s magic, of course. I know you are reading this, Mom! I love you!) All you need are jars, spices and seasonings, vinegar, cucumbers and patience. Excluding patience, you can find all the required items, even jars, at your local Rouses.
This recipe will work equally well regardless of the quantity of pickles you would like to make. I can’t do everything here. How many jars do you have, and how many cucumbers do you want to pickle? Feel free to play with the percentages here and toss in whichever ingredients you think might make for an interesting pickle.
Boil three parts water to one part vinegar with a couple of tablespoons of non-iodized salt. Meanwhile, slice your cucumbers as you see fit. Drop three to five sprigs of dill into an empty jar, and two or three cloves of minced garlic. Add the cucumbers. Now fill the jar with your bubbling brine. Seal and let sit for two weeks minimum. Eat.
We won’t talk about how to make sweet pickles, which are revolting. (Yes, every variety, and don’t bother sending an email. My decision is firm, my judgmental gaze fixed and unflinching.) But there are variations on the standard dill pickle that can be made easily and will result in a pickle that meets your discerning palate. Swap the dill with habaneros (cleaned, stemmed, sliced, and seeded unless you’re a real hothead) and a shake of red pepper flakes for a spicy pickle. Toss in a spoonful each of peppercorns, coriander and mustard seeds for a zesty spear without the heat. Skip the cucumbers altogether and pickle a jar of garlic cloves, or a mix of veggies (carrots, bell pepper, jalapeno, onion, celery, olives and cauliflower) for a giardiniera fit for any muffuletta. The world is your pickle jar.
I’m not sure what to say about fried pickles. They taste fine, I guess, like everything else that is fried. Indeed, there exists an entire subculture of Americans who love to deep fry everything—and I’m not talking beignets or fried chicken. For those sane humans, praise the Lord and pass the hot oil. (Carefully.) But at some point, the less sane began to look at Snickers bars—a food with precisely zero nutritional value and more calories than thirty pounds of spinach—and said, “You know, if we swaddle that baby in an eggroll wrapper and fry it at 325 until the wrapper is golden brown, we might change the world.” (Yes, that is the recipe. Serve with vanilla ice cream.)
Pickles are a food that do not need to be deep fried. I feel like this fact is a self-evident, the way watermelon should not be deep fried, either. Because I know some readers are the sort who drive slow in the left lane, and grumble while staring in the rearview mirror that “No one tells me what to do!” I will concede that yes, fine, you can fry your pickles. To minimize the damage you are likely to cause pickle-kind, here is a recipe you can use, which I present under protest:
While your vegetable oil is heating to 375°F, slice as many whole pickles into thick circles as you would like to defile and dry them as best you can. OK, now do it again, but dryer. In a mixing bowl, toss in an egg, a can of beer, a teaspoon of salt, and a cup and a half of flour. Whisk it good. Dip your pickle slices into the batter and drop them into the oil. Fry for 2 to 3 minutes and drain afterward on paper towels to soak up the grease. Congratulations! You have turned an effortless, 15-calorie snack into a 300-calorie chore.
You now know everything I know about pickles, learned over a lifetime. Now that you’ve been properly educated on the whys and wherefores of them, I hope the next time you are at a burger place and you are tempted to peel away the pickles and offer them to your lunch date, your hand will be stayed. You are giving away the hidden gem of the burger, the ingredient that brings it all together. If, however, you bite into said burger and learn the pickle within is sweet, it is permissible to ask for the manager and offer him or her the foul thing. You have just been insulted and should give it back in kind.
