Defeat. Bitter, ignominious defeat. The pickles I was storing outside during the winter have are no more. They emerged from hibernation and, unlike Punksatawnie Phil, prognosticated nothing but their own demise.
Last August, when producing my annual batch of spicy, full-sour, kosher dill pickles, Joe, of Augusta Fruits, got me a 50 pound case of cucumbers. It was double what he’d picked up the year before. My supply of jars had to be augmented and the finished pickles needed to be stored off-site (26 jars would not fit in my fridge and leave space for non-pickled food). My landlord graciously agreed to store 9 jars in his mini-fridge downstairs. By xmas, when I’d eaten or given away more than half of my pickles, I cleared out his fridge. But something had gone horribly, Quantum Leapishly wrong. The jars were half-filled with ice. I tasted a couple pickles and they were still good. Without space in my fridge I stored the nine jars in a box on the balcony. The temperature was hovering around zero and it didn’t seem that much worse could befall my dear friends.
When I cracked the seal to grab a bottle today I found my poor little pickles bloated and split. The cold temperature, or perhaps the emotional distress of being abandoned so far from home (the fridge), had ravaged their fragile bodies.
Then I went to check on my kimchi. I’d followed a recipe from David Chang of Momofuku that appeared last year in Art Culinaire. Instinctively the volume of salt seemed wrong. But out of respect I followed the recipe to the letter, figuring that even if it didn’t turn out right I would learn something and modify the recipe for the next time. After two weeks of fermenting guess what? They’re too fucking salty. Mistakes are a good and practical way to learn but all this tragic pickle news at the same time is a real blow. If it weren’t for the return of 30 Rock I don’t know where I’d find the strength to go on.
Mintz Out
2 comments:
I'm awfully sorry to hear about the pickles. But I don't understand why you wouldn't have canned them for pantry storage... I would never have enough room in my fridge even for the relatively small batch of dills I can every year. One jar even froze, I think, when I left in my suitcase in the trunk of the car on a cross-country journey home at Christmas, but the pickles were still okay.
As for following a recipe despite suspicions, I also sympathize. It's happened to me a billion times. But I can't heed my instincts in case they somehow know something I don't...
The pickle recipe, inherited from my grandmother, only calls for a partial fermentation. So technically they're directly acidified, not pickled. It's a work in progress too. Harold McGee says to brine cucumbers for 2-3 weeks to fully cure them. This August I'll experiment with a couple different methods. We can't have a repeat of this tragedy.
Normally I would let my instincts pull rank on a recipe that sounded suspicious. But I had enough respect for D. Chang and Art Culinaire to put my faith ahead of my better judgment. I think I learned what I needed to know from the experiment. After adjusting the salt levels it's an excellent kimchee recipe.
The real tragedy is that I now have to make it to August on one jar of pickles. Thank god it's mango season and there's something else to eat by the fistful.
Post a Comment