In a Pickle: A Culinary Saga
Cold Fusion, Double Dirty Dills, and a visit to Spacetown, USA.
Living abroad involves adventures of many kinds. Sometimes “adventure” means a weekend trip. Sometimes it’s a bureaucratic nightmare. Sometimes an adventure is making a friend, or trying out a new restaurant, or learning something new about yourself or about the world. This week, it was making pickles.
That’s right. We moved to Europe, and life here is great. But this week, I had a cold, so the big new thing we tried was making homemade pickles. I have to tell you about it because the instructions and explanation were one of the most intense things I’ve ever read in my life.
When my grandmother got us a pickling kit for Christmas, I tried leaving it out on the counter for a couple of days to visually remind us to use the pickling kit. But then I realized that was no way to live, so I put it in the pantry and forgot about it for a month, as God intended.
When I did remember the pickles, I did the classic thing where you can only remember something at the wrong times. If I was out running errands, I’d think, “Oh, I need to buy vinegar and a jar. What kind of vinegar? What size jar? How many jars? Better check when I get home.” Then, of course, I’d get home and not think about the pickles until the next time I was out of the house thinking to myself, “Oh, I should buy vinegar and a jar…”
When we finally took the pickles out to look at them, this is what we saw:
If your brain is unwilling to process this quantify of information all at once, I’m with you. Human brains weren’t designed for such things. Just a few of the highlights: This pickling kit claims it will CHANGE THE PICKLE MAKING RULES, that there has never been an EASIER, FASTER OR SAFER WAY to make pickles, that it is a “virtual magic show,” and that “apartment-dwellers and seniors love ‘em because they are so quick and easy.”
Sometimes you think you understand life, or at least understand some aspects of it. You think moving to a new country, or finding someone you love, or maybe landing a dream job, will change your life. And then one day you read a label and realize it’s pickles that are going to change your life. And it’s been pickles all along.
Since, as the label reiterates half a dozen times, I didn’t need to buy a jar after all, the only thing we needed was vinegar. Easy, yes! Though I have to wonder if White Mountain Pickle Company is aware of how it is even easier to just… buy a jar of pickles. I do think making homemade pickles is a fun idea, but if we’re talking purely about ease, no pickle kit can compete (say “no pickle kit can compete” five times fast.)
So we bought cucumbers and vinegar, sliced up the cucumbers, put everything together in “high quality food-grade bag,” closed it tightly and shook it really hard.
Three days later, we did have pickles. And you know what? They were pretty good. I can now respond to some of the grander claims made on the pickle fact sheet.
CHANGING THE PICKLE MAKING RULES
I set out to do some research (I Googled “pickle making rules”) and found a page on the Michigan State University website that said you should make sure there’s an even level of acid throughout your pickling solution, to prevent bacterial growth. That is a rule I stand behind and hope this pickling kit has not broken.
Until now, there has never been an EASIER, FASTER or SAFER way to make fresh, Artisan Pickles at home.
I have never made pickles and thus can’t speak to this, but please stop yelling at me.
A virtual magic show… there is nothing like it anywhere!
This is an insane claim. As you can see in the Venn diagram below, I can’t think of one thing a magic show and the pickle-making process have in common.
Much like the folks at White Mountain Pickle Company, graphic design is my passion.
Apartment dwellers and seniors love ‘em because they are so quick and easy.
In the end, speaking as an apartment dweller, I did enjoy the pickles. And they were easy.
Other highlights from the individual pickle bags:
“Allergen alert: LOW.” Does this mean anything? If I had a severe food allergy, I don’t suspect this would offer me much comfort.
A reference to the company’s “exclusive, all natural, rapid brine cold cure process that we call Cold Fusion™” Even if the company does have a trademark for the phrase “cold fusion,” this is incredible. First of all, cold fusion is a type of nuclear reaction. Second of all, isn’t soaking cucumbers in cold brine just… the way pickles have always been made?
The company’s email address ends in “@verizon.net.”
White Mountain Pickle Company is based in Derry, New Hampshire, which is apparently nicknamed “Spacetown, USA” due to it being the birthplace of Alan Shepard, the first U.S. astronaut to go to space. The company really likes to play this up in its marketing, because “Spacetown” sounds sort of futuristic, and obviously these pickling kits are the future as well.
New website coming in 2020! Mark your calendars.
A big and sincere thank you to my Grandma for financing this week’s adventure. Now, let’s close with a testimonial from Curtis, a satisfied pickler/Amazon review/straight shooter.
No, Curtis. You needn’t.
Question of the Week: In what situations do you think it’s important to spend extra money for a quality product, and in what situations do you prefer to buy the cheapest version of something?
Recommendation of the Week: I really enjoyed this Refinery29 piece by Meg Walters, “Is Therapy-Speak Runing Our Relationships?” I think it’s great therapy has become less stigmatized in recent years, but this piece put into words something I’ve noticed and couldn’t articulate about the rise of terminology like “gaslighting,” “toxic” and “setting boundaries.”
“At its worst, therapy-speak allows us to arm ourselves with language that masquerades as a kinder, more empathetic form of communication,” Walters writes. “While in reality it is weaponised to excuse our most selfish choices.”
Thanks for reading!
Love reading about your adventures!