Pickles: What's the point?

[ghostrider]

Lemons? Love 'em! Not happy unless I can squeeze a fresh one all over my halibut. Love all citrus, actually.

I understand the point about contrast & counterpoint.

I haven't exactly avoided pickles either, if folks who think otherwise will re-read my initial post. I just don't go out of my way to ingest them any more. I've paid my pickle dues.

It's been one of life's puzzlements to me that I don't like them better, I've always felt that I should be able to rave about them, considering how much I like so many other foods, & being respectful as I am of the tastes of many folks I know who DO rave about the sour little buggers.

[NulloModo]

Well, everyone had their things that they don't like, or do like, even if all logic seems to point in the other direction. Just curious: are you a big fan of vinegar in general?

EDIT:

Also, from reading your other posts, I realize that you are trying to minimize salt intake. As most pickles seem to be incredibly salty, does that have something to do with it?

Edited April 16, 2005 by NulloModo (log)

[Soup]

Pickles Pickles Pickles...

What's not to like?!? Its cruchy fresh taste. The tang you get from vinegar. Slight hints of garlic, pepper corn, I love pickles. It could be because I come from a culture of picklers...Koreans pickle everything and in various method.

Vlasic and Mount Olive are the ones I get in the stores. I love making a couple of hot dogs and to accompany them a large pickle and a glass of pickle juice. Yum.

Soup

[Jeff Campbell]

I love pickled eggs. I first made them, from the Alton Brown recipe, because they sounded disgusting, but it turns out, they are just the thing with a beer. If you can let them go for a couple of months in the brine, they start to get a texture like cheese, a bit crumbly. Don't forget to add extra yellow mustard seed!

Jeff.

[jgm]

Anyone who doesn't like pickles can send theirs to me.

The local pickle lady swears she's quitting the business, but every year her pickles keep showing up on the shelves, albeit in small quantities these days. Her pickled carrots are my favorites, but I'm also extremely fond of her Honey'd Green Tomatoes. Fortunately, this wonderful, unselfish woman has published a little cookbook with all of her recipes in it, so if she does go out of business, her fans won't have to be without.

I love to put carrot slices in sweet pickle juice for a few weeks. And when the Honey'd Green Tomatoes run out, the beets go into their juice. Oh yes.....

[mizducky]

I love to put carrot slices in sweet pickle juice for a few weeks.  And when the Honey'd Green Tomatoes run out, the beets go into their juice.  Oh yes.....

←

You've just reminded me of one of my great culinary discoveries here in San Diego: hot carrots. I'd never heard of these chile-laced pickled carrots until I moved down here--probably because this is the first town I've lived in with anything even vaguely approaching authentic Mexican cuisine. (Note I said "even vaguely"--I'm aware there's a whole world of Mexican cuisine beyond the profusion of taco-and-burrito joints down here, but it still beats the tar out of the chain-Mexican stuff I experienced in other places I've lived. But I digress...)

Anyway, these carrots: when done right, they are these thick golden slices of vinegary, jalapeno-y goodness, and the 24-hour taqueria nearest my house does do them right. If my tummy could take the heat, I would eat a quart of 'em a day, easy. Maybe this discussion will motivate me to pick up some gorgeous carrots the next time I'm down at the food co-op and take a stab at making a milder version for myself.

[racheld]

Every year when my children were small, we invited all their friends from church to a "cookie house" party on a Sunday before Christmas. Like gingerbread, only cardboard shapes, glue on cookies with cake frosting, etc.

By the time those kids had licked and plastered and eaten cookies and candy and frosting and jellybeans and all that sweet junk, they practically DIVED into the gallon bowl of homemade dill pickles that I set out. One year, we had 15 kids, and I had to open the THIRD half-gallon jar.

One of my favorite memories of my Dad is the afternoon we sat on the patio, waiting for my husband to come home from work. Daddy was having his usual five p.m. Scotch, and wandered out of the house with a quart of home-canned dilled cauliflower and a tiny cocktail fork. We opened, pried out salty, briny-crisp cauliflower, ate, talked, dipped some more. We came in for more Scotch, ate a few more of the cauliflower, discussed important subjects and abject silliness. A trip into the house for a longer fork, munched some more, solved the problems of the world, then dumped the leftover picklejuice over into the viburnum bushes.

One of my last memories of him, and one of the very first when I was was maybe four: the rich salt taste of olives as we sat on upended Coke crates outside a little country grocery store...the tall thin bottle of olives caught the sunlight as he dug out one for him, one for me, with his pocket knife.

It came full circle with a totally unhappening afternoon, a pickle jar, and a memory I'll have always.

[ghostrider]

Well, everyone had their things that they don't like, or do like, even if all logic seems to point in the other direction.  Just curious: are you a big fan of vinegar in general?

EDIT:

Also, from reading your other posts, I realize that you are trying to minimize salt intake.  As most pickles seem to be incredibly salty, does that have something to do with it?

←

Naw, the reduced-salt diet is only 2 years old. Pickle aversion has been a lifelong affliction.

I'm very fond of vinegar, particularly red wine varieties (I think balsamic is overused, but that's another topic). Also Chinese rice wine vinegar - one of my fave dishes is a cold bean sprout salad with a sweet-sour dressing that's mostly sour. Virtually all of the elements of a pickle!

It's a peculiar life, that's all I can say.

[chardgirl]

my favorite homemade 'refridgerator' pickles I make with rice wine vinegar and onions and cukes and a few spices. Serve those with a great cheese or two and forget about dinner.

cg

Edited April 18, 2005 by chardgirl (log)

[Soup]

has anyone tried the korean pickled garlic. They are really good, sweet and tangy.

Soup

[ronnie_suburban]

has anyone tried the korean pickled garlic.  They are really good, sweet and tangy.

Soup

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No, but I've had a Spanish version (pickled and then stored in olive oil) that was so addictive, I could barely stop throwing the little suckers down.

I was always fairly neutral on pickles until a friend gave me some home-made pickles (bread and butter chips with a spicy kick) a couple years back. They were so good that I was actually sad when they were gone -- and I've been a pickle fan ever since.

I then bought a copy of Linda Ziedrich's The Joy of Pickling, learned to make my own and have never looked back. Talk about an inspiration...what a great book!

=R=