Pickles

When I was in college upstate, I had a rather unhealthy obsession with the cafeteria pickles. They had these pickles out next to the sandwich station only during weekday lunches (and not at every lunch either), and lunch was one of the more difficult meals to get to during a day of running from one class to another. So if I had a chance, I would stock up on the pickles, ideally to store in my mini-fridge for another time (although I would inevitably eat them all with whatever sandwich I'd just gotten).


They were incredibly basic pickles--in fact, they were barely pickled at all. They kind of tasted like they had just been dunked in some salt water that morning, then set out at lunch. This might be why I liked them so much. They were salty but still bright and green.


A few years after graduating, I tried to make the pickles myself but really had no idea what I was doing. All I could really taste in those Vassar pickles was salt, so I just sort of brined the pickles in a salt water mixture. Although they turned out okay, I decided they were not worth the effort and went back to buying jars from the grocery store.


A few weeks ago, after a much too zealous trip to the greenmarket, I had several cucumbers that I had not gotten around to eating and wasn't sure when I would. I hate wasting food so I dug out a recipe I had saved a while ago (back in my original pickling phase) by Alton Brown.

It required all kinds of ingredients I didn't have, like mustard seeds and pickling spice. Seeing as I liked the Vassar pickles for being so simple, I decided just to stick to the vinegar (in this case, 1 cup of champagne vinegar and 1/2 cup of regular, as that was all I had), sugar, salt and garlic. I boiled it like the recipe said, until I realized that the recipe calls for boiling to open up the spices which I wasn't even using. Nonetheless, I poured the still-warm liquid over the cucumbers and smashed garlic. About an hour later I checked, the pickles had turned a golden color from the champagne vinegar. I tried, they were very vinegar-y and salty. I ended up dumping out half of the liquid and adding water to cut down on the intensity.

So, all in all it turned out to be a tiny bit of a disaster, but then again, I've been eating them. They're actually not too bad in a sandwich. They have a great garlicky kick, if you like that sort of thing.


For my second attempt, I used only regular vinegar, and I only warmed up the water this time to dissolve the sugar and salt, so the liquid I added to the jar was room temperature. I also didn't use as much garlic--as delicious as the garlic flavor is, I think I was scaring off the neighborhood vampires.

I also used pickling cucumbers (kirbys) as opposed to regular cucumbers, and I didn't slice them as thin. Yeah, they're nicknamed pickling cucumbers for a reason.

The result was not too bad. The cucumbers were a brighter green than my previous version, which I like, and they didn't become over-pickled, meaning they seem to be holding their shape better. Still maybe a little too vinegar-y and sweet. I think I'll try to cut down on the sugar, maybe add more water next time. I've still been eating them though--like I've said about the difference between store-bought salsa and fresh, it's not the same but always tasty. Of course, I like most forms of pickles, from sweet to spicy to hamburger to dill, and I like a variety of foods pickled, from peppers to jalapenos to ginger--if it's pickled, I'll probably like it. But unlike my earlier attempt at pickling, I do plan to try it again. I was clearly much too young and naive back then.