Earthly Eating

A homemade pickle captures the taste of summer-sweet with a hint of tanginess, so you can savor it at any time of the year. You might think that making pickles takes hours in the kitchen or requires knowledge you need to learn from your grandmother. It’s really simple and fun fermenting your homegrown produce right in your own kitchen.

Pickle Particulars:

• 4.2 pounds anuually consumed in the United States.

• Michigan and North Carolina are the top pickle-producing states in the United States.

• Distance you can hear the crunch of a good pickle are 10 steps away from someone.

• Midgets or gherkins are picked from the same plant that produces large cucumbers.

• Elvis Presley likes deep-fried pickles.

• The phrase “” was first introduced in the Shakespeare play The Tempest, with the quote, “How camest thou in this pickle?”

• Amerigo Vespucci, our country’s namesake and Columbus’s ship-stocker, loaded barrels onto the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria to help prevent scurvy outbreaks. Because of their ability to keep without spoiling in brine for as long as two or three years, pickles were also invaluable to early settlers, who made them at the end of summer to eat during the lean winter months.

Here is a list of things that you can pickle:

1. Cucumbers
2. Beets
3. Okra
4. Cauliflower
5. Watermelon Rinds
6. Eggs
7. Cabbage (Sauerkraut)
8. Ginger (Gari served with sushi)

• Piccalilli and Chocho are pickled vegetables relishes.
• In Iceland, shark is buried and left to ferment to make harkarl.
• Kosher means that garlic has been added to the jar during fermentation.

Basic Pickle Brine Recipe
You can adjust this recipe to make larger or smaller quantities; just be sure to keep the proportions of salt to vinegar to water the same.

1 3/4 cups pickling salt (not iodized)
2 1/2 gallons water
2 1/2 cups vinegar
1/2-3/4 cup Pickling Spice Mix (see recipe below)
2-3 bunches whole dill heads or 1 cup dried dill weed (optional for noncucumber pickles)
Garlic cloves to taste (up to 1 head, peeled and separated)

Mix the salt into the water until it is completely dissolved (the water will start out cloudy, then grow clear). Add the vinegar and the cheesecloth bag containing the spices and, if you’re pickling cucumbers, add the dill. You may use our Pickling Spice Mix or one from the grocery store. Include garlic if you wish.

Makes enough brine for about 20 pounds (about 1/2 bushel) of vegetables.
(Source: Organic Gardening 2007)

**Keith Olbermann on MSNBC’s Countdown had named Fox Noise’s John Gibson its Worst Person of the Day last night for Gibson’s tasteless “jokes” about the death of actor Heath Ledger. Read the rest of this story over at TV Chatting, where Todd Epp tells why.**
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Earthly Eating Recipe:

Radicchio & Endive Salad
Serves: 4

4. Combine dressing with vegetables, sprinkle walnuts and goat cheese on top and serve.

Happy Eating!