The Suspicious Pickle

The pickle was featured in a New York Times op-ed (Jane Ziegelman, author of 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement) a day after I wrote about pickling and souring here.  Germ found the article and sent it my way.  Though now that I think about it, I'd rather be associated with something less pungent. 

My grandma prepared this jar of pickles for immediate consumption. They take only a few days to sour in a mixture of water, garlic, and dill.  The furry stuff is washed off beforehand.

Anti-immigrant feeling at the turn of the 20th Century was as rank as a furry garlicky pickle.  As Ziegelman points out, many anti-immigrant crusades were fought on the battlefield of food.  Immigrants, it was believed,

used too much garlic, onion and pepper. They ate too many cured meats and were too generous with the condiments. Strongly flavored food ... led to nervous, unstable people. Nervous, unstable people made bad Americans. 

I wonder what the reform experts noticed first, the pungent foods or the nervous people, as I have no doubt that immigrants were nervous.  They were new to the country, confused by its rules, and poor.  Many came from places torn apart by wars, and the Jews of Eastern Europe, having escaped anti-Semitism there, had to deal with it here.  

Immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe were acknowledged to be somewhat assimilable since they were, after all, somewhat Caucasian.  The Slavs' assumed lack of mental acumen, however, was under much discussion while their drinking habits scared the crap out of the temperance movement.  In a 1906 The Incoming Millions, Howard Grose mentions that "they tell us that the Slavs are mentally, socially, and morally undeveloped; that they live like beasts, lower the tone of the community, and are possessed of but one virtue — courage."

As the NYTimes op-ed points out, the pickle became enemy number one in the tenements of New York.  It stunk and was sour, had none of the sweetness of applesauce, and was the preferred snack of the poor and disenfranchised Jews of Manhattan's Lower East Side.  I think the shape of the pickle had something to do with it too and these do-gooding reformers couldn't get their minds out of the gutter.  

The pickle has gained favor, but immigrants keep taking turns getting the short end of the stick.

Barry Deutsch

Pickle Redux

My previous post has brought some criticism from my brother cousin (this may sound all True Blood werepanther inbreeding-like but it's not.  He's my first cousin and as such, he can be referred to either as a brother or a cousin.  I prefer the double designation because it sounds creepy). 

First of all, the term for "szatkowanie" is simply shredding.  Secondly, and most importantly, once you layer and stomp the shredded cabbage in the barrel, you leave it inside the house.  It must be in a warm place for a few weeks so that fermentation can take place.  As both my sister and my brother cousin pointed out, that place in our house was usually near the radiator in the kitchen, which meant only one thing: an unbelievably not subtle fermenting aroma, an aroma that often wafted up to the second floor.  If one was unaware of cabbage souring, one could have easily assumed unsavory things about the homeowner. 

The Old School Pickle

Polka Dot Jr. aka my younger sister has gone old school.  Following in our grandma's footsteps, she's begun to jar and preserve foodstuffs for winter.  Today, she spent all morning making and jarring tomato sauce and a delicious cucumber salad (I tried last winter's jar a few weeks ago and it was really tasty).

Since Sweet Lady and I have been discussing a cookbook for a couple of years now (we have Communist grandmas in common--her grandma was Cuban), I need to start recording these cooking and eating ideas.  Going through my grandma's recipes, however, may prove challening:

Jarring and preserving was huge during the pre-1989 Communist era since there was little to be found in stores and even less so during the winter.  Fruits and vegetables were grown in gardens and/or purchased from villagers so supplies were made in large quantities.  My grandma used to make jars and jars of black and red currant jams, for instance, from those that grow in our garden. 

Cucumbers were pickled for both salads and soups.  My favorite memory is of cabbage pickling or souring.  Cabbage, no matter the market paucity, was pretty much always available.  It was purchased in large quantities as in about 100 kilograms at a winter (my grandma didn't grow it), then sliced up.  This was not done with a knife since that took forever but with a special slicer upon which the cabbage head was placed and pushed back and forth--here's where my English fails me--the process in Polish is called "szatkowanie:" 

http://polska-peerelu.blog.onet.pl

The cabbage shavings were then placed in an oak barrel but not all at once.  They had to be stomped on each time a layer was placed down much like grapes in the making of wine.  There were all sorts of jokes about how dirty feet contribute to better souring, though of course feet had to be clean and, as an article I found on Polish google proclaims, no wooden or metal implement can substitute for a pair of clean feet in the souring of cabbage. Once the barrel was packed full, it was placed in a cold cold cellar where it stayed all winter long and, as my grandma always said, got better and better as it aged so that every time you got a bunch out it was tastier than before.  Sauerkraut is used for soups, warm or cold salads, and pierogis.  My grandma loves herself some sauerkraut juice and swears by its probiotic properties.  Unfortunately, Polka Dot Jr. has given up cabbage souring since it's simply too much work and with Communism being a distant memory, sauerkraut can be easily and cheaply purchased in stores.

Wild mushrooms were another easily acquired favorite.  When we were little, we often went mushroom hunting.  How adults trusted us to find the right kind I have no idea, but we did (our bounty was, of course, inspected upon return).  Some of the mushrooms would be jarred and some would be dried.  The pickled mushrooms were served as side salads with dinner and dried mushrooms were used for soups.  The mushrooms could be also purchased by the side of the road outside of town where local children made a few extra zloty (they still do).  I took Emilia mushroom hunting today, but since she's five, we couldn't get very far.  We found only a few inedible ones.

I hope to buy some mushrooms on the way to visit Villa Akiko at the end of the week.  If the past is any indication, we should encounter at least a few mushroom hunters selling their finds by the side of the road.