Pickled cucumber

• 1. Two Names, One Jar

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  The pickled cucumber goes by two names, and which one you use depends on where you live. In the United States and Canada, it is simply a pickle. In Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, it is a gherkin.

  Under either name it is usually a small or miniature cucumber that has spent time in a brine, a vinegar or some other solution and been left to ferment. The souring can come from sitting in an acidic liquid, or from lacto-fermentation, where bacteria do the work. Pickled cucumbers also turn up as one part of mixed pickles.

  That plain description hides a lot of disagreement. Who first thought to do this to a cucumber? How does a crisp green fruit become sour without being cooked? Why does a pickle sold as kosher not always follow Jewish dietary law? And how did a sweet jar end up named after bread and butter? The answers run from ancient Mesopotamia to a farm in Illinois.

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• 2. Ancient Claims

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  The Great Wall of China features in one popular story about the pickled cucumber. According to the claim, pickles were first developed for the workers who built it. Nobody treats that as settled, and another hypothesis points somewhere else entirely.

  That second account places the first pickles in the Tigris Valley of Mesopotamia as early as 2030 BC. The cucumbers were said to have been brought there from India. The New York Food Museum tells a related version. It says archaeologists believe ancient Mesopotamians were pickling food as far back as 2400 B.C. Centuries later, cucumbers native to India were being pickled in the Tigris Valley.

  Queen Cleopatra of Egypt gave pickles a place in her own story. She credited the pickles in her diet with helping her health and her legendary beauty. Ancient sources and historians also recorded an awareness, thousands of years ago, of the nutritional and beauty benefits of pickles.

  During World War II, the U.S. government decided that pickles mattered in soldiers' diets. It allocated 40% of the nation's pickle production to the armed forces. Whatever the true origin, the method behind those wartime jars is a simple one built on salt water and bacteria.

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• 3. Brine and Bacteria

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  A brine for a naturally fermented pickle holds roughly 20-40 g of salt per litre, and it needs no vinegar at all. The sourness comes from Lactobacillus bacteria, which live naturally on the skin of a growing cucumber. Commercial harvesting and packing can strip those bacteria away. Makers can reintroduce them by adding an already fermented food, such as yogurt or another fermented milk product, a piece of sourdough bread, or a pickled vegetable like sauerkraut.

  Traditionally, small cucumbers go into a glass or ceramic vessel or a wooden barrel together with spices. Garlic, horseradish, whole dill stems with umbels and green seeds, and white mustard seeds are common. So are leaves from grape, oak, cherry, blackcurrant and bay laurel, plus dried allspice fruits. The most important ingredient is salt. The container is filled with cooled, boiled water and left under a cover that is not airtight, often cloth tied on with string or a rubber band.

  Several weeks pass, depending on taste and the outside temperature. Stones, also sterilized by boiling, traditionally sit on top to keep the cucumbers under the water. The amount of salt sets the sourness, because saltier cucumbers tend to be sourer.

  Without vinegar, a film of bacteria forms on top of the brine. It does not mean the pickles have spoiled, and it can be removed. These pickles do not keep as long as vinegar-pickled ones and usually must be refrigerated. Some commercial manufacturers add vinegar as a preservative. Vinegar is exactly what the next jar depends on.

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• 4. American Twists

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  Omar and Cora Fanning, cucumber farmers in Illinois, started selling sweet and sour pickles in the 1920s. They filed for the trademark "Fanning's Bread and Butter Pickles" in 1923, though the recipe and similar ones are probably much older. The story behind the name is that the couple survived rough years by pickling their surplus of undersized cucumbers. They bartered the jars with their grocer for staples such as bread and butter.

  Bread-and-butter pickles are marinated in vinegar, sugar and spices. They can be chilled as refrigerator pickles or canned. Their taste is often much sweeter than other pickles. They differ from ordinary sweet pickles because they are spiced with cilantro and other spices.

  New York City has served dill pickles since at least 1899. A "kosher" dill is not necessarily kosher under Jewish dietary law. The name refers to the traditional manner of Jewish New York City pickle makers, who add generous garlic and dill to a natural salt brine. In New York terms, a "full-sour" kosher dill is fully fermented. A "half-sour" spends less time in the brine and stays crisp and bright green.

  Lime pickles skip the salt brine and soak in pickling lime instead, which is not the citrus fruit. The soak lasts 24 hours and is meant to make the pickles crisper rather than to preserve them. The crispness comes from the lime's calcium. If the lime is not rinsed off completely, the acids end up too weak to preserve the vegetable and food safety is compromised. Calcium chloride is a safer alternative that is neutral and needs no rinsing.

  In parts of the Southern United States, children enjoy "koolickles". Dill pickles are soaked in a mixture of powdered Kool-Aid and pickle brine. Southern Living reported that fruit punch and cherry were the most popular flavors. The flesh of the pickle typically turns pink.

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• 5. European Jars

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  In Hungary, regular vinegar-pickled cucumbers called savanyú uborka are made during most of the year. In summer, cooks make kovászos uborka, or "leavened pickles", without vinegar. Cucumbers go into a glass vessel with water, salt and spices, usually dill and garlic. A slice or two of bread sits at the top and bottom of the solution. The jar then stands in the sun for a few days, so the yeast in the bread can help drive fermentation.

  The Polish or German style, called ogórek kiszony or ogórek kwaszony in Poland and Salzgurken in Germany, developed in the northern parts of central and eastern Europe. It has since been exported worldwide, and immigrants brought it to the United States. It is sour like the kosher dill but tends to be seasoned differently. Pickles were traditionally kept in wooden barrels but are now sold in glass jars. A cucumber pickled for only a few days is less sour. In Polish it is called ogórek małosolny, meaning "low-salt cucumber".

  Poland actually has two kinds. Ogórek kiszony are pickled only in salted water containing lactic acid bacteria, without vinegar. Ogórek konserwowy, also called korniszon, are preserved in a vinegar brine.

  In France, cornichons are tart baby pickles made from gherkins pickled in vinegar and tarragon. Tradition pairs them with pâtés and cold cuts. Gherkins are small cucumbers, typically 1 to 5 in long and often bumpy, and the word comes from early modern Dutch gurken or augurken. A closely related species, Cucumis anguria, is called the West Indian gherkin and is sometimes pickled too.

  The word pickle itself comes from the Dutch pekel, meaning brine. In the United States and Canada, other pickled vegetables need an adjective, as in "pickled onion" or "pickled beets". In the UK, pickle usually means a sweet, vinegary chutney such as Branston pickle, commonly served with a ploughman's lunch.

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• 6. What a Pickle Offers

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  A single 30 g sour pickled cucumber contains 12-16 μg of vitamin K, in the form of K1. That is approximately 15-20% of the Recommended Daily Allowance. The same pickle carries just 3 kcal of food energy, most of it from carbohydrate. Like sauerkraut and other pickled vegetables, sour pickles are low in calories, and the cucumber is technically a fruit.

  Sodium is the catch. One pickled cucumber can contain 350-500 mg, which is 15-20% of the American recommended daily limit of 2400 mg.

  Sweet pickled cucumbers, including bread-and-butter pickles, run higher in calories because of their sugar. A similar 30 g portion may contain 20 to 30 kcal. Sweet versions also tend to hold significantly less sodium than sour ones.

  Researchers are now studying pickles as a vegetable with a high probiotic content. Probiotics are typically associated with dairy products. Lactobacilli such as L. plantarum and L. brevis have been shown to add to the nutritional value of pickles.

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• 7. At the Table

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  In the Victorian era, a household that served pickles was announcing its wealth. Pickles counted as a luxury food, and only families with servants or staff could prepare them. Middle- and upper-class homes presented them in pickle castors, a glass container set in an embellished silver holder. Coordinated silver tongs completed the arrangement.

  In the United States, the pickle is often a side dish, typically a "pickle spear", a cucumber cut lengthwise into quarters or sixths. Slices go on a hamburger or other sandwich. Chopped pickle becomes relish for a sausage or hot dog. The Cuban sandwich includes pickles along with ham, Swiss cheese and mustard. Cooks also work soured cucumbers into pickle-stuffed meatloaf, potato salad and chicken salad, or serve them alone as an appetizer.

  Some festivals sell pickles on a stick, and the same is done in Japan. In the southern United States, dill pickle spears or slices are breaded or battered and deep-fried. The dish is a rising trend elsewhere in the country.

  Russia and Ukraine have rassolnik, a traditional soup of pickled cucumbers, pearl barley, pork or beef kidneys and various herbs. The dish is known to date back to the 15th century, when it was called kalya.

  In southern England, fish and chip shops sell large vinegar-pickled gherkins from big jars on the counter, next to pickled onions. In the Cockney dialect of London, that kind of gherkin has its own nickname: a "wally".

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