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The Joy of Pickling
The Joy of Jams, Jellies, and Other Sweet Preserves
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Archives
- Barely Candied Nuts
- Tasting Local Chestnuts—American, Chinese, and European
- One Amazing Apple Press
- Lemon-Soured Cucumber Pickles
- Salad in a Jar: A Quick, Light Sliced Cucumber Pickle
- Radish Pods, for Seeds and Pickles
- Show Your Preserves at the Fair
- Playing with Pokeweed
- Serve It with Flowers
- How to Freeze Artichokes
Category Archives: Food history
Tasting Local Chestnuts—American, Chinese, and European
I am lucky to have Carol Porter’s chestnut farm nearby. After all, the whole United States has fewer than a thousand chestnut farms, totaling a little over 3,700 acres. Americans grow only 1 percent of the world’s chestnuts, while importing … Continue reading
Posted in Food history, Nuts
Tagged Castanea, chestnut soup, Colossal chestnut, recipe, Sweet Home Chestnut Farm
2 Comments
Save That Potato: The Makah Ozette
The one little potato tuber I planted in my city garden this year turned out to be a good choice: My single Makah Ozette plant yielded nearly 13 pounds of tubers. Until recently grown only by the Makah tribe of … Continue reading
Posted in Food history, Vegetables
Tagged Ark of Taste, indeterminate potato, Makah tribe, Ozette potato, Slow Food
22 Comments
Adventures with Almonds, Part I: The Marvelously Fragrant Hall’s Hardy Almond
This is the first part of a two-part series. I’ll publish the second, on making marzipan, shortly. In the meantime, you might check out two articles I recently published with Mother Earth News, “Finally, a Good Thermometer for Home Preserving” and … Continue reading
Posted in Food history, Nuts
Tagged almond extract, amygdalin, benzaldehyde, bitterness, Hall's Hardy almond, hardy almonds, Marcona almonds, One Green World, prussic acid, xenia
15 Comments
Now Aboard the Ark: Scio Kolace
New to Slow Food’s Ark of Taste are kolace (pronounced “ko-LA-chee”) from Scio, Oregon, my home for 21 years. I’m proud to have nominated these filled sweet yeast buns whose history is so tightly bound with that of the little … Continue reading
Posted in Food history, Sweet preserves
Tagged Ark of Taste, bread, Czechs, kolace, kolache, Oregon, poppy seed filling, recipe, Scio, Slow Food, ZCBJ
1 Comment
Shrub, Part I: The Story of a Drink
Is there any living man who now calls for shrub? You may still see it on the shelf of an old-fashioned inn; you may even see the announcement that it is for sale painted on door-posts, but no man regardeth … Continue reading
Taking the Wind Out of Jerusalem Artichokes
Does your spouse refuse to eat Jerusalem artichokes because they’re too—err—windy? Have you yourself abandoned your Jerusalem artichoke patch to the weeds or the pigs, because no human of your acquaintance would eat the damn things again? If so, you … Continue reading
Posted in Fermented foods, Food history, Pickles, Preserving science, Vegetables
Tagged fermentation, inulin, pickles, recipe, sunchokes, sunroots, topinambour
94 Comments
Purple Mustard from Homemade Must
The moment I spotted a little article about moutarde violette in a recent issue of Saveur, I got excited. Surely no one would think to flavor mustard with violets. So, could this be a kind of mustard prepared not with … Continue reading
Posted in Food history, Fruits
Tagged arrope, mostarda, mostillo, moutarde violette, Purple Condiment, saba
5 Comments
Dietary Propaganda, Hoover Style
I don’t know where my friend Raphaël stumbled upon this poster, but when he showed it to me I first thought it something new. It seemed, after all, to spell out the latest dietary consensus, a set of rules that … Continue reading
Limed Yum-Yum Pickles
Summer seemed to vanish suddenly a few days ago, when a mid-afternoon thunderstorm dumped two and a half inches of rain here in less than two hours, and a total of nearly five and a half inches by sunrise the … Continue reading
Posted in Food history, Pickles, Sweet preserves, Vegetables
Tagged bread-and-butter pickles, Crisp and Co., Mrs. Fanning, Mrs. Wages, pickling lime, recipe, Tom Peter
4 Comments
Pickling Watermelons Whole
In my blog post about Moldova I shared my daughter’s photo of watermelons that had been brined intact, and I promised to write about how to pickle watermelons in this way. Before watermelon season passes again, I want to share … Continue reading
