Bonding with the dead through pickles

I remember my great grandmother as a tiny woman with big glasses, thin dresses and a thick accent. Great Grandma was a first generation German Russian immigrant back near the turn of the 20^th century. My mother has fond memories of her rustic cooking, but all I ever remember tasting at her house was second hand smoke.

So how is it that I can, with absolutely no reference material, make what my mother swears are my Great Grandmother’s exact German dill pickles? These are not anything like the pickles most home canners make. I have no recipe. But Bavarian Meats, an institution at Seattle’s Pike Place Market always had bowls or tubs of these fat, sweet and sour pickles and they became something of an obsession for me.  I remembered them from when I was a kid and when I started shopping and working in the vicinity, I couldn’t walk by without stopping in for a pickle. I built my brine around what I saw floating in there; some onion, some standard pickling spice, heavy on the allspice, and lots of mustard seeds. The brine was less pure vinegar than many home recipes with a pinch of extra salt and a good deal more sugar.

 My very first attempt was a success. My mother actually called me out of the blue once with an uncharacteristically specific point to make. “You make the best goddamn pickles!” That was it. She didn’t want to chat or catch up. She was overwhelmed with pickle joy and memories of her German grandmother.

These are not pickles that inspire such passion in others. Most tasters will take a bite or two and maybe mumble some appreciation. Some reel back in horror at the sweetness and unexpected, unfamiliar flavors. I don’t care. My mom and I can polish off a jar in a single setting, but only rarely. I cannot be counted on to make these pickles every year, so she hoards her stash, her pretties, even though I continually promise to make more. But I can never quite convince her that eating them will not make them forever disappear. And now she is faced with a new threat to her pickle larder. It seems my niece has inherited the pickle passion. One taste is all it took and she was hooked. Now when she makes the trip to visit Grandma, there is often a ritual opening of a jar, a clandestine pickle gorging.  My sister can take them or leave them, but my niece – she gets it.

I just made 22 jars of Great Grandma’s German Dill pickles today. I will restock Mom’s cupboard and for the first time, deliver a shipment directly to my niece.  And I am oddly proud. Somehow, without ever tasting or experiencing the originals my great grandmother made, I have rekindled and passed on a culinary tradition from my ancestors.

Comments

[bill]

pickles are cool, as well as salumi making, vinegars, preserves and all those "lost art" treasures we so fondly remembered as kids. I have been making them for years in a professional kitchen. I enjoy your post and your blog as well as the creative writing aspect. I come from a family of writers and that is my second passion. My blog attached...www.cuisinierskitchen.blogspot.com or www.thedigitalkitchen.blogspot.com ...enjoy! cuisinier

[Mom]

Sooooo true! Mom