The Preservation of Pickling

packed, brined, covered, ready to go hide

I've been interested in food preservation since I started gardening a few years ago. As we all know, food has a way of spoiling in the fridge, on the counter, in our cupboards, and basically everywhere we leave fresh food. I hate it when I go back to something and see that it's gone bad. Imagine the horror when that happens with something you've put your blood, sweat, and tears into growing. Yikes. Even in the modern age with refrigeration and freezers, people are looking back at old-world preservation methods to keep edible the things that nature wants to take back. Enter the pickle.

We've turned both pickle and bacteria into dirty words. To many, pickles are those nasty sour things we hold when ordering a burger and bacteria are germs that make us sick and are always out to get us. That's the paranoia of the modern world. We're over-obsessed with sanitation to the point that all bacteria have become evil. The reality is that there are literally millions of different types of bacteria and while some can make us sick and even kill us, there are many "good" bacteria. From the ones that live in our gut to the ones that fix nitrogen for leguminous plants (which we use for food). So what does bacteria have to do with pickling?

You probably recognize that most commercially made pickles are in some kind of vinegar solution. Yes, this is a pickle but there is a whole other kind of pickle out there that goes back thousands of years and that is the lacto-fermented pickle. It's pretty simple. You start with some fresh veggies, put them in a container, weight them down with a plate or pack them tightly so they can't float, and pour a salt water solution over them. Then you wait. As long as all parts of the food are submerged in the brine and not exposed to air, the food will not spoil. This is an anaerobic environment, which is crucial to preserve the food and give it its unique pickle flavor. It ferments because of the bacterial already on the food.

There is a genus of bacteria called lactobacillus and they are everywhere. They are our buddies and the hard workers that make fermented pickles. Fermentation is what happens when a biological system needs to derive ATP without oxygen.

Quick bio lesson for anyone that doesn't remember. ATP is basically the energy we mean when we use the word "energy". We eat for "energy", but what that really means is that our bodies break down all of our food into molecules it can use to go through a process (called cellular respiration) that makes ATP. Humans make the most amount of ATP when we have oxygen. It's why we breathe. When you're jogging and you're panting for air and you just can't keep up with the oxygen demand, you have to still make ATP to keep those legs going but because you don't have enough oxygen, you go through the fermentation process. Yes, you ferment! Many of us think of alcohol when we think fermentation but in our and lactobacillus's case, the byproduct is lactic acid (yeast make alcohol in an oxygen free environment). I'm sure you've heard that your muscles build up lactic acid when you work out and fermentation is the reason this happens.


I hope you're still with me. So when we submerge the veggies under the brine, where they aren't exposed to oxygen from air, then the lactobacillus needs to go through fermentation to live and lactic acid is the byproduct. This acid changes the pH, making it an inhospitable environment for the bacteria and fungi that spoil food. It's a win-win situation. We get preserved veggies and the lactobacillus gets to eat the sugars in the food. The purpose of the salty brine is to inhibit the growth of the microbes we don't want in the first few days of pickling until enough lactic acid is made. Lactobacillus can withstand salty environments so they're right at home munching in the brine.

So I went into some of the complicated science of it, since this is all stuff I'm studying, but to the regular joe in Mesopotamia way back when, it's just a simple way of keeping veggies edible. Sauerkraut and kimchi are also made through lacto-fermentation.

I have 3 jars in a dark cabinet right now pickling away. 2 jars are the conventional dill cucumber pickles and one is a hodge podge of stuff from the garden. I have no real recipes but I'll provide links at the end of people's recipes that I deeply admire. So if you're feeling adventurous and are ready to dive into a preservation that goes back before canning and refrigeration, then go for it. Just remember, foam and some white scum on the top of your brine is not a bad thing. Just scoop it out with a spoon. Also, a cloudy brine is nothing to worry about either. It means everything is working. If your food is spoiling, you'll know it (just take a whiff).

Awesome Pickle: How to Pickle Anything
(a serious wealth of information, just totally awesome indeed)
Dale's Blog: Lacto Fermented Dill Pickles
(has a video and pictures, especially helpful to see how to weight down the food under the brine)
Food 0.001: Pickling is Old School
(eloquently written, just inspiring, also has a good pic of the normal scum)
Wild Fermentation: Making Sauerkraut is Easy!
(wild fermentation is pretty much epic)